This paper explores the role of labeling at the SM interface by studying what is called the go get construction in English, where the two verbs appear in their ‘bare’ forms in a sentence (Zwicky 1969, Shopen 1971). Much work has been done to try to account for this restriction on tense morpheme realization; Bjorkman (2010), for example, puts forth a morpho-syntactic analysis utilizing feature percolation, where the infinitive feature of go percolates down to get, as a result of which the two verbs appear in their infinitive forms. The present paper proposes an alternative analysis in which a V-V sequence in the go get construction is formed via external set merge (EM), and that both verbs contribute to its labeling, yielding <H1, H2>. The study shows that the label in turn gives specific instructions for morpheme realization at the SM interface, elucidating the role of labeling at the interface.
1. Introduction
2. The Go Get Construction: Facts and Literature Review
3. Proposal: Forming {H, H} via External Set Merge
4. Internal Structure of the Go Get Complex and Extension of our Analysis to Japanese V-V
5. Conclusion