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Publications

In progress

• Harizanov, Boris and Vera Gribanova. In prep. Post-syntactic head movement in Russian predicate fronting.
• Harizanov, Boris. In prep. Syntactic head movement and projection.
• Gribanova, Vera* and Boris Harizanov*. Under review. Movement. In The Cambridge Handbook of Distributed Morphology, ed. Artemis Alexiadou, Ruth Kramer, Alec Marantz, and Isabel Oltra-Massuet. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

2019

• Harizanov, Boris. 2019. Head movement to specifier positions. Glossa: a journal of general linguistics, 4(1), 140.
  [ abstract | bib | link ]

  Syntactic movement of phrases, modeled in terms of Internal Merge, has traditionally been distinguished on empirical grounds from syntactic movement of heads, modeled by other means. I demonstrate that, once the class of head movements implicated in word formation is excluded from consideration (assumed to be, e.g., post-syntactic, following Harizanov & Gribanova 2019), the residue of head movements, which are purely syntactic in nature, and phrasal movement can receive a unified treatment. Both phrasal and syntactic head movement are implemented here as instances of Internal Merge (following e.g. Fukui & Takano 1998; Toyoshima 2001; Matushansky 2006; Vicente 2007; 2009). This treatment of syntactic head movement renders long-standing stipulations about structure building such as the Chain Uniformity Condition superfluous. It also makes sense of the properties of syntactic head movement, as demon- strated in a case study of participle fronting in Bulgarian, which targets a specifier position, violates the Head Movement Constraint, can cross finite clause boundaries, and can have discourse effects.

    @article{Harizanov:2019,
      Title = {Head movement to specifier positions},
      Author = {Harizanov, Boris},
      Year = {2019},
      Journal = {Glossa: a journal of general linguistics},
      Volume = {4},
      Issue = {1},
      Pages = {140}
    }

• Harizanov, Boris* and Vera Gribanova*. 2019. Whither head movement? Natural Language & Linguistic Theory 37(2): 461-522.
  [ abstract | bib | link | lingbuzz ]

  We argue that head movement, as an operation that builds head-adjunction structures in the syntax, has been used to model two empirically distinct classes of phenomena. One class has to do with displacement of heads (fully formed morphological words) to higher syntactic positions, and includes phenomena like verb second and verb initiality. The other class has to do with the construction of complex morphological words and is involved in various types of word formation. Based on the very different clusters of properties associated with these two classes of phenomena, we argue that they each should be accounted for by distinct grammatical operations, applying in distinct modules of the grammar, rather than by the one traditional syntactic head movement operation. We propose that the operation responsible for upward displacement of heads is genuine syntactic movement (Internal Merge) and has the properties of syntactic phrasal movement, including the ability to affect word order, the potential to give rise to interpretive effects, and the locality associated with Internal Merge. On the other hand, word formation is the result of postsyntactic amalgamation, realized as either Lowering (Embick and Noyer 2001) or Raising, which is its upward counterpart. This operation, we argue, has properties that are not associated with narrow syntax: it is morphologically driven, it results in word formation, it never exhibits any interpretive effects, and it has stricter locality conditions (the Head Movement Constraint). The result is a view of head movement that not only accounts for the empirical differences between the two classes of head movement phenomena, but also lays to rest numerous perennial theoretical problems that have heretofore been associated with the syntactic head adjunction view of head movement. In addition, the framework developed here yields interesting new predictions with respect to the expected typology of head movement patterns.

  @article{HG:2019,
    Title = {Whither head movement?},
    Author = {Harizanov, Boris and Gribanova, Vera},
    Year = {2019},
    Journal = {Natural Language \& Linguistic Theory}
    Volume = {37},
    Issue = {2},
    Pages = {461-522},
  }

2018

• Harizanov, Boris. 2018. Word formation at the syntax-morphology interface: denominal adjectives in Bulgarian. Linguistic Inquiry 49(2):283-333.
  [ abstract | bib | link ]

