Collins, Chris. 2021. A Smuggling Approach to the Dative Alternation. In Adriana Belletti and Chris Collins (eds), Smuggling in Syntax, 96-107. Oxford University Press.
Sunday, October 4, 2026
Parameters of Morphosyntactic Variation in Khoe-Kwadi (2025, with Anne-Maria Fehn)
Collins, Chris and Anne-Maria Fehn. 2025. Parameters of Morphosyntactic Variation in Khoe-Kwadi. Transactions of the Philological Society 123, 246-279.
Abstract: Mainly spoken in Namibia and Botswana, Khoe-Kwadi languages belong to the typological unit “Southern African Khoisan,” which is most prominently defined by the existence of phonemic click consonants. Typologically, Khoe-Kwadi languages share characteristics that set them aside from neighboring Khoisan languages of the Kx’a and Tuu families, including a sex-based gender system, verb-final constituent order, and head-final noun phrases. Despite these commonalities, recent advances in language documentation suggest that Khoe-Kwadi languages display considerable morphosyntactic variation which, to date, has not been assessed from a comparative perspective. Following Marten et al.’s (2007) seminal study of the Bantu languages, we develop a set of 20 descriptive parameters which are compared across 13 languages from the family’s three branches Kwadi, Khoekhoe, and Kalahari Khoe. We explore implicational correlations between some of the parameters and discuss possible repercussions for the subclassification of Khoe-Kwadi. Our results suggest an outlier status of Naro within the Kalahari Khoe branch, as well as a north–south split between the remaining Kalahari Khoe languages. Taken together, these findings offer new perspectives on the subclustering of the Khoe-Kwadi languages, and challenge previous hypotheses about the family’s migration routes within southern Africa.
Labeling without Labels (To appear, with T. Daniel Seely)
Collins, Chris and T. Daniel Seely. To appear. Labeling without Labels. The Cambridge Handbook of Minimalism.
Copies and Repetitions (To appear, with Erich Groat)
Collins, Chris and Erich Groat. To appear. Copies and Repetitions. The Cambridge Handbook of Minimalism.
Abstract: The purpose of this paper is to review proposals made concerning the difference between copies and repetitions in minimalist literature. Our conclusion is that if one adopts the well-motivated and austere assumptions of minimalist syntax, then every proposal we examine faces serious shortcomings. Although the difference between copies and repetitions can be maintained in some of these analyses, none of them explain the distinction, but merely provide stipulations capturing it.
Merge(X,Y) = {X,Y} (2017, published)
Collins, Chris. 2017. Merge(X,Y) = {X,Y}. In Leah Bauke, Andreas Blümel, and Erich Groat (eds.), Labels and Roots, 47-68. De Gruyter Mouton.
Abstract: This paper explores the history, properties and implications of the syntactic operation Merge(X,Y) = {X,Y}.
Towards a Theory of Morphology as Syntax (2023, Studies in Chinese Linguistics, with Richard Kayne)
Abstract: Phenomena traditionally thought of as morphological can be accounted for in terms of syntactic operations and principles, hence bringing forth questions that traditional morphology fails to ask (for instance, concerning the licensing of empty morphemes). The language faculty contains no specific morphological component, nor any post-syntactic morphological operations.
Spanish usted as an Imposter (2021, Probus, with Francisco Ordóñez)
Abstract: Across dialects, Spanish uses the third person forms usted and ustedes to refer to the addressee. In this squib, we propose an imposter analysis of these forms in the framework of Collins and Postal (2012. Imposters. MIT Press, Cambridge.).
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)