Closest c-command, agree and impoverishment: The morphosyntax of non-active voice in Albanian

Abstract

We provide a minimalist syntactic analysis for the morphological realization of non-active voice in Albanian, a paradigm that exhibits a three-way alternation: inflectional affix, clitic and auxiliary choice. We show that the morphological realization of the Albanian non-active voice reflects the hierarchy of functional categories in the clause. More specifically, we argue that the distribution of the morphological means to realize non-active voice in this language is contingent on and regulated by two independently motivated morphosyntactic operations, namely Agree and Impoverishment, which are both governed in crucial respects by closest c-command.