The syntax of liketa A case of restructuring in Appalachian English

摘要

In this article I provide a syntactic analysis for the non-standard liketa and its uncontracted counterpart liked to in Appalachian English. I argue that both forms are verbal and are related via restructuring, following similar analyses of wanna contraction. However, liketa is different from wanna in that it places unique aspectual restrictions on its complements. Specifically, it requires that the verb appearing immediately to the right be marked with past participle morphology for felicitous interpretation. A comparison of liketa and liked to reveals that both are verbal and liketa has many hallmark properties of restructuring predicates. In fact, it shares many properties with wanna contraction, an example of restructuring in English. I analyze liketa in the spirit of Wurmbrand (2001) who provides a mono-clausal approach to restructuring. I consider dialect variation among grammars which allow slightly different syntactic constraints on the usage of liketa. Finally, I sketch out an alternative bi-clausal restructuring account in order to compare the consequences of two prominent theories of restructuring verbs.