Generative Syntax: A Cross-Linguistic Approach
Michael Barrie Sogang University
May 30, 2021 2
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1 Foundations of the Study of Language 13 1.1 The Science of Language ...... 13 1.2 Prescriptivism versus Descriptivism ...... 15 1.3 Evidence of Syntactic Knowledge ...... 17 1.4 Syntactic Theorizing ...... 18 Key Concepts ...... 20 Exercises ...... 21 Further Reading ...... 22
2 The Lexicon and Theta Relations 23 2.1 Restrictions on lexical items: What words want and need ...... 23 2.2 Thematic Relations and θ-Roles ...... 25 2.3 Lexical Entries ...... 33 Key Concepts ...... 34 Exercises ...... 35 Further Reading ...... 38
Interchapter A: Noun Incorporation 38 Further Reading ...... 43
3 Phrase Structure and Constituency 45 3.1 Review of Phrase Structure ...... 45 3.2 Constituency Tests ...... 49 3.2.1 Pro-forms ...... 50 3.2.2 Stand Alone ...... 52 3.2.3 Coordination Tests ...... 52 3.2.4 Movement Tests ...... 54 3.3 C-Command: A New Relation ...... 62
3 4 CONTENTS
3.4 Bare Phrase Structure ...... 63 3.5 The Content of Lexical Categories ...... 66 3.5.1 Noun Phrases ...... 66 3.5.2 Verb Phrases ...... 69 3.5.3 Adpostional Phrases ...... 71 3.5.4 Adjective Phrases ...... 71 3.5.5 Adverbial Phrases ...... 72 Key Concepts ...... 73 Exercises ...... 74 Further Reading ...... 77
Interchapter B: Applicatives 78 Further Reading ...... 82
4 Developments of Phrase Structure 83 4.1 DP Theory ...... 83 4.1.1 The Structure of Pronouns ...... 88 4.1.2 Classifiers (advanced) ...... 91 4.2 Tense Phrases–TP ...... 92 4.3 CP–The Complementizer Phrase ...... 97 4.3.1 Topics and Focus ...... 99 4.3.2 Embedded Topics and Focus (advanced) ...... 101 4.4 Ditransitive Constructions ...... 103 4.5 Light Verbs ...... 108 4.6 Argument Structure Alternations ...... 111 4.6.1 Dative Shift ...... 111 4.6.2 Spray-Load Alternations ...... 112 4.6.3 Benefactive Alternation ...... 113 4.7 Light Verbs in Other Languages ...... 113 Key Concepts ...... 115 Exercises ...... 116 Further Reading ...... 121
Interchapter C: Discourse Configurationality 121 Further Reading ...... 126
5 The Architecture of Grammar 127 5.1 Principles and Parameters ...... 127 CONTENTS 5
5.1.1 The Pro-Drop Parameter ...... 128 5.2 Minimalism and The Model of Grammar ...... 131 5.2.1 Bare Phrase Structure and Merge ...... 131 5.2.2 Move ...... 133 5.3 Head Movement and Phrasal Movement ...... 133 5.3.1 V-to-T Movement ...... 136 5.3.2 T-to-C Movement ...... 140 5.4 Parameterization and Word Order ...... 145 Key Concepts ...... 156 Exercises ...... 157 Further Reading ...... 160
Interchapter D: Verb-Initial Languages 161 Further Reading ...... 164
6 Case Theory 165 6.1 Case and the Distribution of DPs ...... 165 6.1.1 Nominative Case ...... 167 6.1.2 Accusative Case ...... 168 6.1.3 Case Assignment ...... 168 6.2 The Case Filter ...... 169 6.3 Passivization ...... 171 6.4 Alternative Types of Passives ...... 174 6.4.1 Inherent Case ...... 174 6.4.2 “Get”-Passives ...... 174 6.4.3 Middle Voice ...... 175 6.4.4 Impersonal Passives ...... 176 6.4.5 SE in Romance ...... 177 6.4.6 Mandarin: The Ba-Construction ...... 177 Key Concepts ...... 179 Exercises ...... 180 Further Reading ...... 183
Interchapter E: Verb Second in Germanic 184 Further Reading ...... 189
7 Case Alignment Systems 191 7.1 Unaccusativity ...... 191 6 CONTENTS
7.2 Ergativity ...... 202 7.3 Split Intransitivity ...... 207 Key Concepts ...... 212 Exercises ...... 213 Further Reading ...... 215
Interchapter F: Second Positions Clitics 216 Further Reading ...... 219
8 Wh-Movement and Relative Clauses 221 8.1 Wh-Movement ...... 221 8.1.1 Multiple Wh-Questions ...... 231 8.1.2 Wh-Movement and Successive Cyclicity ...... 232 8.2 Cross-Linguistic Patterns of Wh-Movement ...... 241 8.2.1 Wh-in-situ ...... 241 8.2.2 Multiple wh-movement ...... 249 8.3 Relative Clauses ...... 251 8.3.1 Accessibility Hierarchy ...... 257 8.3.2 Internally-Headed Relative Clauses ...... 258 8.4 Restrictions on wh-movement ...... 260 8.4.1 Complex DP Constraint ...... 260 8.4.2 Subject Constraint ...... 260 8.4.3 Wh-Island Constraint ...... 261 8.4.4 Resumptive Pronouns ...... 261 8.5 Phases and Constraining Wh-Movement ...... 262 8.5.1 Relative Clauses and Islands ...... 269 8.5.2 Cross-Over Effects (advanced) ...... 270 Key Concepts ...... 274 Exercises ...... 275 Further Reading ...... 279
Interchapter G: Romance Clitics 279 Further Reading ...... 283
9 The Syntax of Infinitives 285 9.1 Introduction ...... 285 9.2 Diagnostics for Raising and Control ...... 288 9.2.1 Idiom Tests ...... 288 CONTENTS 7
9.2.2 Expletive Subjects ...... 290 9.2.3 Voice Transparency ...... 291 9.3 Deriving the Structure of Control and Raising/ECM ...... 292 9.4 Types of Control and Raising ...... 301 9.4.1 Further Types of Control ...... 302 9.4.2 Wanna-Contraction ...... 304 9.5 Control in Other Languages ...... 305 9.5.1 Balkan Languages ...... 305 9.5.2 Portuguese Inflected Infinitives ...... 305 9.5.3 Serial Verb Constructions ...... 307 Key Concepts ...... 309 Exercises ...... 310 Further Reading ...... 313
Interchapter H: Scrambling 313 Further Reading ...... 317
10 Reflexivity 319 10.1 Binding Theory ...... 319 10.2 Classical Binding Theory ...... 321 10.3 Wh-Movement, Raising and LF ...... 330 10.4 Cross-linguistic Patterns of Anaphora ...... 331 10.4.1 Long-Distance Anaphora ...... 332 10.4.2 Romance Pronominal Forms ...... 334 10.4.3 Obviation ...... 337 10.5 Reflexivity (advanced) ...... 338 Key Concepts ...... 342 Exercises ...... 343 Further Reading ...... 344
Calligraphy of Tree Drawing 345
Abbreviations 346
Index 348
Bibliography 351 8 CONTENTS List of Tables
3.1 Idioms from different languages ...... 48
4.1 Types of Illocutionary Force ...... 99
7.1 Summary of Unaccusativity Diagnostics ...... 197
8.1 Typology of wh-movement ...... 252
10.1 English Pronouns ...... 321
9 10 LIST OF TABLES List of Figures
7.1 Case Alignment Systems ...... 202 7.2 Split Intransitivity ...... 208
8.1 T-Model of Syntax ...... 245 8.2 Venn diagram representing a relative clause ...... 254
11 12 LIST OF FIGURES Chapter 1
Foundations of the Study of Language
' $ By the end of this chapter you should be able to:
• explain the terms descriptivism and prescriptivism
• know the five core areas of theoretical linguistics
• briefly explain the notion of generative grammar
• explain the difference between competence and performance
&• present arguments for universal grammar (UG). %
1.1 The Science of Language
Language as an object of study can be traced back to P¯an. ini in southern Asia, Aristotle in Europe, and to the School of Mohism in the Warring States Period in China. From the Renaissance to the mid-nineteenth century, linguistic in Europe was concerned with historical linguistics, sparked in part by the exploration of numerous languages in India and southern Asia. When early Europeans started to invade North and South America, their discovery of hundreds of Indigenous languages sparked interest in the structure of human language. This approach to language still informs contemporary linguistic thinking (Bloomfield, 1933). Modern generative linguistics started with Chomsky (1955). The goal of generative linguistics is to create a model of human language that accounts for all and only the grammatical sentences of a language. As such, generative linguistics has concentrated on universals - those aspects of human language that are invariant - and parameters - those aspects of human language that vary. What we discuss in this manuscript includes the main syntactic phenomena of human language and how these phenomena vary in languages around the world. We propose models to account for these phenomena that account for the observed variation,
13 14 CHAPTER 1. FOUNDATIONS OF THE STUDY OF LANGUAGE but that block ungrammatical forms or impossible languages. Finally, a proposed analysis must meet the condition of explanatory adequacy, which states that there must be evidence available to the child during acquisition to posit the model that the linguist proposes (Chomsky, 1965). Let’s start with the following contrast and see what it has to do with the study of language. The superscript numbers show coreference. Thus, in sentence (1.1 a), John and him both refer to the same person, namely John. The asterisk, *, in front the last two sentences means that they are ungrammatical. We will discuss this concept in more detail in a bit, but for now, it just means that these sentences are unacceptable to a native speaker of English. Our task, then, is to formulate a model that accounts not only for the grammaticality of the first two sentences, but also for the ungrammaticality for the latter two sentences.
(1.1) (a) John1 thinks that Mary likes him1. (b) John thinks that Mary2 likes herself2. (c) *John1 thinks that Mary likes himself1. (d) *John thinks that Mary2 likes her2.
Based on this limited set of data, we might conclude the following two principles of anaphora, referring back to a previously mentioned element. We say that John is the antecedent of him in the first sentence. Likewise, Mary is the antecedent of herself in the second sentence. You can verify that the first two sentences above satisfy the principles below. Example (1.1 c) violates (1.2 a) and that example (1.1 d) violates (1.2 b).
(1.2) Principles of Anaphora
(a) A reflexive pronoun and its antecedent are in the same clause. (b) A non-reflexive pronoun and its antecedent are not in the same clause.
Linguists have adopted a universal way of presenting linguistic data from any language in the world. A sentence is presented with words lined up with their glosses followed by an idiomatic translation into the language of use. We are using English, so we give an idiomatic translation into English. Here is a straight-forward example from Portuguese (da Cunha and Cintra, 1985).
(1.3) Este aluno obteve ontem uma boa nota. this student received yesterday a good score ‘This student received a good score yesterday.’ [Portuguese] If a form can be broken down morphologically into separate morphemes, these are shown by dashes in the example and in the gloss. If the form cannot be separated easily into separate morphemes, this is indicated in the gloss by use of a period separating each component meaning. 1.2. PRESCRIPTIVISM VERSUS DESCRIPTIVISM 15
Here are two examples from German. Observe in the first example the root and the plural morpheme are easily distinguished and are separated by a hyphen. In the second example, though, we cannot easily discern a separate plural morpheme.
(1.4) (a) Auto, Auto-s car, car-pl ‘car, cars’ (b) Haus, Häuse house, house.pl ‘house, houses’ [German] If a language has complex morphophonology that obscures the underlying morphological struc- ture we use a four-line gloss. Here is an example from Blackfoot (Bliss, 2008, ex.(2)).
(1.5) Nitsíksstaata ana Leo ninááhksspommowahsi Nit-iksstaat-a an-wa Leo nin-aahk-sspommo-a-hsi 1-want.tr.anim-1subj:3.obj dem-prox Leo 1-mod-help.tr.anim-1.subj:3.obj-comp ‘I want to help Leo.’ [Blackfoot] All of the abbreviations used in the glosses are listed in the appendix. Grammatical persons are indicated by numerals (1, 2, 3). Let’s consider the first word in the Blackfoot example. The person prefix indicates first person (however, it does not indicate whether the first person is the subject or the object). The form for want indicates that this is a transitive construction (tr) and that the object is animate (anim). The agreement suffix indicates that the subject is first person and the object is third person.
Blackfoot (bla) is an Algonquian language of the Algic family (알그어족). It is spoken in central-western North America on the border between Canada and the United States. Blackfoot is an endangered language, although revitalization efforts are underway. (Image source: shorturl.at/jJTZ9)
1.2 Prescriptivism versus Descriptivism
Our goal in linguistics is to understand how the brain processes language. To understand this we need to examine how language is used by people in everyday speech situations. Thus, we describe and analyze the way people use language in everyday life. We come back to this point below. Prescriptivism is the practice of dictating, by virtue of some authority, acceptable standards of language use. Prescriptivist attitudes are most often applied to written language, but are often 16 CHAPTER 1. FOUNDATIONS OF THE STUDY OF LANGUAGE applied to spoken language. Examples of prescriptive authorities (with varying degrees of quali- fications) include the 국립국어원 the Académie Française, Chicago Manual of Style, Ann Landers, your high-school English teacher and so forth. A prescriptive grammar is a collection of the pre- scribed rules of a given language, and usually includes some common proscribed forms with advice on how to avoid them. A prescribed form is one which is deemed acceptable by some authority and a proscribed form is one which is deemed unacceptable. A prescribed sentence is given in example (1.6, followed by a proscribed sentence.
(1.6) (a) To whom do you wish to speak? (b) Who do you wish to speak to?
Let’s consider a specific example or a prescriptive rule in more detail. We will undertake the deconstruction of a common prescriptive rule starting with an examination of the following sentences.
(1.7) (a) Everyone forgot their homework yesterday. (b) Someone left their dirty dishes on the table. (c) Who remembered to bring their sleeping bag?
All of these sentences are proscribed in English by some prescriptive authorities because of the supposed faulty agreement between the subject and the possessive pronoun modifying the object. Everyone, someone, and who are singular, and thus require singular pronouns.
