Scrambling in Eastern Tamang

초록

This squib discusses an asymmetry in scrambling in Eastern Tamang, a Sino-Tibetan language spoken primarily in Nepal. Long-distance scrambling is possible only if the embedded verb is unaccusative. Otherwise, scrambling is clause-bounded. Despite the appearance of long-distance scrambling, I argue that this is an instance of A-scrambling. I adopt the notion that SpecCP is not used as an escape hatch in Eastern Tamang. Thus, the scrambled argument of the unaccusative crosses no phase boundaries on its way up to the matrix clause. Eastern Tamang, then, behaves more like German in having (mostly) local scrambling only rather than like Korean or Japanese, which have long-distance, A-bar scrambling. A few notes are made in the conclusion related to Bošković’s NP/DP macroparameter and to scrambling in German.

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