  A major goal in the study of the interface between syntax and morphology (understood as part of the PF component) is to identify and analyze mismatches between syntactic representations and the corresponding morphological representations (Marantz 1984, Sadock 1991, Embick and Noyer 2001, a. o.). One such mismatch is provided by denominal adjectives in Bulgarian. At the level of morphological structure, denominal adjectives are composed of a nominal component D adjoined to an adjectivizing head F. In the syntax, however, the D of a denominal adjective behaves like an independent nominal phrase that occupies the specifier of F. Denominal adjectives in Bulgarian thus present a structural mismatch whereby a syntactic specifier–head relation is mapped to head adjunction at PF, as well as a mismatch between the syntactic category of denominal adjectives and their morphological category. I analyze these mismatches as the result of a single morphological (post-syntactic) rebracketing operation. Specifically, denominal adjectives are nominal phrases that are converted into adjectives post-syntactically, as part of the word formation process which combines the nominal phrases with adjectivizing morphology. The proposal is an extension of the theory of the syntax-morphology mapping developed within the framework of Distributed Morphology (Embick and Noyer 2001, et seq.) on the basis of Marantz’s (1984) theory of Morphological Merger. The implementation of Morphological Merger needed here is developed by Harizanov (2014a,b) in the context of cliticization and clitic doubling, itself an elaboration of the operation proposed by Matushansky (2006) and Nevins (2011).

  @article{Harizanov:2018,
    Author = {Harizanov, Boris},
    Title = {Word formation at the syntax-morphology interface:
             {D}enominal adjectives in {B}ulgarian},
    Journal = {Linguistic Inquiry},
    Year = {2018},
    Volume = {49},
    Number = {2},
    Pages = {283--333}
  }

• Bennett, Ryan*, Boris Harizanov* and Robert Henderson*. 2018. Prosodic smothering in Macedonian and Kaqchikel. Linguistic Inquiry 49(2):195-246.
  [ abstract | bib | link | lingbuzz ]

  This paper deals with a so-far unnoticed phenomenon in prosodic phonology, which we dub prosodic smothering. Prosodic smothering arises when the prosodic status of a clitic or affix varies with the presence or absence of some outer morpheme. We first illustrate prosodic smothering with novel data from two genetically unrelated languages, Macedonian (Slavic) and Kaqchikel (Mayan). We then provide a unified account of the prosodic smothering based on a principled extension of the theory of prosodic subcategorization (Inkelas 1990, Peperkamp 1997, Chung 2003, Yu 2003, Paster 2006, Bye 2007, among others). Prosodic subcategorization typically involves requirements placed on items to the left or the right of the selecting morpheme. We show that prosodic smothering naturally emerges in a theory which also allows for subcategorization in the vertical dimension, such that morphemes may select for the prosodic category which immediately dominates them in surface prosodic structure. This extension successfully reduces two apparent cases of non-local prosodic conditioning to the effects of strictly local prosodic selection.

  @article{BHH:2018,
    Author = {Bennett, Ryan and Harizanov, Boris and Henderson, Robert},
    Title = {Prosodic smothering in {M}acedonian and {K}aqchikel},
    Journal = {Linguistic Inquiry},
    Year = {2018},
    Volume = {49},
    Number = {2},
    Pages = {195-246}
  }

• Harizanov, Boris* and Line Mikkelsen*. 2018. Resumption and Chain Reduction in Danish VP left dislocation. In Proceedings of the 48th Annual Meeting of the North East Linguistic Society, Volume 2, ed. S. Hucklebridge and M. Nelson, 15-28. University of Massachusetts, Amherst, MA: GLSA.
  [ abstract | bib | pdf ]

  @incollection{Harizanov_Mikkelsen_NELS48,
    Title = {Resumption and Chain Reduction in Danish VP left dislocation},
    Author = {Harizanov, Boris and Mikkelsen, Line},
    Year = {2018},
    Booktitle = {Proceedings of the 48th Annual Meeting
                 of the North East Linguistic Society: Volume 2},
    Editor = {S. Hucklebridge and M. Nelson},
    Pages = {15-28},
    Address = {University of Massachusetts, Amherst, MA},
    Publisher = {GLSA},
  }

• Krejci, Bonnie, Vera Gribanova, and Boris Harizanov. 2018. Agree-dependent A-movement and low copy pronunciation in Russian. In Formal Approaches to Slavic Linguistics 25: The Cornell Meeting 2016, ed. W. Browne, M. Despic, N. Enzinna, R. Karlin, S. De Lemos, D. Zec. Ann Arbor, MI: Michigan Slavic Publications.
  [ abstract | bib | pdf ]