(1.8) (a) Everyone forgot his homework yesterday. (b) Someone left his dirty dishes on the table. (c) Who remembered to bring his sleeping bag? Generic They in Literature But to expose the former faults of any person, without knowing what their present feelings were, seemed unjustifiable. [Austen, Pride and Prejudice] There’s not a man I meet but doth salute me, As if I were their well acquainted friend. [Shakespeare, Comedy of Errors, Act IV Scene 3] The following website lists several examples of generic they from English literature. http://www.crossmyt.com/hc/linghebr/austheir.html
Descriptivism is the approach that linguists take in the study of language. We do not prescribe how language is to be used (although we are often asked to). Rather, we describe, record and analyze the way language is actually used. This includes language in all its forms, including its dialects (the form of a language used in a geographically determined area), sociolects (the form of a language used by a given socio-economic class) and even idiolects (the particular form of a language used by a specific person). Consider the following examples. 1.3. EVIDENCE OF SYNTACTIC KNOWLEDGE 17
1.3 Evidence of Syntactic Knowledge
Among the most pressing goals of linguistic inquiry are to understand how language is processed in the brain and how children acquire language. Unfortunately, we still have a very poor understanding of the human brain. We do know that children acquire language in a very short period of time rather effortlessly. This observation has led to two controversial properties of human language. The first is the Poverty of Stimulus (POS) (Chomsky, 1986). The POS claims that children are not exposed to enough data to determine all the rules of human language. The consequence of this is that humans are born with an innate language faculty referred to as Universal Grammar (UG) (Chomsky, 1965). Both POS and UG have been challenged by linguists, and the debate of their existence continues to this day (Fodor and Crowther, 2002; Lasnik and Uriagereka, 2002; Legate and Yang, 2002; Pullum and Scholz, 2002). A common empirical illustration of the POS argument is subject-auxiliary inversion in English. To form a polarity question in English the auxiliary in the matrix clause moves to the left of the subject as in the following example.
(1.9) (a) Mary is reading a book. (b) Is Mary reading a book?
When a child is acquiring language they must figure out a general rule for this kind of question formation. The difficulty comes when the child is confronted with the following kind of sentence.
(1.10) The girl who is playing is named Rosie.
During language acquisition children produce many forms that differ from the adult form of the language. English-speaking children produce forms such as eated (instead of ate). Korean speaking children produce forms such as 안 밥 먹어 (instead of 밥 안 먹어). In these cases, the child has made a guess at how to form the past tense of an English verb (add ‘-ed’) or at how to negate a Korean verb (maintain object-verb order). Both of these are reasonable guesses that turn out to be wrong in these situations. The question here is what kinds of guesses does the child make in formulating a rule of question formation. A child could guess that the first auxiliary should be moved to the left of the subject resulting in the following.
(1.11) *Is the girl who _ playing is named Rosie?
Is the girl who is playing _ named Rosie? It turns out that children never make errors of this kind (Legate and Yang, 2002). That is, children never entertain a rule that makes use of linear order in the sentence. Instead children know 18 CHAPTER 1. FOUNDATIONS OF THE STUDY OF LANGUAGE that language is hierarchically organized and eventually arrive at the rule that picks out the matrix auxiliary. Despite the disagreement in the literature as to how children arrive at this conclusion, the fact is that they do, and we as linguists must model that knowledge. There is considerably more evidence of tacit syntactic knowledge. Consider the following ex- amples based on an experiment by de Villiers (1995). Assume that the boy in the examples hurt himself while climbing a tree and that he told us this a few minutes ago.
(1.12) (a) When did the boy say he hurt himself? (b) When did the boy say how he hurt himself?
Observe that the first sentence is ambiguous while the second sentence is not. Consider the following possible answers.
(1.13) (a) a few minutes ago (possible answer for either question) (b) while climbing a tree (possible answer for (1.12 a) only)
Somehow English speakers know that (1.12 a) is ambiguous but that (1.12 b) is not. This knowledge was demonstrated experimentally in children (de Villiers et al., 1990). De Villiers’ research team presented various stories to a group of children aged 3.5 to 6 years. The story referring to the examples above goes as follows.
(1.14) Once there was a boy who loved to climb trees in the forest. One afternoon he slipped and fell to the ground. He picked himself up and went home. That evening when he had a bath, he noticed a big bruise on his arm. He said to his father, “I must have hurt myself when I fell this afternoon.” (de Villiers et al., 1990, p.265)
Children as young as 3.5 somehow know that (1.12 a) is ambiguous while (1.12 b) is not. It is exactly this kind of linguistic knowledge we are trying to model.
1.4 Syntactic Theorizing
Recall that the goal of generative grammar is to create a model of language that captures the full range of possible sentences in a language. First, note that we do not mean a ‘full sentence’ as intended in traditional grammar. Consider the following short dialogue.
(1.15) A - What did you buy? B - a book 1.4. SYNTACTIC THEORIZING 19
B’s response is not a full sentence in the sense of traditional grammar as it lacks a verb and a subject. In terms of descriptive grammar, however, B’s utterance is appropriate and grammatical. A question, then, that we must answer is how B’s response is generated. Note that B’s response means, “I bought a book.” It cannot mean, “I want to buy a book.” or “There’s a book on the table.” or anything else that might have to do with the book. To reiterate from above, the linguist is responsible for describing and analyzing spoken and signed language. This includes sentences with elided material as in B’s response above. A syntactic analysis begins with a descriptive generalization based on data gathered by the linguist. Let’s illustrate with an example. Say you have gathered the following data. Again, the numbers indicate co-reference.
(1.16) (a) Mary1 saw herself1 in the mirror. (b) Bill1 is talking to himself1. (c) Pat1 mailed a letter to themself1 yesterday. (d) Susan1 hurt herself1 skiing. (e) John1 looked after himself1 as a child.
In these data, we see that the reflexive pronoun (called an anaphor) that is a direct object or the object of a preposition can refer to a subject. We can generalize that the subject can refer to any anaphor in the sentence. If we test this against further data, we see that we must revise our generalization. Consider the following data.
(1.17) (a) *Mary1 thinks that Fred saw herself1 in the mirror. (b) *Bill1 noticed Alice talking to himself1. (c) *Pat1 heard that Alex mailed a letter to themself1 yesterday. (d) *Susan1 said that Minsoo hurt herself1 skiing. (e) *John1 remembered that his aunt looked after himself1 as a child.
The data above show that the anaphor and its antecedent are always in the same clause. Based on this, we can make the following generalization (subject to revision later on).
(1.18) Principle of Anaphors: An anaphor and its antecedent are in the same clause. (subject to revision)
Although in our examples so far the antecedent is a subject, but this is not always the case. We will examine reflexivity in much more detail in Chapter 10.
(1.19) Mary showed Bill1 a picture of himself1. 20 CHAPTER 1. FOUNDATIONS OF THE STUDY OF LANGUAGE
Key Concepts
• generative linguistics - a school of linguistics that attempts to model unconscious knowl- edge of language
• universal - a property of grammar that is invariant and is found in all languages
• parameter - a property of grammar that can vary among languages
• prescriptivism - the practice of dictating standard language use
• descriptivisim - the practice of describing actual language use without place value judge- ments on the forms observed
• Poverty of Stimulus - the notion that children do not receive enough input to fully deter- mine the rules of grammar
• Universal Grammar - that part of human language that is invariant across the species
• descriptive generalization - a statement that characterizes a set of data 1.4. SYNTACTIC THEORIZING 21
Exercises
(1.1) Consider the properties of communication and human language. What sets language apart from communication? Do you think you can make a case for higher primates possessing language, or just a more complex form of communication?
(1.2) Consider the following sentences. Do they break any prescriptive rules of English grammar? Are they acceptable to you as a native speaker? If not, try to determine the source of the unacceptability. If you are not a native speaker of English, try to find someone who is.
1 Who did you give the book to?
2 Who do you wonder whether Peter gave a book to?
3 John persuaded Mary to go to the opera.
4 John promised Mary to go to the opera.
5 Me and John went to the movies.
(1.3) How do the following two short dialogues argue against the hypothesis that language is learned by positive reinforcement (first dialog from Uriagereka, 1998:7)?
Child (4 yrs): Eat shit! Father: (shouting angrily) Go to your room! *** Child (2 yrs): Me eated it. Mother: You certainly did, cutie-pie. (hands child another cookie) 22 CHAPTER 1. FOUNDATIONS OF THE STUDY OF LANGUAGE
Further Reading
• Ghomeshi (2010) - A concise and entertaining discussion on common misconceptions of language and prescriptivism
• Bodine (1975) - A study on androcentric phenomena in the English language, focusing on he, she and singular they
• Cameron (1992) - A collection of articles dealing with feminist issues in grammar and linguistics
• Chomsky (1957) and Chomsky (1965) - Two early works of Chomsky’s. His 1965 mono- graph is an accessible introduction to generative grammar
• Cowper (1992) - Contains an accessible and concise history of generative syntax starting with Chomsky’s 1957 Syntactic Structures and working up to the start of Government and Binding Theory
• Lagunoff (1997) - Dissertation on the sociolinguistics, syntax and semantics of singular they
• Milroy and Milroy (1998) - A discussion on the role of prescriptivism in grammar and linguistics
• McWhorter (1998) - A collection of essays debunking some common myths about the English language. Included is a discussion on gender-neutral pronouns, African American Vernacular English and arguments in favour of translating Shakespeare into modern English.
• Roberts (2017) - An up-to-date lay-person introduction to language Chapter 2
The Lexicon and Theta Relations
' $ By the end of this chapter you should be able to:
• understand the terms c-selection and s-selection,
• have a firm grasp of the various θ-relations and the θ-Criterion,
&• understand the components of the lexical entry for a lexical item. %
2.1 Restrictions on lexical items: What words want and need
As discussed in chapter 1, lexical items have various restrictions on what kind of arguments they can take. The first type of restriction we deal with concerns restrictions on the categorial type of the argument (Grimshaw, 1979; Pesetsky, 1982). For instance, the verb push ca not exist by itself. You have to push something (push the car, push the couch, push a box). So we say the verb push takes a noun phrase as a complement. We refer to this type of restriction as a subcategorizational restriction. More specifically, we also refer to this type of selection as c-selection, where c stands for category. For example, the lexical item ask subcategorizes for or c-selects either a noun phrase (NP) or a clause (S), whereas the lexical item inquire subcategorizes for or c-selects only a clause.
(2.1) (a) I asked [NP the time]
(b) I asked [S what time it was]
(c) *I inquired [NP the time]
(d) I inquired [S what time it was]
(e) I ate [NP an apple]
(f) *I ate [S that the apple was gone]
(g) *I think [NP an apple]
(h) I think [S that the apple was eaten]
23 24 CHAPTER 2. THE LEXICON AND THETA RELATIONS
This information is recorded as follows in c-selectional frames. Note that ask can take either an NP or an S as a complement, so the options appear inside curly brackets to show that either option can fulfil the c-selectional requirements of this lexical item.
(2.2) (a) ask: NP, S (b) inquire: S
These kinds of c-selectional restrictions are found in virtually all languages. Consider the following Korean examples.1 Observe that the Korean verb 싶다 (siphta ‘want’) c-selects an S only, whereas the the verb 원하다 (wen-hata ‘want’) c-selects an NP only.
(2.3) (a) 민수가 [S 사과를 먹고] 싶어한다. Minswu-ka [S sakwa-lul mek-ko] siph-e-ha-n-ta Minsoo-nom apple-acc eat-comp want-infv-lv-prs-decl ‘Minsoo wants to eat an apple.’
(b) *민수가 [S 사과를 먹고] 원한다. Minswu-ka [S sakwa-lul mek-ko] wen-ha-n-ta Minsoo-nom apple-acc eat-comp want-lv-prs-decl
(c) *민수가 [NP 사과를] 싶어한다. Minswu-ka [NP sakwa-lul] siph-e-ha-n-ta Minsoo-nom apple-acc want-infv-lv-prs-decl
(d) 민수가 [NP 사과를] 원한다. Minswu-ka [NP sakwa-lul] wen-ha-n-ta Minsoo-nom apple-acc want-lv-prs-decl ‘Minsoo wants an apple.’
When a lexical item c-selects a prepositional phrase (PP), it is often the case that the prepo- sition must be specified. Consider the following adjectives, which optionally c-select a PP. Happy optionally c-selects PPfor , and jealous optionally c-selects PPof . The adjective afraid optionally c-selects either PP. The c-selectional frames must be acquired for each lexical item and are stated in the lexical entry.
(2.4) (a) happy for John; *happy of John (b) afraid for John; afraid of John (c) *jealous for John; jealous of John
1Note that in the traditional Yale system 부 is transcribed as pu rather than as pwu since 브 is not historically found in Korean. However, because of recent borrowings such as 브랜드 and 블로그 I Romanize 부 as pwu in this manuscript. 블로그 then, is Romanized as pulloku. 2.2. THEMATIC RELATIONS AND θ-ROLES 25
The second type of selection restriction concerns the semantic type of the argument. Such semantic features most commonly referred to include whether the entity is human or not, whether it is animate or not, whether it is concrete or not, etc. In our discussions, we will often use the notation [+human], [-animate], etc. for convenience. We refer to these restrictions as semantic restrictions. Such restrictions are also referred to generally as s-selection, where ‘s’ stands for semantic. For instance, the lexical item kill selects an animate, living direct object, while the lexical item murder selects an animate, living, human direct object. Notice that we are marking violations of s-selection as pragmatically ill-formed rather than grammatically ill-formed. Whether s-selctional restrictions are simply part of our pragmatic knowledge or an actual part of grammar is an open question.
(2.5) (a) John killed the mouse. (b) #John murdered the mouse. (c) Macbeth killed Duncan. (d) Macbeth murdered Duncan.
Another property that a lexical item can s-select is concreteness. For example, the verb ponder does not place any restrictions on concreteness, but the verb touch requires a concrete object.
(2.6) (a) Mary pondered the book. (b) Mary touched the book. (c) Mary pondered world hunger. (d) #Mary touched world hunger.
c-selection - category-selection Does the lexical item require a noun phrase, preposi- tional phrase or a clause (or nothing) as a complement? s-selection - semantic-selection Does the lexical item require something of a specific semantic class, such as [±human], [±animate], [±concrete] as a complement?
2.2 Thematic Relations and θ-Roles
We have seen that predicates place various selectional restrictions on their arguments. These restrictions are related to the kind of role the arguments play in the event depicted by the predicate. For instance, in the sentence, John washed the dishes, John is purposefully bringing about the action of washing the dishes. However, in the sentence, John cried in the basement, John did not purposefully bring about the event of crying. Unless John is a actor in a play, we would normally 26 CHAPTER 2. THE LEXICON AND THETA RELATIONS understand John to have experienced the event of crying, rather than bringing it about. It turns out that these differences in interpretation are important linguistically. First we will discuss the various possible roles that have been identified, then we will look at some examples. First, let’s note the following distinction. A predicate assigns particular theta-roles (or θ- roles), to its arguments. Each θ-role will correspond to one or more thematic relations (Gruber, 1965; Fillmore, 1968). (See also Harley (2010) for a review.) For example, in the sentence John gave Mary a book, John carries the θ-role corresponding to the role as a giver. This θ-role bears two thematic relations. One relation, which we will see is called
(2.7) (a) Kenji hit Arsalan. (Kenji is an
Note that only the potential for volition is required. If someone accidentally does something that could otherwise have been done intentionally, a thematic relation of
(2.8) (a) Fred accidentally spilled the water. (b) Without realizing it, Richard had insulted the cashier.
An general exception to this is with several verbs of movement, which we will discuss under the thematic relation
(2.9) (a) Alex likes cookies. (b) It seems to me that the words are mixed up. (c) Jeremy saw the eclipse. 2.2. THEMATIC RELATIONS AND θ-ROLES 27
(d) 철수가 멸치를 좋아 한다.
