David Diem | daviddiem.xyz

David Diem

Research

I work on syntax and morphology in a generativist framework. Languages covered so far are various Austrian, Swiss, and German subvarieties of Alemannic. This list is grouped thematically and is vaguely chronological, with recent research on top. It includes peer-reviewed publications and peer-reviewed conference presentations and posters.

See also my ORCID entry.

Doubling [PhD Thesis in progress]
My research is about the syntax of Alemannic, and I'm currently writing my PhD dissertation on various doubling phenomena in Alemannic. I argue that the syntax and the PF interface give rise to spelled out low copies.
A Freeze/Weiß Account of Nominal Possessives
Building on Weiß (2012), I argue that possessive morphemes (sin, 's, …) are the result of P-to-D incorporation (cf. Freeze's 1992 P-to-T), with the feature [Poss] on P and/or D determining variation between Saxon, doubling, and prepositional possessives.
  • DGfS 49 (🖹 slides to come) 2027, Jena, Germany
  • SVAGV (🖹 slides to come) 2026, Venice, Italy
PF deletion is acyclic
Based on data with lower copy realization of heads, I propose that Deletion, the PF component in a copy theory of movement, operates on objects larger than phasal spell-out domains, and is therefore acyclic.
Verb-first in subordinated declaratives in Alemannic
Declarative verb-first is an understudied phenomenon from (Swiss) Alemannic: I aim to derive this word order via established parametric variation of what could be called incomplete Verb-second, namely, V-to-C movement without an EPP on C.
Verb cluster order shift in Alemannic/FOFC (w/ Molly Rolf)
Molly Rolf and I argue for a diachronic shift from head-initial verb clusters (1Aux 2Mod 3V) to head-final ones (321). Of two logically possible routes, this, we show, goes via 132, and not via *231, which provides evidence for the FOFC.
Alemannic Verb Doubling as realized lower copies of V
I argue for a head movement + copy analysis of verb doubling in Alemannic, in which verbs are spelled out twice, obligatorily and without interpretational effects.
Alemannic R-Pronoun Doubling (w/ Colin Davis)
Colin Davis and I argue that R-pronouns undergo a double spell-out in Alemannic when extracted from PP and possibly DP.