  Among the different types of movement found across languages, we observe that they differ, among other things, in whether they are accompanied by agreement in φ-features (φ-agree). For example, A-movement as seen in passive, unaccusative, and raising constructions in many languages is accompanied by the realization of the φ-features of the moving element on the head that attracts it. On the other hand, other kinds of A-movement (e.g. A-scrambling) and Ā-movement (e.g. wh-movement) do not involve φ-agree. In this paper we demonstrate that for certain types of movement, whether φ-agree is involved will have direct consequences for the pronunciation of movement copies. We contrast φ-agree-based movement in Russian A-chains with one type of non-φ-agree-based movement—in this case, the movement of certain oblique preverbal arguments. We demonstrate that in φ-agree-based movement, either the highest or lowest copy can be pronounced; this has been referred to as "covert movement" if the lowest copy is the one pronounced. Further, we demonstrate that this option is not available for the other type of movement; instead, for non-φ-agree-based movement, only the higher copy can be pronounced.

  @incollection{KGH:2018,
    Title = {Agree-dependent {A}-movement and low
             copy pronunciation in {R}ussian},
    Author = {Krejci, Bonnie and Gribanova, Vera and
              Harizanov, Boris},
    Year = {2018},
    Booktitle = {Formal Approaches to Slavic Linguistics 25:
                 The Cornell meeting 2016},
    Editor = {W. Browne, M. Despic, N. Enzinna, R. Karlin,
              S. De Lemos, D. Zec},
    Address = {Ann Arbor, MI},
    Publisher = {Michigan Slavic Publications},
  }

2017

• Harizanov, Boris. 2017. The interaction between infixation and reduplication in Chamorro. In Asking the Right Questions: Essays in Honor of Sandra Chung, ed. Jason Ostrove, Ruth Kramer, and Joseph Sabbagh, 158-172. Santa Cruz, CA: Linguistics Research Center.
  [ abstract | bib | link | pdf ]

  On the basis of Chamorro, an Austronesian language spoken in the Mariana Islands, I provide an argument for an old idea in the study of morphophonology: modeling opacity via serially ordered derivations. The evidence comes from the interaction between infixation and reduplication in Chamorro. I demonstrate that this interaction in the language is opaque and that it can be understood within a derivational/serial framework where the output of reduplication serves as the input to infixation.

  @unpublished{Harizanov:2017:Chamorro,
    Title = {The interaction between infixation and
             reduplication in Chamorro},
    Author = {Harizanov, Boris},
    Year = {2017},
    Booktitle = {Asking the Right Questions:
                 Essays in Honor of {S}andra {C}hung},
    Editor = {Ostrove, Jason and Kramer, Ruth and Sabbagh, Joseph},
    Publisher = {Linguistics Research Center},
    Pages = {158--172},
    Address = {Santa Cruz, CA}
  }

2016

• Gribanova, Vera* and Boris Harizanov*. 2016. Locality and directionality in inward-sensitive allomorphy: Bulgarian and Russian. In The Morphosyntax-Phonology Connection: Locality and Directionality at the Interface, ed. Vera Gribanova and Stephanie S. Shih, 61-90. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
  [ abstract | bib | pdf ]

  This paper presents two case studies on inward-sensitive allomorphy--both on Slavic languages--that provide a way of discriminating among various theoretical choices available to Distributed Morphology and other realizational theories of morphology. As well as guiding crucial theoretical choices, in-depth empirical case studies of this kind are crucial to expanding our understanding of the intricacies of allomorphic behavior. In the case of Russian, the evidence points in favor of maintaining the restrictive assumption that allomorphic interactions should be constrained by a linear adjacency requirement. In the case of Bulgarian, our analysis indicates that other assumptions, such as the assumption that morphosyntactic features should be rewritten by phonological ones in the process of lexical insertion, are too restrictive. Specifically, the form of the Bulgarian definite article is inwardly sensitive both to phonological and to morphosyntactic features, suggesting that they must be simultaneusly available for reference at the point of lexical insetion.