There is an important set of verbs that are similar in meaning, but that contrast with respect to the
(2.10) (a) John looked at Mary. John is an
It has been traditionally observed that the experiencer verbs tend to be incompatible with the progressive (Lakoff, 1966).2
(2.11) Subject is an
(a) I hear some music. (b) *%I am hearing some music. (c) I heard some music.
(2.12) Subject is an
(a) #I listen to some music.3 (b) I am listening to some music. (c) I listened to some music.
It is also well-known, however, that stative verbs (which includes verbs with
(2.13) (a) I’m liking spicy food more and more these days. (This describes a gradual change of a state.) (b) I am hoping it won’t rain tomorrow. (This indicates that the speaker’s expectations may change over time.)
2Verbs with experiencer subjects are part of a larger set of verbs known as stative verbs. The distinction between active and stative verbs is well-attested cross-linguistically. 3Active verbs can be used in the simple present only if they describe generic state, in which case, they often require an adverbial modifier: I listen to some music every day. Generics are considered to be stative, however, so would pattern with the data in (2.11). See also footnote 2. 28 CHAPTER 2. THE LEXICON AND THETA RELATIONS
In Korean, experiencer verbs behave differently depending on the person of the subject. The experiencer verb can be bare if the subject is first or second person; however, if the subject is third person, the verb must be augmented by 하다. Consider the following examples. Note also the difference in case marking on the object.
(2.14) (a) 나는 사과가 좋아요. (b) 영희는 사과를 좋아 해여.
Experiencer verbs often have different case markings on the subject and object, as we saw for the Korean data above. We will discuss Case more in Chapter 6; however, we will briefly some data here. Typically, a subject is marked with nominative case and an object is marked with accusative case. Consider the following Icelandic and Hindi data, however (see page 316 for more information on Hindi).
(2.15) Eirík-i líkar þetta hús. dat Eric- likes this house [Icelandic] ‘Erik likes this house.’
(2.16) Siitaa-ko laRke pasand the. dat nom.m pst.m.pl Sita- boys. like be. [Hindi] ‘Sita liked the boys.’
Notice that the subject in these examples is dative rather than nominative, and that the object is nominative rather than accusative. This change in case morphology is typical in experiencer constructions.
Icelandic (isl) is a member of the Germanic branch of theIndo-European family. Because of its geographic isolation, Icelandic has changed relatively little over the centuries. Thráinsson (2007) is a good introduction to the syntax of Icelandic.
We move on, now, to the thematic relation
(2.17) (a) Peter moved the TV into the living room. (b) Sue kept the book. (c) The children gave a book to Sue. (d) 영희가 사과를 철수에게 줬다.
As mentioned above, some verbs that assign a θ-role of
(2.18) (a) Susan rolled the log down the hill. (b) The log rolled down the hill. (c) Susan rolled down the hill.
In (2.18 a), Susan is an
(2.19) (a) The dog bit the child. (b) The arrow hit the apple. (c) Alice shattered the mirror. (d) The mirror shattered. (e) 규민은 나뭇까지를 꺾었다.
In a sentence such as John saw Mary, Mary is not a
(2.20) (a) Bettina went from Montreal to Toronto. (b) Fred sent the box to Hong Kong. (c) 가람이 서울에서 부산에 갔다.
The
(2.21) (a) Bettina went from Montreal to Toronto. (b) 가람이 서울에서 부산에 갔다.
The
(2.22) (a) Annie stayed in New Orleans. (b) Sara kept the old radio. (c) Sara kept the old radio in her room. (d) Miss Scarlet killed the victim in the kitchen with the lead pipe. (e) 한결은 도서관에서 공부하고 있다.
The
(2.23) (a) They gave Bettina a new book. (b) Melanie received flowers from Ken. (c) Milan stole the chocolates from the kitchen. (d) 나래는 슬기에게 책을 줬다.
An
(2.24) (a) We cut the bread with a knife. (b) This key opens that door.
Note that while many verbs can have either an
(2.25)
John broke the vase. subject is an
In the last two sentences, both an
(2.26) (a) Matt washed the dishes for Eric. (b) Alice fixed the toaster for Bill. (c) Susan rolled down the hill for Johnny. (e.g., to make him laugh). (d) *The log rolled down the hill for Johnny. (e) 규민은 슬기에가 설거지를해 줬다.
Consider next the following ambiguous example. In (2.27 a). Sue could be the intended recipient of the flowers (because it’s her birthday, perhaps), in which case Sue bears a
(2.27) (a) I bought these flowers for Sue. (b) I bought these flowers for Sue because it was her birthday. (c) I bought Sue these flowers because it was her birthday.
There is another reading available for (2.27 a), however. Say Sue is in charge of buying flowers to decorate the office where she works. In this case, Sue is not the intended recipient of the flowers; she is a true benefactive. The event of the speaker buying the flowers was done for the benefit for Sue. True benefactives typically must appear in a prepositional phrase.
(2.28) (a) I bought these flowers for Sue because she didn’t have time, and it needed to get done today. (b) *I bought Sue these flowers because she didn’t have time, and it needed to get done today.
(2.29) (a) I bought these flowers for Sue because she didn’t have time, and it needed to get done today. (b) *I bought Sue these flowers because she didn’t have time, and it needed to get done today.
If we consider example (2.26 a) again, we see that Eric can only be analyzed as a
(2.30) (a) Matt washed the dishes for Eric. (b) *Matt washed Eric the dishes.
Finally, the
(2.31) (a) Suzie saw the monster. (b) The stories frightened the children. (c) 아름은 사과를 좋아한다.
Recall that an argument may possess more than one thematic relation. In the following example, the subject is both an
(2.32) Fred gave an apple to Bill.
We say that the θ-role for Fred contains two thematic relations:
Theta Criterion i. Every argument bears one and only one θ-role. ii. Every θ-role is assigned to one and only one argument.
Note also that verbs have thematic grids that state how θ-roles are assigned (Williams, 1981). These thematic grids form part of the lexical entry of the verb.
(2.33) (a) Pat chopped the wood. (b) *Pat chopped.
Here is the thematic grid for ‘chop’. It states that the subject, indicated by 1 is an agent and that the direct object, indicated by 2 is a patient. For trivalent verbs, the indirect object is indicated by 3.4
CHOP 1 2
Let’s look at a thematic grid for a ditranstive verb, where some of the θ-roles consist of more than one thematic relation.
(2.34) Minsoo gave the book to Yosuke.
Here, Minsoo is the
GIVE 1 2 3
4This notation of assigning θ-roles is borrowed from Role and Reference Grammar (Foley and Van Valin, 1984; Van Valin and LaPolla, 1997). 2.3. LEXICAL ENTRIES 33
Other θ-roles are assigned often by adpositions in English and Korean. If we change the sentence above as follows to include a location we get the following.5
(2.35) Minsoo gave the book to Yosuke in the kitchen.
Here, the preposition in assigns a θ-role to the kitchen. Above we said that the subject of the verb is identified as 1 in the thematic grid. In the thematic grid of a preposition, the single argument is also identified as 1.
IN 1
2.3 Lexical Entries
What do we mean when a child learns a new word, or when a second language learner learns a new word? First off, let us say that the word is stored in the mental lexicon with some sort of phonological matrix that tells us what the pronunciation is and something that tells us what the word means. The information stored with a lexical item in the mental lexicon is called its lexical entry. Let’s consider the word chop from above. > Lexical Entry for chop: /tSAp/ to cut into or sever usually by repeated blows with a sharp instrument
Certainly a lexical entry contains at least this much information. However, there is additional syntactic information contained in a lexical entry. Consider the difference in subcategorization frames as discussed at the beginning of this chapter. The full lexical entry for chop, then, is as follows.
(2.36) Lexical Entry for chop > /tSAp/ to cut into pieces or sever usually by repeated blows of a sharp instrument c-selects a noun phrase: NP s-selects an NP with the features [+solid] and [+concrete] 1 2
Note that in the coming chapters we will refine the lexical entries as our understanding of syntactic structure deepens. 5The astute reader will have noticed that the indirect object in (2.34) is also introduced by a preposition. The indirect object, of course, can also be introduced as a double object: Minsoo gave Yosuke the book. The structure of ditransitives is an area of extensive research, the beginnings of which we will explore in Chapter 4. For now, we will continue with the traditional notion that a trivalent verb such as give assigns a θ-role to the direct object and to the indirect object. The preposition to is necessary to assign Case. 34 CHAPTER 2. THE LEXICON AND THETA RELATIONS
Key Concepts
• c-selection - Category selection. States the grammatical category of the arguments a lexical item takes.
• s-selection - Semantic selection. States the semantic features of the arguments a lexical item takes.
• thematic relation - The kind of role an argument plays with respect to its predicate.
• θ-role - The set of thematic relations assigned to an argument of a predicate. For example, the subject of buy is assigned the θ-role that contains the two thematic relations
• theta grid - The set of θ-roles assigned by a lexical item.
• mental lexicon - The mind’s dictionary. This is where all the information of lexical items is stored in the mind.
• lexical entry - The collection of idiosyncratic information about a lexical item that must be stored in the mental lexicon. 2.3. LEXICAL ENTRIES 35
Exercises
(2.1) What are the c-selection and s-selction frames of the following lexical items? Some example sentences are provided for the first three words.
eat, devour, dine, sleep, kiss, jealous, melt, know, read, demand, examine The children are eating some apples. The children are eating. The children devoured some apples. *The children devoured. The children are dining. The children are dining on some apples. *The children are dining some apples.
(2.2) What are the theta grids for the lexical items in the exercise above?
(2.3) Consider the following data from Oneida (see p. 209 for more information on Oneida). Note that the non-volitional forms should be considered non-agentive, too.
1 wakéshwas wak- e- shw -as 1sg.pat- epen- smell -prog ‘I smell it.’ (non-volitional) 2 wakahyáshwas wak- ahy- a- shw -as 1sg.pat- fruit- join- smell -prog ‘I smell fruit.’ (non-volitional) 3 lateshwáthaP l- ate- shw -a -ht -haP 3m.sg.ag- srfl- smell -epen -caus -prog ‘He is smelling it.’ (volitional) Discuss how θ-roles are correlated with the morphology in these Oneida data? (Note: The difference between first and third person does not play a roll here.)
(2.4) Consider the following data.
1 Mary sent a letter to John.
2 Mary sent John a letter.
3 Mary sent a letter to Paris. 36 CHAPTER 2. THE LEXICON AND THETA RELATIONS
4 *Mary sent Paris a letter.
5 *Mary sent John.
6 *Mary sent Paris.
7 Mary sent a letter.
The first two sentences represent a phenomenon called dative shift, which we will discuss in Chapter 4. What θ-roles are assigned to the three arguments in 1 and 3.? Give the θ-grids for these two uses of the verb send. According to the data here, what does the availability of dative shift depend on?
(2.5) Consider the following (slightly simplified) Japanese data and determine what restrictions on the linear order of arguments there are based on thematic roles. In trying to determine what θ-roles are involved here, consider prove and suggest to be transfer of possession verbs, where a certain type of knowledge is the thing being transferred. Do not worry about the Case and topic markers for this problem (data adapted from Grimshaw and Mester, 1988).
1 sono deeta-ga wareware-ni [kare-no riron-ga machigatteiru-tono] shoomei-o this data-nom us-dat [he-gen theory-nom mistaken-comp] proof-acc shiteiru. aux ‘This data proves to us that his theory is mistaken.’
2 *sono deeta-ga [kare-no riron-ga machigatteiru-tono] wareware-e-no shoomei-o this data-nom [he-gen theory-nom mistaken-comp] us-to-gen proof-acc shiteiru. aux ‘(This data proves to us that his theory is mistaken.)’
3 sono hookokusho-wa Mary-ni [kaiketsu-no hookoo]-no shisa-o shiteiru. this report-top Mary-to [solution-gen direction]-gen suggestion-acc aux ‘This report suggests to Mary the direction of the solution.’
4 *sono hookokusho-wa [kaiketsu-no hookoo]-no Mary-e-no shisa-o this report-top [solution-gen direction]-gen Mary-to-gen suggestion-acc shiteiru. aux ‘(This report suggests to Mary the direction of the solution.)’
(2.6) Consider the following Blackfoot data (Frantz, 1991). (See page 15) for more information on Blackfoot.) Blackfoot has a rather complex verbal morphology that is not fully shown here. The ‘3’ indicates that the verb agrees with a 3rd person subject that is known or otherwise 2.3. LEXICAL ENTRIES 37
specified. An unspecified subject has different agreement, which is not vital to this problem. What thematic restriction appears to hold in Blackfoot based on this small set of examples? How is this restriction handled?
1 anná John ikahksínima annistsi ikkstsíksiistsi dem John 3.cut.off dem branches ‘John cut off those branches.’
2 *oma isttoána ikahksínima annistsi ikkstsíksiistsi dem knife 3.cut.off dem branches ‘(That knife cut off those branches.)’
3 oma isttoána iiht-síkahksinii’pi annistsi ikkstsíksiistsi dem knife instr-unspecified.subj.cut.off dem branches ‘Those branches were cut off with a knife (by someone).’ [Blackfoot] 38 CHAPTER 2. THE LEXICON AND THETA RELATIONS
Further Reading
• Aitchison (2003) - This book is a wonderful layperson’s introduction to current research on the mental lexicon. It presupposes no specialized knowledge of linguistics and offers suggestions for more advanced reading.
• Baker (1988a) - Baker proposes that θ-roles are assigned on a universal hierarchy. For instance,
• Chomsky (1957, 1965) - Two of Chomsky’s early works on generative grammar. Aspects (1965) lays down much of the ground work of modern generative grammar and includes a discussion on lexical entries.
• Grimshaw (1990) - This monograph proposes one of the more influential theories of argu- ment structure. It pro-poses that arguments (subjects, direct objects, indirect objects) are ordered.
• Pesetsky (1982) - This dissertation discusses the role of c-seleciton (as distinct from s- selection) in grammar. It focuses chiefly on Russian syntax, but makes universal claims about grammar.
• Reinhart (2002) - This paper discusses several foundational issues of thematic roles and some problems contained therein. The discussion is complex at times, but some of the con- cepts should be accessible at this point. Interchapter A: Noun Incorporation
Noun-incorporation is a phenomenon in which a noun that is an argument of a verb is tightly attached to the verb, rather than appearing as a separate word or phrase. The following examples from Yucatec Mayan (spoken in Mexico and Belize) illustrate this phenomenon.
(2.1) Noun Incorporation in Yucatec Mayan (Mithun, 1984)
(a) tin’akah če’ t-in-č’ak-∅-ah če’ comp-1sg-chop-it-asp tree ‘I chopped a tree.’ (b) č’akče’nahen č’ak-če’-n-ah-en chop-tree-apass-asp-1sg.abs ‘I chopped wood.’
