On fusion and multiple copy spell-out

Focusing on the case of verbal repetition in Nupe, a Benue-Congo language spoken in central Nigeria, this chapter shows that verbal repetition constructions are mono-clausal syntactic objects in which the participating verbs are neither independently base-merged, as in the case of verb serialization for instance, nor are they related through reduplicative copying in the morphology/phonology. Rather, it is argued that these constructions involve chain formation and postsyntactic morphological reanalysis, which allows phonetic realization of multiple links/copies at PF. The chapter also adds some refinements to Nunes's (1999, 2004) proposal on the interaction of the syntactic component with the PF wing of grammar as far as phonetic realization of multiple copies is concerned.

Published online: 27 June 2007
https://doi.org/10.1075/la.107.06kan