| A central focus of the principles-and-parameters approach to syntax is a set of "Economy" principles, among them the principle requiring that syntactic operations must take place as late as possible. In this dissertation, it is proposed that such Economy-driven postponement accounts for a class of non-agreeing negative auxiliaries in the Dravidian language Telugu: These negative elements are visible at L(ogical) F(orm), and therefore must "Procrastinate" movement to AGR until that level.;Chapter 2 presents the non-agreeing negative forms, highlighting their anomalous nature in Telugu. Chapter 3 contains the analysis, including the idea that the functional head dominating tense morphology is semantically empty, since the semantics of the tense morpheme is not local, but rather present at a higher node. Chapter 4 analyzes two classes of agreeing negative verbal elements. Since these elements are generated within VP (as opposed to the T(ense) position of the negative auxiliaries), they must incorporate into the semantically null T, rendering them LF-invisible and therefore required to undergo overt movement to AGR. |