In (2.1 a), the verb and the direct object are separate words. In (2.1 b), the noun has incor- porated into the verb, forming a single word. Notice the meaning of the sentence changes slightly from (2.1 a) to (2.1 b). Changes in meaning like this happen often, but not always, as we will see later. Another example from Lahu illustrates the same point.
Yucatec Mayan (yua) is a Mayan language spoken by about 700 000 people in Mexico and to a small extent in Belize. It is an SVO language. Lahu (lhu) is a Tibeto-Burman language spoken in China, Burma, Thailand and Laos by just over half a million people. Lahu is an SOV language.
(2.2) Noun Incorporation in Lahu
(a) j`1 th`a’ d`O liquor acc drink ‘to drink the liquor’ (b) j`1 d`O liquor drink ‘to drink liquor’
39 40
In (2.2 a), where the NP is an independent word, there is some specific liquor to be drunk. The action in (2.2 b), where noun-incorporation has taken place, refers to the generic act of drinking liquor. There are two kinds of noun-incorporation: Classifier noun-incorporation and compound noun-incorporation (Rosen, 1989). Classifier noun-incorporation does not affect the transitiv- ity of the verb. In other words, remains transitive, and a monovalent verb remains intransitive. Consider the following Oneida data (see p. 209 for more information on Oneida). Example (2.3 a) contains a run-of-the-mill transitive construction. Observe that the presence of an incorporated noun in (2.3 b) does not alter that. Both examples contain an overt direct object.
(2.3) Classifier NI in Oneida, Daisy Elijah, speaker
(a) waPkhnihnú: ne: kaPí:ku kóskos waP-k-hnihn-u ne: kaPí:ku kóskos fact-1.sg.sub-buy-asp det dem pig ‘I bought this pig.’ (b) waPkneskwahnihnú: ne: kaPí:ku kóskos waP-k-neskwa-hnihn-u ne: kaPí:ku kóskos fact-1.sg.sub-animal-buy-asp det dem pig ‘I bought this pig.’
Notice that the independent NP (this pig in (2.3 b)) must be a type of the incorporated noun (animal in (2.3 b))). As expected, one cannot replace pig in (2.3 b)) with something that is not an animal. Compound noun-incorporation does affect the transitivity of the verb. Specifically, when a noun incorporates, the argument it represents can no longer appear in the sentence. In other words with compound incorporation a bivalent verb becomes intransitive. Consider the following Pohnpeian data. Observe that the direct object can appear either as a separate noun phrase (2.4 a) or can be incorporated (2.4 b). However, (unlike Oneida and other classifier noun-incorporating languages) the incorporated noun and the full direct object noun phrase cannot appear together (2.4 c).
(2.4) Noun Incorporation in Pohnpeian (Rehg, 1981)
(a) I pahn ihkos-e likou ehu I will pleat-tr dress a ‘I will pleat a dress.’ (b) I pahn ihkos-∅-likou I will pleat-intr-dress ‘I will dress-pleat (=I will pleat a dress.)’ 41
(c) *I pahn ihkos-e-likou likou ehu I will pleat-tr-dress dress a ‘(I will pleat a dress.)’
In Ponapean, the effect of noun-incorporation on transitivity is seen in the morphology. Once the noun incorporates into the verb, the transitive marker (/e-/ in (5)a) is lost.
Pohnpeian (pon), formerly Ponapean, is an Aus- tronesian language spoken on the island of Pohnpei, part of the Federated States of Micronesia. Pohnpeian has SVO word order. Like Korean, Pohnpeian has a complex system of honorific marking (Keating, 1997). Image source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/ index.php?curid=15176204
Some languages have a process known as pseudo noun incorporation. Consider the following Niuean data (Massam, 2001). (You can read more about Niuean on page 93)
(2.5) Pseudo Noun Incorporation in Niuean
(a) Ko e fanogonogo a lautolu ke he tau lologo prs listen abs they to pl song ‘They were listening to songs.’ (b) Ko e fanogonogo lologo a lautolu prs listen song abs they ‘They were listening to songs.’
Niuean is VSO as shown by (2.5 a). Crucially, the subject intervenes between the verb and the object, making pseudo incorporation easy to see. Observe the pseudo incorporated noun in (2.5 b) above. Since in the basic order the subject appears between the verb and the object, we can tell the verb and the object form a unit in (2.5 b) since the subject no longer intervenes. Massam argues that the verb and object don’t fuse morphologically as in the other examples of noun incorporation above, which is why she uses the label ‘pseudo noun incorporation’ to describe this phenomenon. We will not concern ourselves with the technical details, however. As with all the examples we have seen until now, the incorporated noun is a bare noun with- out any additional morphology or modifiers. Now consider the following examples (The first two examples are from Niuean and the last two are from M¯aori). 42
M¯aori (mri) is an Austronesian language spoken in New Zealand. It is a VSO language and makes use of clusivity and dual number. The English word kiwi is borrowed from M¯aori.Image licensed under the Creative Commons license.
(2.6) Niuean Pseudo Noun Incorporation (Massam, 2001, ex.6a,7b)
(a) Ne inu kofe kono a Mele pst drink coffee bitter abs Mele ‘Mary drank bitter coffee.’ (b) ...ke kumi motu ke nonofo ai. ...SBJV seek island SUBJ settle there ‘...to seek an island where they could settle.’
(2.7) M¯aoriPseudo Noun Incorporation
(a) I moe tane,¯ wahine¯ atu ki reira tns sleep man, woman away at there ‘They married husbands and wives there.’ (b) Ka hanga pa¯ wehe mo r¯atou ki runga i t¯etehi puke tns build fort separate for them at top obj a hill ‘They built a separate fort for themselves on a hill.’ 43
Further Reading
• Massam (2001) - This is the original proposal for pseudo noun incorporation.
• Baker (1988b) - This is a full-scale generative account of incorporation. This proposal takes the stance that noun incorporation is purely syntactic rather than morphological. Students should complete at least Chapter 3, 6 and 7 before consulting this reference.
• Gerdts (1998) - This overview contains a detailed discussion of the topics raised here and includes some other phenomena related to noun incorporation that were not mentioned. The discussion is not too highly technical and should be accessible to the reader at this point.
• Massam (2009) - This is a more recent overview that incorporates newer research on a wide variety of kinds of noun incorporation and various theoretical approaches to it. For the most part, this paper should be accessible at this point, however some technical details may be out of reach.
• Mithun (1984, 1986) - These two papers provide a thorough description of the typology of noun incorporation in the world’s languages. Much of the theoretical discussion will be ac-cessible after completing Chapter 7; however, much of the description will be accessible after completing Chapter 3. 44 Chapter 3
Phrase Structure and Constituency
' $ By the end of this chapter you should be able to:
• be familiar with the following structural relations of syntax trees: dominance, sister- hood, immediate dominance, exhaustive dominance, c-command
• be able to explain why the underlying structure of language is hierarchical rather than flat
• understand basic concepts of constituency and be able to execute various tests for constituency
• have a firm grasp of Bare Phrase Structure (and, if relevant, how it differs from X-Bar Theory).
&• understand the basic structure of NP, VP, AdvP, AdjP and PP. %
3.1 Review of Phrase Structure
Although syntactic inquiry in the 20th century has generated tremendous insight into the hierar- chical organization of language, the idea that language is organized hierarchically, rather than as a linear string of words can be traced back to at least Aristotle and P¯an. ini. In this chapter, we will motivate the structures that we assume for sentences so that we can understand why we draw trees the way we do. Before we begin, let’s review some basic terminology. Consider the following syntactic tree. X
A B C
D E
45 46 CHAPTER 3. PHRASE STRUCTURE AND CONSTITUENCY
Note the following definitions. The points, X, A, B, C, D and Aristotle’s (384 322 E are nodes on the tree. X dominates A (as well as B and C). BCE) thoughts on lin- Domination is marked by the line starting from the bottom of X guistics continue to in- and going down to the top of A. X exhaustively dominates A, fluence modern linguis- B, D and E. (We do not need to include C, since D and E are tics (Allan, 2004). Some contained in C, although it would not be incorrect to say the X of his contributions that exhaustively dominates A, B, C, D and E.) X immediately dom- are still with us today inates A, B and C, but X does not immediately dominate D and are the notion of cate- E it only dominates them. The relation of immediate domination gories (noun, verb, and holds between two elements only if there are no elements interven- adjective) and the divi- ing between the two elements. A, B and C are sisters, as are D and sion of a sentence into a E. C is the mother of D. D is the daughter of C. This structure subject and a predicate. also indicates hierarchical relationships among the elements. For instance, it shows that D and E behave as a unit that is called C here. It also shows that A, B, D, and E behave as an even larger unit, which is labelled X here. A string of words that behave as a unit is called a constituent (Bloomfield, 1933; Carnie, 2008). In our hypothetical tree above, D and E form a constituent labelled C. The formal definitions of these relations are give in (3.1). We assume an the relation of dominance is an axiom. Although these definitions may be tricky to follow at first pass, you should try to work through them to convince yourself that they work. (Note: iff = if and only if.) Constituency is an important concept in any theory of syntax. So, what exactly do we mean by ‘constituent’? A constituent is an isolable syntactic unit, which behaves as an independent entity. Before we consider some actual data, let’s be sure how we will represent the notion of constituency in terms of phrase structure. In the syntactic trees we are considering, a constituent is all and only the material dominated by a single node. Recall that a node, X, exhaustively dominates a string, xyz, if xyz are all dominated by X and X dominates nothing else.
(3.1) (a) α immediately dominates β iff α dominates β and there is no γ such that α dominates γ and γ dominates β. (b) α exhaustively dominates a set of terminals A iff for all β, β ⊂ A, α dominates β and there is no γ such that α dominates γ and γ ⊂ A.
Constituency A string, xyz, is a constituent if it is exhaustively dominated by a single node.
These are most of the basic structural relations, although we will require one more later. For now, let’s start by considering the following sentence, and how we can understand the hierarchical structures contained within it. 3.1. REVIEW OF PHRASE STRUCTURE 47
(3.2) The smart student is writing a tough exam.
We’ll start our analysis of this sentence by assuming it consists of a linear string of words, not grouped together into phrases of any P¯an. ini (ca 6th century kind. We can represent this analysis as follows. We can consider BCE) was essentially this our null hypothesis since it has the least amount of structure. the first formal gram- S marian, having written a complete grammar Det Adj N Aux V Det Adj N of Sanskrit P¯an. ini also the smart student is writing a tough exam developed the notion of categories, as well This analysis shows the linear order of the lexical items, but as case (p 159). He nothing more. According to this tree, there are no constituents also discussed various inside the sentence, although it indicates that the entire sentence kinds of compounds. is a constituent labelled S (for sentence). Just thinking about the The term dandva was sentence intuitively for a moment, we suspect that the noun phrases coined by P¯anini to the bright student and a tough exam are constituents. The tests for . describe a two-headed constituency will be presented in the next section; however, pre- compound such as empting this discussion, we note that the bright student can be singer-songwriter. replaced by the pronoun she, and a tough exam can be replaced by the pronoun it. This behaviour shows us that we want to represent these two noun phrases as units in our tree. So we revise the tree as follows. S
NP Aux V NP
Det Adj N is writing Det Adj N
the smart student a tough exam
The node, NP, stands for ‘noun phrase’ and dominates the respective string of words. Are there any other levels of hierarchy we can observe in this sentence? Looking at the tree, we see that the subject NP and the object NP are sisters. This structure suggests that the subject and the object are symmetric. There are many subject-object asymmetries found in natural language, however. Let’s consider some of these. In the sentence John and Mary like each other the reference of the object each other is deter- mined by the subject John and Mary. Thus, when the object is a reciprocal pronoun, it can take its reference from the subject. We will discuss pronouns such as each other in considerable detail in Chapter 10. Consider, now the sentence *Each other like John and Mary. We see that 48 CHAPTER 3. PHRASE STRUCTURE AND CONSTITUENCY
Language Idiom Literal Meaning Idiomatic Meaning English kick the bucket die chew the fat have a conversation spill the beans tell a secret burn the midnight oil work late into the night to finally do something after Portuguese lavar a égua to wash the mare waiting a long time 對牛彈琴 to say something people can’t Cantonese to play the lute for the cow doei3 ngau4 taan4 kam4 understand or appreciate Persian pol-a-ro shekastan break bridges break off ties Mohawk tusayutháhahkwe’ someone picked up the road someone led the way
Table 3.1: Idioms from different languages
the opposite scenario does not hold. Namely, when the subject is a reciprocal pronoun, it cannot take its reference from the object. This is our first subject-object asymmetry. That is, subjects can determine the reference of an object pronoun, but objects cannot determine the reference of a subject pronoun. The next asymmetry involves the various thematic roles we discussed from Chapter 2. There, theta grids were presented as part of the lexical entry of the verb, in which the verb assigned specific theta roles to their arguments. The picture isn’t quite as simple as that, though. It turns out that the theta-role of subject often depends on verb and object together. In other words, the subject exhibits a thematic dependency on the verb and the direct object together as a unit. Consider the following examples.
(3.3) (a) John caught the ball. (b) Mary threw a ball. (c) John caught a cold. (d) Mary threw a fit.
In example (3.3 a), John is an
The cat’s out of the bag or The horse has left the barn. Although these idioms include the subject and the verb, they do not do so to the exclusion of the object. Idioms like the cat’s out of the bag tell us that the whole sentence (S) is a constituent. There are many other subject-object asymmetries. Some we will see in later discussions and others you will see if you undertake further studies of syntax. Taken together, these asymmetries suggest that the verb and the object form a constituent to exclusion of the subject. Observe that triangles are used as an abbreviation for the full structure.
(3.4) S
NP Aux VP
the bright student is V NP
writing a tough exam
We will now turn to some specific diagnostics or tests for constituency. In particular, we will adduce more evidence for the VP node. Chomsky (1957) assumed a VP node when he introduced phrase structure rules. The notion of a VP can be found in the works of Aristotle, who makes the distinction between a subject and a predicate, where the predicate consists of a verb and its object (if the verb is dyadic).
3.2 Constituency Tests
Recall example (3.4) from above. In this tree, the entire sentence is a constituent and so are the NP the bright student and the VP writing a tough exam. Although we will cover the concepts more thoroughly in the next section, let’s take a brief preview of some of the properties of the NP and VP that would lead us to conclude that they are indeed constituents. First, we intuitively feel the NP the dog is a constituent, since it is a participant in the sentence. When asked, who is devouring the bone? an appropriate response would be the dog. Also, this NP can be replaced by a pronoun: It is devouring a bone. As for the VP, it might feel less intuitive that it forms a constituent; however, when asked the question, what is the dog doing? an appropriate response would be, devouring a bone. These preliminary observations lead us to suspect that the NP and VP are constituents, as the tree structure indicates. Remember, since the dog is exhaustively dominated by NP and devouring a bone is exhaustively dominated by VP, these two strings of words are constituents, and should behave as such. On the other hand, the string the dog is devouring is not exhaustively dominated by a single node, so we do not expect this string of words to behave as a constituent in this example. If we are asked, what’s happening to the bone? a response such as the dog is devouring (with the intended meaning of the dog is devouring it) would not be an 50 CHAPTER 3. PHRASE STRUCTURE AND CONSTITUENCY appropriate response. Thus we are led to believe that the string of words the dog is devouring is not a constituent, which is consistent with the structure in (3.4). This discussion has illustrated an important point that students often miss. As generative syntacticians, we are trying to develop a model of syntax that predicts how language behaves. Our model is the tree structures and the notion of representing constituency with exhaustive domination. We test the model against observed data and the results of the constituency diagnostics (which are given in detail below). If our model is accurate, then those strings of words that are acting as constituents according to the diagnostics should be exhaustively dominated by a single node. In turn, we can look at our model to see which strings of words it predicts to behave as constituents. The tree in (3.4) predicts that the following are constituents.