  @incollection{GH:toappear,
    Title = {Locality and directionality in inward-sensitive allomorphy:
            {B}ulgarian and {R}ussian},
    Author = {Gribanova, Vera and Harizanov, Boris},
    Year = {To appear},
    Booktitle = {The {M}orphosyntax-{P}honology {C}onnection: {L}ocality and
                {D}irectionality at the {I}nterface},
    Editor = {Gribanova, Vera and Shih, Stephanie S.},
    Address = {Oxford},
    Publisher = {Oxford University Press},
  }
  

2015

• Harizanov, Boris and Vera Gribanova. 2015. How Across-the-Board movement interacts with nominal concord in Bulgarian. In Proceedings from the Annual Meeting of the Chicago Linguistic Society (CLS). University of Chicago, IL: Chicago Linguistic Society.
  [ abstract | bib | pdf ]

  Bulgarian nominal phrases allow singular coordinated adjectives to modify a plural noun. We claim that this construction is derived from an underlying structure in which there are in fact two coordinated noun phrases. This analysis eliminates an undesirable consequence of a recent account by Arregi and Nevins (2013), that concord should feed interpretation. Instead, according to our approach, both interpretation and concord are the result of the same underlying structure, and are only indirectly related to each other. The mismatch in number is derived via a combination of Across-the-Board movement of the conjoined noun phrases and the process of nominal concord. This allows us to account for additional empirical observations: (i) the inability of the two adjectives in the target construction to be mismatched in number; (i) the inability of pluralia tantum nouns to participate in the target construction; and (iii) the inability of suppletive or irregular plurals to participate in the target construction. More generally, this investigation informs the study of the interaction between mechanisms of narrow syntax (Across-the-Board movement) and morphological operations like concord.

  @incollection{HG:2015,
    Title = {The interaction between Across-the-Board movement and morphology},
    Author = {Harizanov, Boris and Gribanova, Vera},
    Year = {2015},
    Booktitle = {Proceedings from the {A}nnual {M}eeting of
                 the {C}hicago {L}inguistic {S}ociety},
    Address = {University of Chicago, IL},
    Publisher = {Chicago Linguistic Society},
  }

2014

• Harizanov, Boris. 2014. Clitic doubling at the syntax-morphophonology interface: A-movement and morphological merger in Bulgarian. Natural Language & Linguistic Theory 32(4):1033-1088.
  [ abstract | bib | link ]

  True clitic doubling involves multiple expression of a single argument in different structural positions. In clitic doubling configurations of this kind, a clitic expresses features of its full nominal phrase associate in argument position. True clitic doubling has traditionally been argued to arise via agreement, so that the clitic is the manifestation of an agreement relation between a verb and the associate. However, another possibility exists: the clitic could be a (pro)nominal element related to the associate via movement; then, clitic doubling involves the simultaneous realization of both the head and the foot of a movement chain. Here, I argue for the latter analysis, showing that true clitic doubling, at least in Bulgarian, has the properties of movement -- i.e. it does not involve agreement, as is standardly assumed for this language. I provide support for this claim by considering a number of diagnostics which distinguish between clitics that reflect agreement processes and clitics that do not. Specifically, I argue that the clitic is a reduced articulation of the higher occurrence of a raised object. Thus, the proposed analysis treats clitic doubling as an interface phenomenon which results from the interaction of two independently motivated operations of the syntactic and morphophonological components of grammar: A-movement and morphological merger.

  @article{Harizanov:2014NLLT,
    Title = {Clitic doubling at the syntax-morphophonology interface:
            {A}-movement and morphological merger in {B}ulgarian},
    Author = {Harizanov, Boris},
    Year = {2014},
    Journal = {Natural Language \& Linguistic Theory}
    Volume = {32},
    Number = {4},
    Pages = {1033--1088}
  }
  

• Harizanov, Boris. 2014. On the mapping from syntax to morphophonology. Doctoral dissertation, University of California, Santa Cruz.
  [ abstract | bib | link ]

  If both words and phrases are internally complex and can be decomposed into hierarchically organized constituents, what is the relation between the syntactically motivated constituency of phrases and the morphophonologically motivated constituency of words? In particular, is the correspondence between syntactic atoms and morphophonological words one-to-one or, in other words, does syntax only manipulate objects that are as small as words? These questions have generated a long line of productive research that has identified various mismatches between syntax and morphophonology: e.g. while some syntactic atoms are realized as autonomous morphophonological words, others are realized as subparts of words. Such results have, in turn, motivated approaches to word construction that are syntactic in nature.

