Morphosyntax of complex predicates in South Caucasian languages

Abstract

The dissertation explores the morphosyntax of complex predicate constructions (causatives and applicatives) in polysynthetic languages of South Caucasus Georgian, Mingrelian and Svan appealing to the tenets of Distributed Morphology within the Minimalist Program. It shows that the interface between syntax-semantics and morphology of these constructions is not always transparent and mismatches between these components are accounted for by post-syntactic processes, which often result from language-specific constraints on the realization of morphemes per word.