(3.5) (a) the dog is devouring a bone (b) the dog (c) devouring a bone
The tree in (3.4), however, predicts that the following string is not a constituent.
(3.6) the dog is devouring
So far, our model appears to represent the data faithfully. We will continue to assume this basic model and adjust it from time to time to account for additional data that we uncover. We will now continue with various tests for constituency.
3.2.1 Pro-forms
The first test is often called the replacement test. Many constituents can be replaced by pro-forms. The notion that a constituent can be replaced by a pro-form is called the pro-form Criterion (Miller, 1992). Not all XP’s have appropriate pro-forms available to them, so, as with all tests for constituency, care must be taken in interpreting the results of this test. If this test reveals no appropriate pro-form for the string of words being tested for constituency, you may wish to try some other tests, first. So, while it is true that if a given string of words can be replaced by a preform it is a constituent, the converse is not necessarily true. That is, it is not necessarily the case that if a given string of words cannot be replaced by a pro-form it is not a constituent. Here are some common English pro-forms.
(3.7) Common English Pro-forms
(a) NP - pronouns: I, you, etc. (b) VP - so 3.2. CONSTITUENCY TESTS 51
(c) PP - there, then (d) AdvP - thus (e) AdjP - such, so
The following example gives some Korean pro-forms.
(3.8) (a) NP - pronouns: 그, 걔 (b) VP - 그렇다
NPs can be replaced by pronouns, as in the following examples.
The bright student is writing a tough exam.
She is writing a tough exam.
She is writing it.
VPs can be replaced by the pro-form so. as in the following example.
(3.9) John is writing a tough exam, and so is Mary.
Here, so replaces the string of words writing a tough exam, which means that this string of words is a constituent and, thus, must be exhaustively dominated by a single node when we draw the tree. This provides further evidence for the structure in (3.4) above namely where the string writing a tough exam, the verb and the object, form a constituent labelled VP, which does not include the subject (or the auxiliary). PPs can often be replaced with the adverbs there or then. Note that with is a tricky preposition, but PPs formed with with can sometimes be replaced by thus. This is illustrated in the following examples.
(3.10) (a) Terry peeled the potatoes in the kitchen. → Terry peeled the potatoes there. (b) Terry peeled the potatoes in the morning. → Terry peeled the potatoes then. (c) Terry peeled the potatoes with a knife. → Terry peeled the potatoes thus.
AdvPs can sometimes be replaced by thus, while AdjPs can sometimes be replaced by such (for attributive AdjPs) or by thus (for predicative AdjPs). Here are some examples. 52 CHAPTER 3. PHRASE STRUCTURE AND CONSTITUENCY
(3.11) (a) Maria sings rather beautifully. → Maria sings thus. (b) a very tall man → such a man (c) Mr. Jones is very tall. → ...and so is Mrs. Smith.
We are now ready to practice with a few sentences. Use pro-forms to determine whether the italicized strings of words are constituents in the following sentences. Answers are on page 53.
(3.12) (a) The linguist from Calcutta discussed ergativity in Hindi. (b) The linguist from Calcutta discussed ergativity in Hindi. (c) Arsalan drank wine in the basement. (d) Jila looked up the phone number. (e) Richard reads novels in the afternoon.
3.2.2 Stand Alone
If a string of words can stand alone as a well-formed utterance, then it is a constituent. Many (but not all) constituents are well-formed utterances by themselves. Consider the following ques- tion/answer pairs.
(3.13) (a) Who is writing a tough exam? → the bright student (b) What is the bright student writing? → a tough exam (c) What is the bright student doing? → writing a tough exam (d) What’s going on? → The bright student is writing a tough exam. (e) Where is the student writing the exam? → in the classroom
Observe that all but one of the constituents shown in (3.4) satisfies the stand alone test. The auxiliary is is a constituent, but cannot stand alone. “Is” by itself is not a well-formed utterance. Again, we must stress that not all constituents can stand alone, but all strings of words that can stand alone are constituents.
3.2.3 Coordination Tests
Only constituents of the same type can be coordinated. This test works well for virtually all types of constituents, unlike some of the other diagnostics, which only work well for certain types of constituents. Consider the following examples.
(3.14) (a) John ate [[NP a cake] and [NP an apple pie]].
(b) Mary went [[PP into the living-room] and [PP onto the couch]]. 3.2. CONSTITUENCY TESTS 53
(c) Minjoon [[VP ate an apple] and [VP drank some tea]].
In (3.14 a) the two NPs are coordinated into one large NP, and in (3.14 b) the two PPs are likewise coordinated. (3.14 c) show more evidence that a verb and an object together form a constituent. The following data show that phrases of different categories cannot be coordinated.
(3.15) (a) Minsoo is a doctor and a singer. (b) Minsoo is reading a book and drinking some tea. (c) *Minsoo is a doctor and drinking some tea. (d) *Minsoo is reading a book and a singer.
In the first example two NPs are coordinated, and in the second example two VPs are coor- dinated. In the third example, however, an NP is coordinated with a VP, and the sentence is ungrammatical. Likewise in the last example a VP is coordinated with an NP, and again the sentence is ungrammatical. The coordination diagnostic provides further evidence that the verb and the object together form a constituent, the VP. Since only constituents of the same category can be conjoined, we can test to see what kinds of things can be conjoined with a phrase such as reading a book. Here is the test sentence. Substitute X for other phrases whose categories are not in question.
(3.16) (a) Carlos is [[X] and [?P reading a book]].
(b) *Carlos is [[NP a magazine] and [?P reading a book]].
(c) Carlos is [[VP laughing] and [?P reading a book]].
The only lexical word in the phrase a magazine is a noun, so we can be certain that it is an NP. Also, it can be replaced by a pronoun, so are more certain it is an NP. Since the phrase laughing contains only one word, a verb, we can be certain that it is a VP. Since the phrase reading a book can be coordinated with a VP and not with an NP, it must be a VP, too.
(3.17) Answers to (3.12)
(a) s/he (b) so (c) there (d) not a constituent - no pro-form (e) then 54 CHAPTER 3. PHRASE STRUCTURE AND CONSTITUENCY
3.2.4 Movement Tests
In this section, we consider diagnostics in which a string of words is placed in different locations within a sentence. We will start by analyzing some English examples. Consider two structures under consideration for the sentence John put the cake in the oven. Note that the structures shown in this chapter will be revised in forthcoming chapters. For now, they will serve to illustrate how the movement tests work.
(3.18) Test Structures
S
NP VP
John V NP PP
put the cake in the oven (a) S
NP VP
John V NP
put the cake in the oven (b)
How do we choose between a. and b.? We see that the NP the cake and the PP in the oven do not form a single constituent in the a. example because there is no one single node that exhaustively dominates the string the cake in the oven. In the b. example, however, this same string does form a constituent because it is exhaustively dominated by NP node shown. We will use the movement tests described below to determine the correct structure for this sentence.
Clefting
The first type of movement test we explore is called clefting. A clefted sentence has the following form, such that X is always a constituent. There are some examples to the side in which the constituent in the X position is underlined. As you can see from the examples, NPs and PPs can be clefted in English.
It was X that Y It was the apple that Mary ate (3.19) It was the magazine that John read. It was into the kitchen that Hilda walked. 3.2. CONSTITUENCY TESTS 55
Let us use this test in the following two sentences to see if the underlined string of words are constituents or not.
(3.20) (a) John likes the lamp in the living room. (b) John put the cake in the oven.
To execute this test, we put the underlined string of words in the X position in the cleft. This gives us the following results, showing us that the underlined string of words in the first sentence is a constituent, but not the underlined string of words in the second sentence. This results of this test lead us to conclude that (3.18 a) is the correct structure for the sentence in (3.20 b).
(3.21) (a) It was the lamp in the living room that John likes. (b) *It was the cake in the oven that John put.
Now, let us consider the following ambiguous sentence, with the two paraphrases given below.
(3.22) Mary saw the child with binoculars.
(a) The child had the binoculars, and Mary saw him. (b) Mary used binoculars to see the child.
To understand these two readings a bit better, consider the following two questions.
(3.23) (a) Which child did Mary see? (b) Who did Mary use the binoculars to see?
Both of these questions can be answered by the statement in (3.22), with the respective meanings as given in (3.22 a) and (3.22 b), albeit with different intonation contours. Now, let us consider the structures for this sentence that distinguish between these two meanings. First let us see what happens when we try to cleft the relevant parts of the sentence.
(3.24) (a) It was the child with binoculars that Mary saw. (b) It was the child that Mary saw with binoculars.
Here, we see that the range of possible meanings has changed. In (3.24 a), we only get the reading in (3.22 a); however, in (3.24 b), we only get the reading in (3.22 b). Thus, in order to get the reading in (3.22 a), the string of words the child with binoculars is a constituent. To get the reading in (3.22 b), we see that this string does not form a constituent, otherwise (3.24 a) would still be ambiguous. (3.24 b) shows us that the child is a constituent, of course. Now we are in a position to draw the appropriate structures for the two readings of this sentence. 56 CHAPTER 3. PHRASE STRUCTURE AND CONSTITUENCY
(3.25) S
NP VP
Mary V NP PP
saw Det N P NP
the child with N
binoculars
Here, with binoculars modifies the VP, not the NP the child. So we get the meaning where Mary is using the binoculars to see the child. This is made clear in the following unambiguous paraphrases.
(3.26) (a) It was with binoculars that Mary saw the child. (b) It was the child that Mary saw with binoculars.
To get the meaning where the child has the binoculars (as in the paraphrase, It was the child with binoculars that Mary saw), the sequence the child with binoculars is a constituent. This is shown in the following structure, where the child with binoculars is exhaustively dominated by a single node, NP.
(3.27)
S
NP VP
N V NP
Mary saw Det N PP
the child P .NP
with N
binoculars Here, the child with binoculars is a constituent, so it is available for clefting. Note that the child by itself is no longer a constituent, so it is not available for clefting. (with binoculars is a constituent but there are independent reasons why it cannot cleft that we will see in Chapter 8). 3.2. CONSTITUENCY TESTS 57
The reason the ambiguity arises in this sentence is that the PP can adjoin either to the VP or to the NP. Cross-linguistically it is not common for PPs to adjoin to NP. In fact, if we compare the Korean equivalents for this sentence, the ambiguity becomes clearer. The sentence in (3.28 a) has the same meaning as the tree in (3.25), and the sentence in (3.28 b) has the same meaning as the tree in (3.27).
(3.28) (a) 영희가 쌍안경으로 아이를 봤다. Yenghuy-ka ssangankyeng-ulo ai-lul pw-ass-ta Younghui-nom binoculars-with child-acc see-pst-decl ‘Younghui saw the child with binoculars.’ (b) 영희가 쌍안경을 가지고 있는 아이를 봤다. Yenghuy-ka ssangankyeng-ul kaci-ko iss-nun ai-lul pw-ass-ta Younghui-nom binoculars-acc bring-comp have-prs child-acc see-pst-decl ‘Younghui saw the child with binoculars.’
Pseudoclefting
Pseudoclefting is another reliable test for constituenthood. A pseudoclefted sentence has the fol- lowing form, again such that X is always a constituent. There are some examples to the side in which the constituent in the X position is underlined. As you can see from the examples, NPs and PPs can be clefted in English. A pseudocleft must select the appropriate wh-word (question word what for things, who for people, etc.). Not only can NPs and PPs be pseudoclefted, but VPs can be pseudoclefted, too. When a VP is pseudoclefted some form of the verb do is required.
X is what/who/when/where Y (did) The apple is what Mary ate The boy is who Mary saw (3.29) Into the kitchen is where Hilda walked. Eat the apple is what Joshua did.
Korean has a similar pseudocleft construction that diagnoses constituency. It has the following structure, where X is a constituent.
∼ 것/사람/곳은 X이다 영희가 먹은 것은 사과다. 민수가 본 사람은 쌍안격 가지고 있는 아이다. (3.30) 규민이 일근 것은 내 재밌는 책이다. 철수가 사과를 먹은 곳은 부엌에서다.
Now let’s consider another example with a larger constituent. The following sentence strongly favours the reading in which the string of words in the blue teapot is a single NP constituent. (For now, ignore the alternative, rather bizarre reading in which Sandy was inside the teapot drinking tea.) 58 CHAPTER 3. PHRASE STRUCTURE AND CONSTITUENCY
(3.31) Sandy sipped on the tea in the blue teapot. → [The tea in the blue teapot] is what Sandy sipped on.
Returning to the examples we were discussing above, again we have evidence that favours the structure in (3.18 a) over that of of (3.18 b) for the sentence in (3.20 b).
(3.32) (a) *The cake in the oven is what John put. (b) The cake is what John put in the oven.
Again, this test shows that the string of words the cake in the oven is not a constituent, while the shorter string the cake is. Now for the ambiguous sentence we had above let us apply the pseudocleft test. In (3.33 a), the string of words the child has been pseudoclefted. This is possible with the structure in (3.25), but not with the structure in (3.27). This is because only in (3.25) is the child a constituent. As a consequence, (3.33 a) can only mean that the binoculars were used to see the child. Conversely, in (3.33 b), the child with binoculars is a constituent, which consistent only with the structure in (3.27). These are the same results we saw with the clefting diagnostics above.
(3.33) (a) The child is who Mary saw with binoculars. (b) The child with binoculars is who Mary saw.
Passive
We will look at passivization in more detail in Chapter 6. For now, let us concentrate on the main characteristics of passive constructions and how we can use them as constituency diagnostics. A passive construction is one in which what we conceptually understand to be the direct object of the sentence appears in the position of the subject. Now, observe that only NPs can be passivized. Thus, if a string of words can be passivized, it is a constituent. But, if string of words cannot undergo passivization, it may still be a constituent, just not an NP that is able to undergo passivization.
(3.34) (a) John bought a radio. (b) A radio was bought (by John). (c) Susan wrote on the paper. (d) *On the paper was written. (e) The paper was written on.