  In this dissertation I provide novel evidence that the atoms of syntax are smaller than morphophonological words, which leads to the conclusion words are built out of syntactic objects and, at least in part, by syntactic mechanisms. As far as the cases investigated here are concerned, what gives words their distinctive character and causes them to behave differently from phrases with respect to morphophonology is the application of Morphological Merger. Specifically, syntactically independent objects become the constituent parts of morphophonological words as the result of Morphological Merger, an operation that produces complex heads as part of the mapping from syntax to morphophonology.

  The evidence I provide in this dissertation allows a particularly direct diagnosis of the syntactic independence of various subconstituents of morphophonological words. More specifically, it involves, for example, the interaction of subwords with syntactic operations (like movement), quantifier stranding, various kinds of binding, and thematic interpretation. Furthermore, while much previous work on complex word formation has centered on words constructed by the combination of a head with its complement (e.g. "incorporation") or with the head of its complement (e.g. "head movement"), this dissertation focuses on a less studied correspondence between syntax and morphophonology: words constructed out of a head and its specifier.

  The particular view of the syntax-morphophonology interface espoused in this dissertation is developed on the basis of case studies from Bulgarian, a South Slavic language. As a result, a major concern throughout is the description and analysis of a number of important phenomena attested in Bulgarian: cliticization and clitic doubling, deverbal nominalization, and denominal adjectivization, among others. This dissertation provides a unified understanding of these phenomena to the extent that they all involve the syntactic construction of morphophonological words, which are produced by a mapping procedure that involves the application of Morphological Merger.

  @phdthesis{Harizanov:2014,
    Title = {On the mapping from syntax to morphophonology},
    Author = {Harizanov, Boris},
    Year = {2014},
    School = {University of California, Santa Cruz}
  }
  

• Harizanov, Boris. 2014. The role of prosody in the linearization of clitics: Evidence from Bulgarian and Macedonian. In Formal Approaches to Slavic Linguistics 22: The McMaster Meeting 2013, ed. C. Chapman, O. Kit, and I. Kucerova, 109–130. Ann Arbor, MI: Michigan Slavic Publications.
  [ abstract | bib | pdf ]

  The position of clitics relative to their verbal host varies as a function of prosodic context in Bulgarian: clitics appear preverbally or postverbally. In Macedonian, on the other hand, as long as their host is tensed, clitics appear preverbally. Variability in clitic placement correlates with the prosodic adjunction site of clitics—in particular, with whether they are adjoined above the Prosodic Word level (Bulgarian) or below this level (Macedonian). The proposed analysis relates these facts causally by recognizing the role of principles of prosodic well-formedness in linearization. Specifically, the contrast in clitic placement between Bulgarian and Macedonian follows from an interaction between the adjunction site of clitics and a Strong Start constraint, which prohibits clitics that are not parsed inside Prosodic Words from appearing at the left edge of maximal Intonational Phrases. This account does not require reference to the lexical specifications of clitics, deriving their behavior entirely on the basis of general prosodic principles, and it connects clitic placement analytically to an independently observable fact of the prosodic organization of each language.

  @incollection{Harizanov:2014FASL,
    Title = {The role of prosody in the linearization of clitics:
             Evidence from {B}ulgarian and {M}acedonian},
    Author = {Harizanov, Boris},
    Year = {2014},
    Booktitle = {Formal Approaches to Slavic Linguistics 22: The McMaster meeting 2013},
    Editor = {Chapman, Cassandra and Kit, Olena and Ku\v{c}erov\'{a}, Ivona},
    Pages = {109--130},
    Address = {Ann Arbor, MI},
    Publisher = {Michigan Slavic Publications},
  }
  

• Harizanov, Boris and Vera Gribanova. 2014. Inward-sensitive contextual allomorphy and its conditioning factors. In Proceedings of the 43rd Annual Meeting of the North East Linguistic Society (NELS), ed. H.-L. Huang, E. Poole, and A. Rysling. Volume 1, 155-166. Amherst, MA: GLSA.
  [ abstract | bib | pdf ]

