Malagasy framing demonstratives and the syntax of doubling

Abstract

Malagasy demonstratives appear simultaneously initially and finally within the DP and must be identical: ity boky ity ‘DEM book DEM’ “this book”. We argue that the unusual doubling pattern arises from multiple pronunciation of a single demonstrative formative and not from base-generation of two independent formatives. The primary goal is to show that doubling, which has been amply discussed in the verbal domain, particularly in the literature on verb doubling in predicate clefts, also occurs in the nominal domain and can be successfully analyzed with existing theoretical machinery.