In (3.34 a), the string of words a radio is the direct object of buy. It is also an NP, and so can undergo passivization as in (3.34 b), where it appears as the subject of the sentence. The string of 3.2. CONSTITUENCY TESTS 59 words on the paper in (3.34 c) is a constituent, too; however, it is a prepositional phrase (discussed later) not an NP and therefore cannot undergo passivization, (3.34 d). Note that the NP the paper can be passivized, (3.34 e). Let’s return to the first piece of data we discussed above in (3.20 b). The structure in (3.18 a) predicts that the string of words the cake can undergo passivization, while the structure in (3.18 b) predicts that the string of words the cake in the oven can undergo this process. The results should be obvious now.
(3.35) (a) The cake was put in the oven. (b) *The cake in the oven was put.
As expected, the passivization test converges with the clefting and pseudoclefting test indicating that (3.18 a) is the correct structure for this sentence. Let’s consider another ambiguous sentence.
(3.36) Mary ate the cookies in the kitchen.
This sentence can mean that the kitchen is the place where Mary ate the cookies, or it can mean that it was the cookies in the kitchen that Mary ate (and not the cookies in the living-room, say). Consider, now, the following passivized sentence.
(3.37) The cookies in the kitchen were eaten.
Here, we only get the reading where in the kitchen modifies the cookies, not the eating. That is, we get the reading that it was the cookies in the kitchen that Mary ate (and not the cookies in the living-room). Thus, the string the cookies in the kitchen is a constituent. With this much in mind, we can sketch a rough tree for this reading of the sentence.
(3.38)
S
NP VP
N V NP
Mary ate Det N PP
the cookies P NP
in Det N
the kitchen 60 CHAPTER 3. PHRASE STRUCTURE AND CONSTITUENCY
Remember we will be revising these tree structures over the course of the discussion of the next several chapters. The main point here is that the string of words in red acts as a constituent and so must be rep-resented as such in the tree structurenamely, it must be exhaustively dominated by a single node.
In this structure the NP the cookies in the kitchen is a constituent and so is available for passivization. Convince yourself that this is the correct phrase structure for this reading by applying the other constituency tests above. Now, let us consider the reading where the kitchen is the location in which Mary ate the cookies. The passivized sentence above cannot have this reading. This tells us that the string of words the cookies in the kitchen is not a constituent under this reading. The following tree captures this fact.
(3.39) S
NP VP
N V NP PP
Mary ate Det N P NP
the cookies in Det N
the kitchen The string the cookies in the kitchen is not a single constituent. As such, this string of words cannot undergo passivization. The NP the cookies, of course, is available for passivization. At this point, you should be able to explain why the passivized sentence in (3.37) above is not ambiguous, while the active sentence Mary ate the cookies in the kitchen is. Let us now apply some of our constituency tests to a more complex sentence. Again, we will discuss the exact structures in more detail shortly. The following discussion is intended more to illustrate how to apply the constituency diagnostics to a new situation. Consider the following example.
(3.40) John will eat dessert in the garden on Tuesday.
Up until now, we assumed a flat structure to represent the verb phrase in a sentence such as this.
(3.41) VP
V NP PP PP
eat dessert in the garden on Tuesday 3.2. CONSTITUENCY TESTS 61
Let’s see if this structure is predicted by the constituency tests described above. We will start with a VP pro-form test in which we replace various strings within the VP with the pro-form so. Consider the following test sentence.1
(3.42) John ate dessert in the garden on Tuesday, and so did Mary on Wednesday.
Here, so refers to eat dessert in the garden. Furthermore, we can also say the following.
(3.43) John ate dessert in the garden on Tuesday, and so did Mary on the terrace on Wednesday.
Here, so refers only to eat dessert. Let us now work through the stand alone test. Consider the following examples.
(3.44)
What did John do? eat dessert in the garden on Tuesday What did John do on Tuesday? eat dessert in the garden What did John do in the garden on Tuesday? eat dessert
This test shows us that the strings of words in the right hand column above are all constituents. This is not reflected in the flat structure for the VP in (3.41). Clearly, we need a more articulated structure to capture these facts. Furthermore, recall from the previous chapter that verbs have a pre-specified number of arguments. This is listed in the lexical entry for each verb. Eat, requires a subject and an optional direct object. The prepositional phrases in the garden and on Tuesday are adjuncts not arguments of the verb. We use the following articulated structure to capture the results of the pro-form test above and to capture the fact that these PPs are not arguments of the verb.
(3.45) VP
VP PP
VP PP on Tuesday
V NP in the garden
eat dessert
One note-worthy feature of the structure in (3.45) as compared to the flat structure in (3.41) is pervasiveness of binary branching in (3.45). We will see that binary branching is a defining feature of current theories of structure building.
1Diagnostics of this sort can be traced back to at least Radford (1988). 62 CHAPTER 3. PHRASE STRUCTURE AND CONSTITUENCY
3.3 C-Command: A New Relation
In addition to relations such as mother, daughter, domination, etc. there is a relation called c- command that is the cornerstone of many syntactic properties (Reinhart, 1976). It is defined as follows. C-Command: A node α c-commands a node β, iff every branching node that dominates α also dominates β, and α does not dominate β.
Consider the following tree. What does each node in this hypothetical tree c-command (answers below)?
(3.46) A
B C
D E F G
H I J One application of c-command that we will take a much closer look at in Chapter 10 is the distribution of reflexive pronouns, (words like himself, herself, , etc.), which are called anaphors. We will take a brief look at the phenomena now to see how c-command works, but we will wait until Chapter 10 to really delve into the issues. Anaphors must be c-commanded by their antecedent. This restriction doesn’t hold for non-anaphoric pronouns, however (regular pronouns such as her, me, etc.). Consider the following data. Again, recall that the superscript numbers mean that John and himself refer to the same person.
(3.47) (a) John1 likes himself]1. (b) *John1’s mother likes himself1.
To understand why the anaphor is grammatical in in (3.47 a) but not in (3.47 b), consider the trees for these sentences to see the c-command relations between the elements in question. Note that we will consider the structure of possessives in more detail later, but the structure below will suffice for now.
(3.48) (a) S
NP1 VP
John V NP1
likes himself 3.4. BARE PHRASE STRUCTURE 63
(b) S
NP VP
NP1 ’s N V NP1
John mother likes himself
Observe that in (3.48 a) the antecedent John c-commands the anaphor; however, in (3.48 b), the antecedent does not c-command the anaphor. Although this notion is discussed in detail in Chapter 10, we will see the notions of c-command and anaphora in Chapter 4.
3.4 Bare Phrase Structure
If you review the trees above, you will notice a certain degree of uniformity in their structure. At the moment, however, we have no principled reason why trees are structured the way they are. We could just as easily draw the tree in (3.49 a) as we could the one in (3.49 b). We saw, however, that trees of the type in (3.49 a) don’t exist in natural language. What we need is a general theory of phrase structure that constrains how trees are built. This theory of phrase structure is known as Bare Phrase Structure (Chomsky, 1994).
(3.49) (a) S
NP VP
subject V NP PP PP
object adjunct adjunct
(b) S
NP VP
subject VP PP
VP PP adjunct
V NP adjunct
object
Before introducing Bare Phrase Structure, we need a bit of historical perspective. Bare Phrase Structure grew out of an earlier theory of phrase structure called X-Bar Theory. Under this 64 CHAPTER 3. PHRASE STRUCTURE AND CONSTITUENCY theory, all phrases take the shape in (3.50). Note the abbreviations Spec = specifier and Compl = complmentizer. The important details this schema are that the complement is the sister to the head (X) and that the specifier is immediate daughter of the maximal projection (the XP). Note that the specifier and the complement are phrases. Although these notions have theoretical significance only in X-Bar Theory, we continue to use the terms specifier and complement as terms of convenience to refer to locations in the tree.
(3.50) XP
Spec X′
X Compl
One property of phrase structure that X-Bar Theory captures is endocentricity - the notion that all phrases contain a head. That is, all VPs contain a verb, all NPs contain a noun, and so forth. In our formulation of Bare Phrase Structure below, we wish to retain this insight. In Bare Phrase Structure, phrases are built up by an operation called Merge, which takes two syntactic objects and merges them together into a single syntactic object. In the following example, X and YP are merged together. We keep to the simplest mechanism and assume that Merge always takes exactly two syntactic objects. The result is that all branching is binary.
(3.51)
X YP
We have to give the output of Merge a label. If a head merges with a phrase, as in (3.52 a), the label is always the same as the head. If two phrases merge, as in (3.52 b), then the situation is more complicated. The goal of Labelling Theory is to determine the label when any two syntactic objects are merged. Let’s look at our two situations.
(3.52) (a) XP
X YP (b) ?
ZP XP
In (3.52 a) X merges with YP, so X projects forming an XP. As mentioned, the situation for (3.52 b) is more complicated. We can rely on the distributional properties of the two syntactic objects undergoing Merge. So, if the ? in (3.52 b) has the same properties as XP, then the label is XP. Let’s take a concrete example. Say we have an AdjP very dusty and an NP pictures of John. If we merge these together, we examine the properties of the whole structure. 3.4. BARE PHRASE STRUCTURE 65
(3.53) ?
AdjP NP
very dusty pictures of John
Let’s examine the distributional properties of the ? in (3.56). First, a verb such as see takes an NP as a complement. The ? in (3.56) can appear as the object of a verb such as see.
(3.54) Mary saw very dusty pictures of John.
Recall from above that only phrases of the same category can be coordinated. Consider the following data.
(3.55) (a) Mary saw [magazines] and [very dusty pictures of John] (b) *The floors are [dirty] and [very dusty pictures of John]
Magazines is clearly an NP, and dirty is clearly an AdjP. We see that very dusty pictures of John can be coordinated with an NP, but not with an AdjP. So, we conclude that the label in (3.56) is NP.
(3.56) NP
AdjP NP
very dusty pictures of John
We end this section with a brief note on notation. A hold-over from X-Bar theory is the bar notation on intermediate projections. Adjuncts are adjoined above the maximal projection. We will not see concrete examples of specifiers until chapter 4, so we just present the notation here to recall for later.
(3.57) XP
YP XP
adjunct ZP X′
specifier X WP
complement 66 CHAPTER 3. PHRASE STRUCTURE AND CONSTITUENCY
Let’s look at another concrete example to see how phrase structure is built up. We will construct the phrase structure for the VP cut the cake with a knife. Note that the structure of noun phrases will be reconsidered in the next chapter, so we represent them as triangles here. First, the verb cut takes the object the cake as a complement. Since a head, V, merges with a phrase, NP, the head projects and the result is a VP.
(3.58) VP
V NP
cut the cake
Next, the preposition with merges with the NP a knife. Again, a head merges with a phrase, so the head projects.
(3.59) PP
P NP
with a knife
Now, the VP and the PP merge. The resulting phrase has the distribution of a VP, so the label for the entire phrase is VP. The complement is the sister to the head and is shown in blue. The PP with a knife is an adjunct and is shown in red. Observe crucially that the complement is the sister to the verb.
(3.60) VP
VP PP
V NP P NP
cut the cake with a knife
3.5 The Content of Lexical Categories
3.5.1 Noun Phrases
Determiners were once considered to appear in the specifier of NP (Jackendoff, 1977). We will consider how determiners fit into the structure of nominals in more detail the following chapter. Here, we will consider complements and adjuncts in noun phrases. 3.5. THE CONTENT OF LEXICAL CATEGORIES 67
NPs occasionally take complements. They are often difficult to tell apart from adjuncts, though. The difficulty lies in the fact that nominal complements (unlike verbal complements) are typically optional. The complement of an NP can be thought of as its object. It is usually a PP. The complement is seen as an integral part or specification of the head noun. Here are some examples of nouns with complements.
(3.61) Nouns with complements
book of poetry teacher of history box of chocolates love for syntax fear of mice the destruction of the city fondness for Matt the creation of Rome
In many of these constructions there is a thematic relation between the head noun and its complement that is consistent between the nominal and the verbal constructions. Consider the following examples.
(3.62) Comparison between verbal and nominal complements
Joe fears mice. Joe’s fear of mice mice is a
We represent the structure of fear of mice as follows.
(3.63) NP
N PP
fear P NP
of mice
Unlike complements, adjuncts are extra information about a noun that is not seen as integral. Consider the following examples in which the adjuncts are underlined. A tree for the first example is shown below. Recall that we will discuss determiners later.
(3.64) Nouns with adjuncts
the book in the kitchen a box with handles the dog in the backyard the green book the teacher from Russia the apple on the table
Here is the structure for the book of poetry in the kitchen. Recall that we will reconsider determiners later. 68 CHAPTER 3. PHRASE STRUCTURE AND CONSTITUENCY
(3.65) NP
NP PP
N PP in the kitchen
book of poetry
We now have a problem if there is an adjunct, but no complement. Recall that only the complement, which is selected by the noun, can be the sister to the head, N. Adjuncts are adjoined to NP. This gives us the following structure for the book in the kitchen.
(3.66) NP
NP PP
N in the kitchen
book
Observe that there is no binary branch between NP and N. Since Merge always gives rise to binary branching, we have no way to derive the structure in (3.66). We will see a similar problem for the VP below. In Chapter 4 we will solve the problem for the VP, but unfortunately, we will have to leave the problem with the unary branching in the NP aside. It can be tricky to determine whether a phrase is a complement or an adjunct to the noun. Complements must be adjacent to the noun; while adjuncts can often be freely ordered after the complement. In the following example, the complement, of poetry, must be adjacent to the noun, whereas the adjuncts, on the table and in the kitchen must appear after the complement and are freely ordered. See if you can relate this restriction to the properties of phrase structure discussed above.
(3.67) (a) the book of poetry in the kitchen (b) *the book in the kitchen of poetry (c) the picture of Mary with a black frame (d) *the picture with a black frame of Mary
Note also that adjuncts can be freely ordered.
(3.68) (a) the book of poetry on the table in the kitchen (b) the book of poetry in the kitchen on the table 3.5. THE CONTENT OF LEXICAL CATEGORIES 69
The strict adjacency between the noun and its object is due to the fact that the complement must be the sister to the head, N. Adjuncts, on the other hand, freely adjoin to NP once the noun has taken the object it selects. Here is the relevant structure.
(3.69) NP
NP PP
NP PP in the kitchen
N PP on the table
book of poetry
In English, the one-replacement test is also useful for distinguishing complements from adjuncts in the NP. One is used as a pro-form to replace a noun and its complement. In the following examples, the pro-form, one, can appear with an adjunct such as in the bathroom, but cannot appear with a complement such as of linguistics. Note that the ungrammaticality of the second example is felt weakly, so care must be exercised with this diagnostic.
(3.70) (a) the book of poetry in the kitchen and the one in the bathroom (b) ?*the book of poetry and the one of linguistics
Finally, observe that adjuncts can be coordinated with other adjuncts; and complements with other complements. However, an adjunct cannot be coordinated with a complement.