  In this paper we use a case study from the paradigm of Bulgarian definiteness marking to investigate whether the direction of allomorphic sensitivity is correlated with the type of information (phonological, morphosyntactic) that conditions this allomorphy. We evaluate this question against a theoretical backdrop of three assumptions commonly entertained within Distributed Morphology (e.g. Bobaljik 2000): (i) Separation: morphology interprets syntax; i.e. "late" insertion; (ii) Cyclicity: the insertion of phonological material proceeds root-outwards; and (iii) Rewriting: as morphosyntactic features are expressed by phonological material, these features are used up and no longer part of the represen- tation. Assumptions (i) and (ii) are standard within Distributed Morphology (Halle and Marantz 1993), and (iii) is easily accommodated within such a theory. Taken together, these assumptions yield two predictions about allomorphic behavior: outward sensitive allomorphy can only be conditioned by morphosyntactic features, while inward-sensitive allomorphy can only be conditioned by phonological features. Our claim in this paper is that both morphosyntactic and phonological features are relevant for inward-sensitive allomorphy of the Bulgarian definiteness marker; that is, that assumptions (i), (ii) and (iii) cannot all be maintained.

  @incollection{Harizanov:2014NELS,
    Title = {Inward-sensitive contextual allomorphy and its conditioning factors},
    Author = {Harizanov, Boris and Gribanova, Vera},
    Year = {2014},
    Booktitle = {Proceedings of the 43rd {A}nnual {M}eeting of
                 the {N}orth {E}ast {L}inguistic {S}ociety},
    Editor = {Huang, H.-L. and Poole, E. and Rysling, A.},
    Volume = {1},
    Pages = {155-166},
    Address = {Amherst, MA},
    Publisher = {GLSA},
  }
  

2013

• Plaster, Keith, Maria Polinsky, and Boris Harizanov. 2013. Noun classification in the North-East Caucasus. In Language Typology and Historical Contingency: In honor of Johanna Nichols, ed. Balthasar Bickel, Lenore Grenoble, David A. Peterson, and Alan Timberlake, 153-170. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
  [ abstract | bib | link ]

  Noun classes (genders) have long played an important role in the understanding of language structure and human categorization. The current study presents and analyzes the division of nouns into classes in Tsez (Dido), an endangered Nakh-Dagestanian language of the Northeast Caucasus. Computational modeling of the Tsez system shows that noun classification in Tsez is highly predictable, with a simple semantic core and a set of highly salient formal features, that can be ranked with respect to one another. Such a system would be easily accessible to children acquiring the language, and the proposed analysis does not require additional semantic or categorical assumptions. The study serves as a proof of principle for the computational approach to the analysis of noun classification.

  @incollection{Plaster:2013,
    Title = {Noun classification in the {N}orth-{E}ast {C}aucasus},
    Author = {Plaster, Keith and Polinsky, Maria and Harizanov, Boris},
    Year = {2013},
    Booktitle = {Language Typology and Historical Contingency:
                 In honor of {J}ohanna {N}ichols},
    Editor = {Bickel, Balthasar and Grenoble, Lenore and Peterson, David A. and Timberlake, Alan},
    Pages = {153--170},
    Address = {Amsterdam},
    Publisher = {John Benjamins},
  }
  

2012

• Sturgeon, Anne, Boris Harizanov, Maria Polinsky, Ekaterina Kravtchenko, Carlos Gómez Gallo, Lucie Medová, and Václav Koula. 2012. Revisiting the Person Case Constraint in Czech. In Formal Approaches to Slavic Linguistics 19: The Second College Park Meeting 2010, ed. J. F. Bailyn, E. Dunbar, Y. Kronrod, and C. LaTerza, 116-130. Ann Arbor, MI: Michigan Slavic Publications.
  [ abstract | bib | pdf ]

  There has been disagreement in the literature about whether or not Czech, a language with second-position clitics, exhibits Person-Case Constraint effects (YES: Vos and Veselovská 1999, Franks and King 2000, Rezac 2005, Bhatt and Símik 2009, Medová 2009; NO: Lenertová 2001, Haspelmath 2004, Migdalski 2006, Hana 2007). We conducted two experimental studies to probe this issue in Czech: an acceptability-rating experiment and a preliminary corpus study. Both studies showed that Czech exhibits what descriptively appears to be the Strictly Descending PCC -- i.e. the argument with the higher person specification (where 1 is higher than 2 is higher than 3) has to be the indirect object.

