Michelle Sheehan

List of John Benjamins publications for which Michelle Sheehan plays a role.

Sheehan, Michelle, Jeffrey Blokzijl and M. Carmen Parafita Couto 2020 Inflected infinitives in GalicianRomance Languages and Linguistic Theory 16: Selected papers from the 47th Linguistic Symposium on Romance Languages (LSRL), Newark, Delaware, Vogel, Irene (ed.), pp. 259–274 | Chapter
This study uses an audio-questionnaire, supplemented by spoken corpus data, to probe the acceptability of Galician inflected infinitives in different syntactic contexts. Our results reveal that inflected infinitives in Galician are acceptable in a different range of contexts than in closely… read more
Schifano, Norma and Michelle Sheehan 2018 Chapter 11. Italian faire-infinitives: The special case of volereStructuring Variation in Romance Linguistics and Beyond: In honour of Leonardo M. Savoia, Grimaldi, Mirko, Rosangela Lai, Ludovico Franco and Benedetta Baldi (eds.), pp. 161–175 | Chapter
The first aim of this squib is to show that, under the correct syntactic configuration, volere ‘want’ can be embedded in Italian faire-infinitives (FI), contrary to previous claims. Secondly, we show that want-FIs exhibit peculiar properties: (i) they disallow a full DP causee; (ii) they permit… read more
Sheehan, Michelle 2018 Control of inflected infinitives in European PortugueseComplement Clauses in Portuguese: Syntax and acquisition, Santos, Ana Lúcia and Anabela Gonçalves (eds.), pp. 29–58 | Chapter
This chapter considers the distribution of inflected infinitives in European Portuguese (EP), with a particular emphasis on (exhaustive and partial) obligatory control (OC) contexts. It is shown, by means of large-scale survey data, that all EP speakers accept both inflected and uninflected… read more
Sheehan, Michelle and Sonia M. L. Cyrino 2016 Variation and change in the Romance faire-par causativeRomance Languages and Linguistic Theory 10: Selected papers from 'Going Romance' 28, Lisbon, Carrilho, Ernestina, Alexandra Fiéis, Maria Lobo and Sandra Pereira (eds.), pp. 279–304 | Article
This chapter considers the extent to which the faire-par causative (FP) is available in Italian, French, Catalan, and varieties of Spanish and Portuguese. While French and Italian (like some Spanish varieties) permit FP with an optional by-phrase, Catalan permits FP only where the by-phrase is… read more
Sheehan, Michelle 2015 Review of Coon (2013): Aspects of Split ErgativityLinguistic Variation 15:2, pp. 299–306 | Review
Hinzen, Wolfram, Michelle Sheehan and Ulrich Reichard 2014 Intensionality, grammar, and the sententialist hypothesisMinimalism and Beyond: Radicalizing the interfaces, Kosta, Peter, Steven L. Franks, Teodora Radeva-Bork and Lilia Schürcks (eds.), pp. 315–349 | Article
Intensionality, the apparent failure of a normal referential interpretation of nominals in embedded positions, is a phenomenon that is pervasive in human language. It has been a foundational problem for semantics, defining a significant part of its agenda. Here we address the explanatory question… read more
This article considers the availability of partial Control in European Portuguese, French, Spanish and Italian and argues that many apparent examples of partial Control actually involve exhaustive control with a covert comitative, along the lines proposed by Boeckx, Hornstein & Nunes (2010) for… read more
Biberauer, Theresa, Michelle Sheehan and Glenda Newton 2010 Impossible changes and impossible borrowings: The Final-over-Final ConstraintContinuity and Change in Grammar, Breitbarth, Anne, Christopher Lucas, Sheila Watts and David Willis (eds.), pp. 35–60 | Article
This chapter examines the predictions of Biberauer, Holmberg & Roberts’s (2007, 2008) Final-over-Final Constraint/FOFC for grammatical change and borrowing. As a putatively invariant syntactic principle, FOFC excludes the synchronic possibility of head-final phrases dominating categorially alike… read more
Sheehan, Michelle 2010 Extraposition and antisymmetryLinguistic Variation Yearbook 2010, van Craenenbroeck, Jeroen (ed.), pp. 201–251 | Article
‘Extraposition’ is a cover term for two distinct phenomena (cf. also Fox & Nissenbaum 1999; Kiss 2005). The first, which I assume to be derived by parallel construal (following Koster 2000), targets only RCs, blocks reconstruction of the extraposed constituent to the base position of the source,… read more