Applicatives in Pomak

Abstract

This thesis aims at analyzing how non-core arguments are licensed in Pomak, a severely endangered language spoken in the Balkans, within the Generative Framework, focusing on ditranstive constructions, i.e. double object constructions, prepositional ditranstive constructions, and dative possessors. For the analysis of ditranstive constructions, we provide data from two dialects of Pomak, Şahin dialect spoken in Xanthi, Greece and Uzunköprü dialect spoken in Edirne, Turkey. The findings indicate that Uzunköprü dialect does not exhibit low applicative pattern in ditranstive constructions and instead, it shows the properties of prepositional ditranstive constructions based on binding, scopal relationship and weak cross-over effects unlike the Şahin dialect, which constructs ditranstive constructions via a low applicative head. The analysis of the possessor applicatives is restricted to Uzunköprü dialect and we show that applicative possession in Pomak cannot be analyzed, assuming that the applicative head is in the nominal domain proposed by Iovtcheva (2019) for the analysis of Bulgarian, which is the closest relative of Pomak. Finally, we show that unlike Cuervo (2003), possessor applicatives are constructed via a high applicative, which takes VP as its complement, or a higher applicative, which takes vP as its complement, the selection of which yields in a difference in meaning as a high applicative head contributes to the at-issue tier while higher applicative contributes to the not-at-issue tier.