  @incollection{Sturgeon:2012,
    Title = {Revisiting the {P}erson {C}ase {C}onstraint in {C}zech},
    Author = {Sturgeon, Anne and Harizanov, Boris and Polinsky, Maria and
              Kravtchenko, Ekaterina and Gallo, Carlos G{\'o}mez and
              Medov{\'a}, Lucie and Koula, V{\'a}clav},
    Year = {2012},
    Booktitle = {Formal Approaches to Slavic Linguistics 19},
    Editor = {Bailyn, John Frederick and Dunbar, Ewan and Kronrod, Yakov and LaTerza, Chris},
    Pages = {116--130},
    Address = {Ann Arbor, MI},
    Publisher = {Michigan Slavic Publications},
  }
  

2011

• Xiang, Ming, Boris Harizanov, Maria Polinsky, and Ekaterina Kravtchenko. 2011. Processing morphological ambiguity: An experimental investigation of Russian numerical phrases. Lingua 121(3):548-560.
  [ abstract | bib | link ]

  Russian nouns in nominative and accusative numerical expressions appear in three different forms, depending on the numeral: nominative singular with the numeral 1, genitive singular with the paucal numerals 2–4, and genitive plural with all other numerals. Results from an acceptability judgment task and a self-paced reading task on Russian case/number marking provide support for a theory stating that the suffix used with paucal nouns is morphologically ambiguous. The ambiguity resolution process involving this suffix leads to extra processing cost, compared to the unambiguous suffixes in other numeral contexts (the number 1, and the numbers 5+). This would account for the additional processing time observed with the paucal nouns. The status of the form occurring with the paucal numerals has long been a challenging issue in Russian linguistics, and the new results add to the growing body of literature which makes use of experimental methods to address issues of linguistic theory and analysis.

  @article{Xiang:2011,
    Title = {Processing morphological ambiguity:
             {A}n experimental investigation of {R}ussian numerical phrases},
    Author = {Xiang, Ming and Harizanov, Boris and Polinsky, Maria and
              Kravtchenko, Ekaterina},
    Year = {2011}
    Journal = {Lingua},
    Volume = {121},
    Number = {3},
    Pages = {548--560},
  }
  

• Harizanov, Boris, and Vera Gribanova. 2011. The role of morphological and phonological factors in Bulgarian allomorph selection. In Morphology at Santa Cruz: Papers in Honor of Jorge Hankamer, ed. N. LaCara, A. Thompson, and M. A. Tucker, 31-40. Santa Cruz, CA: Linguistics Research Center.
  [ abstract | bib | link ]

  The form of the Bulgarian definite article (DEF) can preliminarily be characterized as conditioned by what appear to be both phonological and morphosyntactic factors (Scatton 1984; Caink 2000; Franks 2001). Any generalization about the allomorphic selection of DEF, then, will need to refer to both phonological information (final segment) and morphosyntactic information (gender and number). While this has been generally acknowledged, we know of no serious attempt to arrive at a comprehensive picture of DEF’s various forms or of the conditions under which they arise. Here, we formulate those conditions, and further attempt to draw from those generalizations some conclusions about their consequences for theories of morphosyntax-morphophonology interactions. In particular, the emerging empirical picture suggests that the mechanism governing allomorph selection must have access to both morphosyntactic and phonological features.

  @incollection{HG:2011def,
    Title = {The role of morphological and phonological factors in
             {B}ulgarian allomorph selection},
    Author = {Harizanov, Boris and Gribanova, Vera},
    Year = {2011},
    Booktitle = {Morphology at {S}anta {C}ruz:
                 {P}apers in Honor of {J}orge {H}ankamer},
    Editor = {LaCara, Nick and Thompson, Anie and Tucker, Matt A.},
    Pages = {31--40},
    Address = {Santa Cruz, CA},
    Publisher = {UCSC Linguistics Research Center},
  }
  

• Harizanov, Boris. 2011. NonInitiality within Spell-Out domains: Unifying the post-syntactic behavior of Bulgarian dative clitics. In Morphology at Santa Cruz: Papers in Honor of Jorge Hankamer, ed. N. LaCara, A. Thompson, and M. A. Tucker, 1-30. Santa Cruz, CA: Linguistics Research Center.
  [ abstract | bib | link ]