(3.71) (a) a book of poetry and of short stories (b) the books in the kitchen and in the bedroom (c) *the book of poetry and on the table
3.5.2 Verb Phrases
The specifier and complement positions of a VP are reserved for arguments. Direct objects appear in the complement position of a verb. We will deal with subjects and indirect object in the next chapter. Here are some examples of a verb and a complement.
(3.72) (a) eat a turkey (b) pass an exam (c) paint a picture (d) 사과를 먹다 70 CHAPTER 3. PHRASE STRUCTURE AND CONSTITUENCY
(e) 책을 읽다
(3.73) VP VP
V NP NP V
eat a turkey 사과를 먹다
Adjuncts to the VP express concepts such as manner, location and instruments, and so forth, and usually take the form of a PP or AdvP. As with all adjuncts, they are considered extra information that is not integral to the rest of the sentence. Note that in English adjuncts may appear either on the left or on the right. In Korean, however, adjuncts uniformly appear on the left.
(3.74) (a) eat a turkey on Tuesday (b) paint a picture quickly (c) always use a napkin (d) sweep the floor with a broom (e) 포크로 케크를 먹다 (f) 양심적으로 논문을 쓰다
Here are the structures for some of the VPs above.
(3.75) VP VP VP
VP PP AdvP VP PP VP
V NP on Tuesday always V NP 양심적으로 NP V
eat a turkey use a napkin 논문을 쓰다
We now have the same conundrum regarding the merger of adjuncts and complements for VPs as we saw for NPs above. Consider the following examples.
(3.76) (a) eat a sandwich in the bedroom (b) eat a sandwich (c) sleep in the bedroom
The derivation of the first two VPs is straight forward. The verb eat merges with a direct object and forms a VP in both cases. In the first case, the PP in the bedroom adjoins to the VP. The third example presents a problem, however. The verb cannot merge with the PP, otherwise the PP 3.5. THE CONTENT OF LEXICAL CATEGORIES 71 will be in the complement position. Let’s assume that the PP in the bedroom adjoins to the VP as it is an adjunct. We notate this VP as follows for now until we take up this issue again in the next chapter.
(3.77) VP
VP PP
V in the bedroom
sleep
3.5.3 Adpostional Phrases
Adpositions generally locate their complement in either time or space. Sometimes an adposition marks a special role on the complement such as benefactive or source. Consider the following examples. Adpositions take an NP as a complement. When the complement appears to the right of the adposition, the adposition is called a preposition. When the complement appears to the left of the adposition, the adposition is called a postposition. Consider the following examples.
(3.78) (a) on Tuesday (b) in the kitchen (c) for the customer (d) 부산에 (e) 그 사람에게 (f) 포크로
The abbreviation PP refers both to prepositional phrases and to postpositional phrases. Here are the tress for some of the examples above.
(3.79) PP PP
P NP NP P
on Tuesday 포크 로
3.5.4 Adjective Phrases
A number of adjectives can take complements in English. As with nominal complements above, there is a lexically encoded thematic relation between the adjective and its complement. Consider the following examples. 72 CHAPTER 3. PHRASE STRUCTURE AND CONSTITUENCY
(3.80) (a) proud of one’s children (b) afraid of mice (cf. to fear mice) (c) jealous of the neighbours
Here is the structure for an AdjP with a PP complement.
(3.81) AdjP
Adj PP
afraid P NP
of mice
3.5.5 Adverbial Phrases
Not all adverbs behave alike. There is actually quite a large diversity in the type of adverbials found in language. We will focus on two major types here, namely sentence-level adverbs and VP- level adverbs. Sentence-level adverbs modify the entire sentence. They often depict the speaker’s attitude towards the event or state described by the sentence or otherwise modify the event as a whole, including the subject’s participation in it. VP-level adverbs, on the other hand, modify only the predicate that is the verb and its object. They usually describe the manner in which the event is carried out or the frequency with which it happens. In the following examples, happily is used as a sentence-level adverb and as a VP-level adverb. In the first sentence, the speaker is asserting that John’s having left the building is a happy event. In the second sentence, the adverb describes the manner in which the leaving of the building took place.
(3.82) (a) Happily, John left the building. (sentence-level adverb) (b) John left the building happily. (VP-level adverb)
We will not worry about the internal structure of adverbial phrases here and will simply illustrate them with triangles. Here is an example of a VP-level adverb. Note that we will reconsider the structure of noun phrases in the following chapter.
(3.83) VP
VP AdvP
V NP happily
sing Det N
the song 3.5. THE CONTENT OF LEXICAL CATEGORIES 73
Key Concepts
• phrase structure - a representation of natural language that shows hierarchical relations and constituency
• phrase structure relations - the various relations between nodes in a syntactic tree: dom- inate, mother of, daughter of, sister of, exhaustively dominate, immediately dominate, c- command
• constituency - the notion that certain phrases that behave as a unit syntactically should be represented as a unit by being exhaustively dominated by a single node
• Bare Phrase Structure - a theory of phrase structure in which syntactic objects are built up by merging two elements together. This operation ensures consistent binary branching. 74 CHAPTER 3. PHRASE STRUCTURE AND CONSTITUENCY
Exercises
(3.1) Determine whether the italicized strings of words in the following sentences are constituents or not. You should try a variety of tests, both movement and non-movement if possible, to assure yourself. Some sentences may be ambiguous. Note that the coordination test will produce some contradictory results given our current understanding of phrase structure. Avoid the coordination test until after chapter 4.
1 John washed the dishes in the sink.
2 John placed the dishes in the sink.
3 Alice ate those apples quickly.
4 Alice ate those apples quickly.
5 Alice ate those apples quickly.
6 Susan went to Halifax on Monday.
7 Susan went to Halifax on Monday.
8 Susan went to Halifax on Monday.
9 Fred washed the dishes quickly.
10 Dexter gave the book to Sally.
11 Dexter gave the book to Sally.
12 Mary saw the boy with binoculars yesterday.
13 Mary saw the boy with binoculars yesterday.
14 Mary saw the boy with binoculars yesterday.
15 Mary saw the boy with binoculars yesterday.
16 Mary saw the boy with binoculars yesterday
(3.2) Draw trees for the VPs for each unique VP in the sentences in the question above. If any of the sentences is structurally ambiguous, draw all the relevant trees and give appropriate paraphrases.
(3.3) Consider the following sentence. 3.5. THE CONTENT OF LEXICAL CATEGORIES 75
• John ate the cake in the garden with a fork.
This sentence is multiply ambiguous. Try to figure out all the possible meanings and draw the relevant VPs. You will notice that the reading in which with a fork modifies the cake and the eating took place in the garden is not possible. That is, this sentence cannot be paraphrased as follows.
• /= It was the cake with a fork that John ate in the garden.
Why is this reading not possible?
(3.4) The sentence below contains a resultative phrase (flat). It means is that the metal became flat as a result of Peter hammering it.
• Peter hammered the metal flat in the basement.
Using the constituency diagnostics in this chapter, work out what you think the structure of the VP is in this sentence. Do you run into any problems or contradictory results?
(3.5) Consider the following Oneida data (Mithun, 2000), see p. 209 for more information on Oneida. What kinds of morphological markers distinguish verbs from nouns in this language? For this exercise, assume that agent marking (ag) corresponds to the subject and that patient marking (pat) corresponds to the object.
1 wakatol´ish2P wak-at-olish2-P 1sg.pat-srfl-rest-prfv ‘I’m resting.’
2 akw´ahtaP akw-aht-aP 1.sg.poss-shoe-nfs ‘my shoe’
3 kaPt´a:eks k-aPtaPek-s 1sg.ag-pound-prog ‘I am pounding it.’
4 wakk´alyas wakk´alyas 1sg.pat-bite-prog ‘It bites me.’ 76 CHAPTER 3. PHRASE STRUCTURE AND CONSTITUENCY
5 akehsi:s´aht akw-hsisah-t 1sg.poss-pestle-nfs ‘my pestle’
6 *wak´ahtaP wak-aht-aP 1sg.pat-shoe-nsf ‘(my shoe)’
7 *akw´ahts akw-aht-s 1sg.poss-shoe-prog ‘(my shoe)’
8 *k´ahtaP k-aht-aP 1sg.ag-shoe-nsf ‘(my shoe)’ 3.5. THE CONTENT OF LEXICAL CATEGORIES 77
Further Reading
• Carnie (2008) - This monograph discusses in detail advanced techniques and discussions of constituency diagnostics. It should be accessible after a full understanding of this chapter and chapter 4.
• Chomsky (1970) - This paper is where Chomsky first proposes the X-Bar theory of phrase structure, the precursor of Bare Phrase Structure.
• Chomsky (1994) - This paper is where Chomsky outlines Bare Phrase Structure. This reference should only be tackled after covering the fundamentals of a more advanced syntax textbook such as Adger (2003).
• Reinhart (1981) - This is one of the earliest discussions on c-command.
• Speas (1990) - This volume discusses adjuncts in detail and draws a distinction between adjuncts adjoined to XP (as done in this textbook) and adjuncts adjoined to intermediate X-bar projections (as done in X-Bar Theory). This source should only be tackled once the fundamentals covered in this book have been acquired.
• Stowell (1981) - This dissertation first proposes the basic architecture of sentence structure covered in this chapter. 78 CHAPTER 3. PHRASE STRUCTURE AND CONSTITUENCY Interchapter B: Applicatives
The core arguments of a verb are the subject, the direct object, and the indirect object. Other possible elements such locations, instruments, and other adjuncts are called obliques. In the following example the core arguments are Mary, the child, and a dumpling. The PP with chopsticks is an oblique.
(3.1) Mary gave the child a dumpling with chopsticks.
Oblique arguments are typically introduced into the clause with an adposition (as in the example above). The indirect object is a special case, which can be the topic of a seminar course. In short, the indirect object is considered a core argument in the sense that it is typically required with dyadic verbs such as give. Nevertheless it is sometimes introduced by an adposition. Consider the following Korean example. In both English and in Korean, the indirect object can be introduced in a PP, as below, or without an adposition, as above.
(3.2) 영희가 아이에게 젓가락으로 만두를 주었다. Yenghuy-ka ai-eykey ceskalak-ulo mantwu-lul cwu-ess-ta Younghui-nom child-to chopstick-with dumpling-acc give-pst-decl ‘Younghui gave a dumpling to the child with chopsticks.’
We will not worry about indirect objects here and will simply consider them a core argument. In both English and Korean with chopsticks is an oblique argument. It is never obligatory and is always introduced by an adposition. Consider, now, the following Swahili examples (Ngonyani, 1996).2
(3.3) Swahili Applicatives
(a) Baba a-li-kat-a mu-wa kwa ki-su father.1 1.sub-pst-cut-fv 3-sugar.cane with 7-knife ‘Father cut the sugar cane with a knife.’
2Note that in Bantu languages nouns belong to one of several classes identified by numbers. Humans are class 1 (singular) and class 2 (plural). These are identified by numerals on the noun (usually as prefixes) and on verbal agreement markers.
79 80
(b) mu-wa m-toto a-li-u-kat-i-a ki-su 3-sugar.cane 1-child 1.sub-pst-3.obj-cut-APPL-fv 7-knife ‘The sugar cane, the child cut with a knife.’
As in English and Korean, the instrumental oblique argument can be introduced by an adposi- tion, (3.3 a). However, it is also possible to introduce the instrumental argument as an applicative (appl), as in (3.3 b). Observe that in (3.3 b) the instrument (the knife) is no longer accompanied by a preposition, and there is an affix on the verb indicating that an applied argument now resides in the clause. Applicativization is said to be a valency increasing operation. Applicatives can have a wide range of interpretations. Consider the following data from Nden- deule. As Ngonyani notes, the applied object can be a benefactive, goal, malefactive, instrument, or motive, as shown in the following examples, respectively.
(3.4) Applicatives in Ndendeule (Ngonyani, 1996, p.18)
(a) mayi a-ki-Ba-tElEk-El-a Ba-na ch-akulya 1.mother 1.sub-pst-2.obj-cook-appl-fv 2-child 7-food ‘Mother cooked the children some food.’ (b) mbuya a-ki-Ba-kang-´i Ba-chOngOlO Ba-chikana 1.Grandma 1.sub-pst-2.obj-push-appl-fv 2-boy 2-girl ‘Grandma pushed the girls to the boys.’ (c) ma-yani Ga-ki-Ba-yOmOl-El-a ma-chi Ba-lumba 6-baboon 6.sub-pst-2.obj-finishappl-fv 6-water 2-hunter ‘The baboons finished the hunter’s water.’ (d) ma-Ganga Ba-ki-kayul-il-a ki-BeGa 6-stone 2.sub-pst-break-appl-fv 7-pot ‘The stones, they broke the pot with them.’ (e) Ba-lumba Ba-ki-hyem-el-a m-biya 2-hunter 2.sub-pst-hunt-appl-fv 10-money ‘The hunters hunted for money.’
Ndendeule and Swahili are Bantu languages, spoken in southern Africa. Bantu languages form a branch of the Niger-Congo family. As mentioned in the text Bantu lan- guages have complex nominal classifier systems and rich agreement. Zulu, Chichewa, and Shona are three other well-known Bantu languages. The map to the right shows the divisions of Bantu languages. Image source: I, Edric- son, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/ index.php?curid=2389970 81
Consider another example from Yagua (Payne, 1997, p.187). Observe that the instrumental oblique argument can be introduced either by a postposition or by an applicative affix on the verb.
(3.5) Applicatives in Yagua
(a) si-ichití-rya javanu quiichi-tya 3sg-poke-inan.obj meat knife-instr ‘He poked the meat with the/a knife.’ (b) si-ichití-tya-ra quiichiy 3sg-poke-appl-inan.obj knife ‘He poked something with the knife.’
Yagua (yad) is a Peba-Yaguan language spoken in Peru. It is a VSO language, but has postpositions rather than prepositions. This is rare for a verb-initial language (see Interchapter D). Image source: Chaparro Ortiz de Zevallos (2008)
In some languages, oblique arguments can only be introduced in an applicative construction. There is no option for an adposition as in English and Korea. Chaga, another Bantu language is one such case. Consider the following data (Ndayiragije, 2005, ex.31). Note that the final vowel, fv, is a morphological requirement on verbs in some Bantu languages. It does not play a role in the discussion here.
(3.6) Chaga Applicatives
(a) N-a-i-lyi-a k-élyà foc-3.sub-prs-eat-fv 7-food ‘He is eating food.’ (b) N-a-i-lyi-i-a my-ka k-élyà foc-3.sub-prs-eat-appl-fv 1-wife 7-food ‘He is eating food for his wife.’ 82
Further Reading
• McGinnis (2008) - A short review article on theoretical aspects of applicatives and how they relate to passivization. Parts of this article should be accessible after completing Chapter 6.