  Possessive (nominal) and indirect object (clausal) clitics are homophonous within the Balkan Slavic languages and Romanian. Pancheva (2004) shows that this syncretism is not just morphophonological but that the two types of clitics constitute identical feature bundles bearing dative case. Yet, these dative clitics seem to exhibit distinct behavior in the nominal and clausal domains: in Bulgarian the nominal clitics appear in second position within the nominal phrase while the clausal clitics are verb-adjacent and non-initial within the clause. It is puzzling that the same syntactic objects exhibit such different distributional patterns. I argue that in Bulgarian this seemingly distinct behavior follows from the interaction of a distributional constraint on dative clitics, NonInitiality within Spell-Out domains, and the different structural properties of the syntactic domains they are associated with. In particular, a number of constituents can be pre-clitic in clauses because various structural positions are available above the clitic, while in nominal phrases no comparable positions are available. Besides the direct consequences of this approach for the treatment of cliticization, it also provides an insight into the nature of Spell-Out domains, nominal and clausal structure, and the nature of syntax/PF interactions.

  @incollection{Harizanov:2011,
    Author = {Harizanov, Boris},
    Year = {2011},
    Title = {Non{I}nitiality within Spell-Out domains:
             Unifying the Post-Syntactic Behavior of {B}ulgarian Dative Clitics},
    Booktitle = {Morphology at {S}anta {C}ruz:
                 {P}apers in Honor of {J}orge {H}ankamer},
    Editor = {LaCara, Nick and Thompson, Anie and Tucker, Matt A.},
    Pages = {1--30},
    Address = {Santa Cruz, CA},
    Publisher = {UCSC Linguistics Research Center},
  }
  

• Harizanov, Boris. 2011. Separating word-level and intonational prominence: The accentual properties of negation in Bulgarian. Qualifying paper in phonology/phonetics, UC Santa Cruz.
  [ abstract | bib | email me for the pdf ]

  It is standardly assumed in the autosegmental-metrical approach to intonation that word-level prominence (stress) and intonational prominence (pitch accents) are independent and that stressed syllables attract pitch accents. The empirical aim of this paper is to show that word-level and intonational prominence do not, in fact, have to be aligned to each other. In particular, it focuses on the marker of sentential negation in Bulgarian which introduces a pitch accent that gets associated with a pronominal clitic which does not behave like a stressed syllable itself. The results of two production studies are presented in support of this claim. The theoretical aim of the paper is to explain the surface position of the pitch accent introduced by negation in Bulgarian in terms of competing constraints on prominence alignment and considerations of locality. Traditional approaches to the phenomenon view the contribution of negation as word-level stress. The present analysis builds on this work but crucially differs from it in that, based on the novel empirical findings, it treats negation as the lexical sponsor of a pitch accent.

  @unpublished{Harizanov:2011neg,
    Title = {Separating Word-Level and Intonational Prominence:
             {T}he Accentual Properties of Negation in {B}ulgarian},
    Author = {Harizanov, Boris},
    Year = {2011},
    Note = {Qualifying Paper, University of California, Santa Cruz},
  }
  

• Harizanov, Boris. 2011. The acceptability of true resumption -- An acceptability rating study in Bulgarian. Ms., UC Santa Cruz.
  [ abstract | bib | email me for the pdf ]

  Most experimental studies on resumption have focused on languages that exhibit "intrusive" resumption. In such languages, resumptive pronouns are claimed to appear only in contexts where movement is prohibited. However, little is known about the behavior of "true" resumption languages like Celtic and Semitic in which resumptive pronouns are claimed to be used alongside movement in the formation of long-distance dependencies. Comparing these two language types is necessary to understand the relations between true and intrusive resumption and the extent to which they are distinct phenomena. This paper reports the results of an acceptability rating study with 22 native speakers of Bulgarian, a South Slavic language claimed to exhibit true resumption in relativization. The results indicate that the acceptability of relative clauses containing an invariant complementizer is higher when they contain a resumptive pronoun while that of relative clauses containing an agreeing wh complementizer is higher when they contain a gap. Interestingly, sentences involving the invariant complementizer and RPs are rated lower overall suggesting that resumption may be less acceptable than movement even in a true resumption language.

  @unpublished{Harizanov:2011rps,
    Title = {The acceptability of true resumption---
             {A}n acceptability rating study in {B}ulgarian},
    Author = {Harizanov, Boris},
    Year = {2011},
    Note = {Ms., University of California, Santa Cruz},
  }