• Peterson (2007) - An extensive monograph discussing typological aspects of applicative constructions from a cross-linguistic perspective
• Pylkkänen (2008) - This monograph introduces a commonly accepted model of applicatives in generative syntax
• Kim (2011) - This dissertation discusses applicatives and external arguments in Korean Chapter 4
Developments of Phrase Structure
' $ By the end of this chapter you should:
• understand the arguments in favour of representing nominals phrases as DPs
• understand the arguments in favour of the projections TP and CP
• understand the structure of trivalent verbs
• understand the use and function of light verbs
• be familiar with light verb constructions in other languages
&• be familiar with the variety of ditransitive constructions in English %
In this chapter, we will refine many of the concepts of phrase structure that we learned in the previous chapter. The goal of this chapter is to expand our theory of phrase structure to be able to account for a broader range of data. In the first few sections of the chapter, we will re- evaluate the core structure of the clauses and see that additional functional categories are required to account for the properties of clauses we look at. In the second half of the chapter, much of the discussion will centre around trivalent verbs, which are difficult to account for given the state of phrase structure that we left off with in the previous chapter. In this chapter we will see how to use various diagnostics to argue for a particular structure.
4.1 DP Theory
Recall that the specifier of a phrase is itself another phrase. Consider now, the structure for noun phrases we have been assuming up until now. We have placed the determiner in the specifier of the NP.
83 84 CHAPTER 4. DEVELOPMENTS OF PHRASE STRUCTURE
(4.1)
NP
Det N
the cow The determiner can be a single word such as the, a, this, that etc. Since the determiner is a single word, it looks more like a head than a phrasal projection. Building on the parallel between determiners and verbal inflection, the following structure was proposed for nominal projections (Abney, 1987; Szabolcsi, 1983; Stowell, 1981; Bernstein, 2008). Here, the D head takes an N as a complement.
(4.2)
DP
D N
the cow Let’s review several lines of evidence in favour of this structure. Consider the following paradigm. Observe that the morphemes the and ’s (the possessive marker) are in complementary distribution. That is, only one can be present in the same DP. Let’s assume, for the moment, that both the and ’s are D heads. If there is only one D head per DP, then only one of these lexical items can be present in a given DP.
(4.3) (a) the hat (b) John’s hat (c) *John’s the hat
Before we continue, let us take a brief digression on possessives. We note that the possessor can be quite complex. In the following example, the possessor is the man I saw yesterday. This suggests that the possive marker ’s is not an affix on the noun but is rather a separate syntactic head that appears to the right of the possessor DP. Let us assume that the possessor appears in the specifier of DP.
(4.4) the man I saw yesterday’s hat
Compare the trees for John’s hat and the man I saw yesterday’s hat 4.1. DP THEORY 85
(4.5) (a) DP
DP D’
John D N
’s hat (b) DP
DP D’
The man I saw yesterday D N
’s hat
Furthermore, note that both D heads require a complement. To wit, the by itself is not an acceptable utterance. Below we will see that John’s is acceptable, but only if the complement is understood from the discourse. In an out-of-the-blue context it is not acceptable. We assume, then, the following lexical entries.
the D, c-selects NP ’s D, c-selects NP, DP
The next discussion on the structure of DPs requires an additional consitituency diagnostic. Gapping is a common phenomenon that is also available only to constituents. Consider the following examples.
(4.6) (a) Mary ate an apple, and so did John. (b) Mary ate an apple, but John did not
Recall that so is a pro-form that identifies the VP constituent. In the second example, there is no pro-form. There is only a gap where the VP would normally appear. Here, the gap identifies the VP constituent in this case. Consider the following data in light of the structures below. Which of the two structures is supported by the data given?
(4.7) I liked Fred’s picture of the Pearl Tower, but I did not like Joe’s . 86 CHAPTER 4. DEVELOPMENTS OF PHRASE STRUCTURE
(4.8) Bare NP Structure
NP
NP N PP
Fred’s picture of the Pearl Tower
(4.9) DP Structure
DP
DP D′
Fred D NP
’s N PP
picture of the Pearl Tower
In example (4.7), the gap replaces the sequence picture of the Pearl Tower. Which of the two structures in (4.8) and (4.9) best captures this observation? Since the string of words in question can be gapped, we conclude it is a constituent. It is only in (4.9) that this string is a constituentthe NP node. So far, the data considered point to (4.9) as the correct analysis for nominal phrases. Recall from the previous chapter that subject/object asymmetries were captured by positing a structure in which the subject asymmetrically c-commands the object. The possessor in (4.9) also asymmetrically c-commands the the PP complement of the noun. Because of this, possessors are sometimes thought of as ‘subjects’. It has been noticed that there are similarities between nominal constructions and verbal constructions that justify this “possessor as subject” point of view. Here, we will consider some ways in which the possessor acts as a subject. Consider the following data.
(4.10) (a) John destroyed the city. (b) John’s destruction of the city
John is an agent in both the full sentence and the nominal phrase. Now consider the following data.
(4.11) (a) Matt LeBlanc1 portrayed himself1/*2. (b) Matt LeBlanc1 portrayed him*1/2. (c) Matt LeBlanc1’s portrayal of himself1/*2. (d) Matt LeBlanc1’s portrayal of him*1/2. 4.1. DP THEORY 87
In both the sentential and nominal forms, himself must refer to Matt LeBlanc and him must refer to someone else. Note the use of the coreference numbers here. The asterisk in front of the 2 indicates the coreference with anything other than 1 (where 1=Matt LeBlanc in these examples) is ungrammatical. The asterisk in front of the 1 indicates that coreference with Matt LeBlanc is ungrammatical and that him must corefer to someone else. Thus, the possessor of a nominal expression acts like the subject of a sentence with respect to the behaviour of reflexives. To practice, consider the tree for the DP, the cat’s toy. Note that the possessor DP is shown in red to distinguish it from the DP as a whole. DP
DP D′
D N D N
the cat ’s toy
Next, we review some cross-linguistic evidence for determiners acting like verbal inflection. Some of the argumentation here is somewhat advanced, so do not be surprised if you do not understand all the concepts on your first go through. Consider the following Central Alaska Yup’ik example (Abney, 1987, p.39). The subject of a bivalent verb in Yup’ik appears with ergative Case (erg, see p. 202). In possessed nominals, the possessor also appears with ergative Case. Thus, possessors and subject have something in common in Yup’ik. They both appear with the ergative case. Thus, we can understand possessors to be the “subjects” of nouns.
(4.12) (a) angate-m kiputa-a-∅ man-erg bought-obj-sub ‘The man bought it.’ (b) angute-m kuga man-erg river ‘the man’s river’ [Central Alsaskan Yup’ik]
Central Alaskan Yup’ik (esu) is an Eskimo-Aleut language spoken in Alaska by about 10,000 people. In some communities it is still being acquired as a first language by children. A general shift to English has started in many communities, but revitalization efforts have been successful (Williams and Rearden, 2006). Central Alaskan Yup’ik is a polysynthetic language with complex suffixation. Word order is largely dependent on information structure, such as new information versus old information.
Consider, too, the following example from Cree. In Cree, roughly speaking, if both the subject and the object of the sentence is 3rd person, then the direct object typically appears with an 88 CHAPTER 4. DEVELOPMENTS OF PHRASE STRUCTURE obviative marker (obv, see p. 337). This marker is absent in a sentence such as I saw Mary because there is only one 3rd person. Since possessors are subjects, too, then a noun with a 3rd person possessor triggers obviative marking on the noun.
(4.13) Possessor Marking in Cree
(a) Peter k¯i-w¯apama¯aw Meri-wa Peter pst-he.sees.her Mary-obv ‘Peter saw Mary.’ (b) Meri o-nimis-a Mary her-sister-obv ‘Mary’s sister.’ [Cree] We have seen, then, considerable cross-linguistic evidence that possessors function like “sub- jects” of nouns. Keep this in mind for the discussion on clausal subjects below. The status of the DP in languages such as Korean that lack determiners is controversial (Bošković 2009). It has also been proposed that DP is universally present, but may encode proper- ties other than definiteness (Wiltschko, 2014). We will not cover the issues here for Korean, but will simply assume for uniformity that DP is present in Korean, even though Korean lacks determiners.
4.1.1 The Structure of Pronouns
In this section we take a closer look at the structure of pronouns. First, we can ask ourselves what category pronouns areN or D? Pronouns replace full nominal phrases, which we have shown above are DPs. They do not replace part of the noun phrase. They also cannot co-occur with determiners. Consider the following data. The nominal phrase and the pronoun that replaces it are in italics.
(4.14) (a) I saw the doctor. (b) *I saw the him (c) I saw him (d) books about linguistics (e) *them about linguistics
These facts can be replicated in several languages. The French pronoun, il, replaces the entire DP, le professeur intelligent, and not a portion thereof. The ungrammatical example, *le il, shows that il cannot replace just professeur intelligent, and the ungrammatical example, *il intelligent, shows that il cannot replace just le professeur.
(4.15) French Pronouns 4.1. DP THEORY 89
(a) Le professeur intelligent est arrivé the teacher intelligent is arrived ‘The intelligent teacher arrived.’ (b) Il est arrivé. he is arrived ‘He arrived.’ (c) *le il the he
(d) *il intelligent he intelligent
Likewise, in the Mandarin examples, the pronoun, t¯a,replaces the entire DP, nà ge xuésh¯eng. The ungrammatical examples show that it cannot replace just a portion of the DP.
(4.16) Mandarin Pronouns
(a) nà ge xuésh¯eng ch¯i le fàn that CL student eat prfv rice ‘That student has eaten.’ (b) t¯a ch¯i le fàn s/he eat prfv rice ‘S/he has eaten.’ (c) *nà t¯a dem s/he
(d) *nà ge t¯a dem cl s/he
These facts lead us to conclude that pronouns are D heads (Postal, 1969). Unlike determiners, which require an NP complement, pronouns do not. In many languages, however, pronouns can optionally appear with NP complements. Here are some examples from English, German and Cantonese. 90 CHAPTER 4. DEVELOPMENTS OF PHRASE STRUCTURE
Mandarin (cmn) is a Sino-Tibetan language and the most widely spoken language in the world. It is the official language of China and many other Chinese-speaking areas. It is spoken as a first language by much of the population of northern China. In southern China, many people typically speak a different Chinese language at home such as Cantonese, Hakka, or Wu, and learn Mandarin at school. Contrary to popular belief, there is more to the difference between Mandarin and the other Chinese languages than the pronunciation of Chinese characters. Cantonese (yue) is spoken in Hong Kong, Gwangdong province, and in many expatriate communities throughout the world. The grammar of Cantonese and Mandarin are similar, but there are many differences. Consider, for example, the sentence Is it their book? Observe that there are lexical differences between the two languages. Also, possession in Mandarin is indicated with a genitive marker, while possession in Cantonese is indicated with a classifier. (See page 91 for information on classifiers.)
Shì bù shì t¯a-men de sh¯u? 是不是他們的书 [Mandarin] be neg be 3-pl gen book ‘Is it their book?’
haih `m haih keúih-deih bún sh¯u? 係唔係佢哋本書 [Cantonese] be neg be 3-pl cl book ‘Is it their book?’
Cheng and Sybesma (2005) provides an excellent example of the differences in the grammar between four Chinese languages.
(4.17) (a) wir Sprachwissenschaftler we linguists ‘we linguists’ [German]
(b) ngo5-dei6 yu5.yin4-hok6-gaa1 我哋語言學家 1-pl language-study-nlzr ‘we linguists’ [Cantonese] The pronouns we, wir and ngo5dei6 can all appear with a noun following them. Based on these facts, we assume the following structure for pronouns.
(4.18) D DP D D
we D N 나 우리
we linguists 4.1. DP THEORY 91
4.1.2 Classifiers (advanced)
Many languages of the world divide nouns up into various classes. In Romance and Germanic languages (except English), these classes are based on gender and include feminine, masculine and (sometimes) neuter. In Algonquian languages such as Cree, these classes are based on animacy, and include animate and inanimate as classes. Languages with classifiers are similar, and may have several noun classes. Furthermore, nouns in these languages must always appear with a classifier in most cases. Some nouns in English appear with something that looks like a classifier (a head of cabbage, a clove of garlic), but most nouns do not require such classifiers (a dog, a pencil). We will consider two languages in detail here. The first is Cantonese. Like virtually all Chinese languages (including Mandarin, Wu, Hakka, etc.), nouns must appear with a classifier. The various classifiers are provided with several examples of nouns with which they appear. See if you can figure out what the defining characteristic is in each case.
(4.19) Cantonese Classifiers (Matthews and Yip, 1994)
(a) zoeng1: yat1 zoeng1 toi2 ‘a table’ yat1 zoeng1 zi2 ‘a sheet of paper’ yat1 zoeng1 dang3 ‘a seat, bench’ (b) zi1: yat1 zi1 bat1 ‘a pen’ yat1 zi1 dek2 ‘a flute’ yat1 zi1 fa1 ‘a stem of a flower’ (c) lap1: yat1 lap1 lau2 ‘a button’ yat1 lap1 tong2 ‘a candy’ yat1 lap1 dau2 ‘a bean’
The classifier zoeng1 is used for horizontal, flat surfaces, zi1 is used for long cylindrical objects, and lap1 is used for small objects. In all, there are about 40 classifiers in Cantonese. Classifiers appear as the head of a classifier phrase (ClP). Example (19) shows the tree for the DP ni1 bun2 syu1 ‘this book’, where bun2 is the classifier for books, magazines, newspapers and other printed matter. Another language with classifiers is Chichewa, data from Mchombo (2004). Like most Bantu languages, Chichewa exhibits a large number of noun classes 17 in particular, which includes a division between singular and plural as follows. Classes 1 and 2 are for animate objects (for the most part). Class 1 is for singular nouns and class 2 is for plural nouns. Examples from these two classes as well as classes 7 (singular) and 8 (plural) are shown here.
(4.20) (a) m-lenje m-kázi a-lenje a-kázi 1-hunter 1-woman 2-hunter 2-woman ‘hunter’ ‘woman’ ‘hunters’ ‘women’ 92 CHAPTER 4. DEVELOPMENTS OF PHRASE STRUCTURE
(b) chi-sa chi-tˇosi zi-sa zi-tˇosi 7-nest 7-chicken dropping 8-nest 8-chicken dropping ‘nest’ ‘chicken dropping’ ‘nests’‘chicken droppings’
As in most Bantu languages, the classifier triggers agreement throughout the noun phrase and on the verb in Chichewa (gloss simplified).
(4.21) chi-soti ch-ángá ch-átsópanó chi-ja chí-masangalátsá a-lenje 7-hat 7.sub-my 7.sub-new 7.sub-that 7.sub-please 2-hunter ‘That new hat of mine pleases the hunters.’
4.2 Tense Phrases–TP
Let’s consider, now, the structure of the sentence as a whole. We have seen that subject-object asymmetries, found in several of the world’s languages, suggests the following structure, where the subject DP is outside of the VP predicate.
(4.22) S
DP VP
This structure, however, is inconsistent with the principles of Bare Phrase Structure since the label of the merger of DP and VP is neither DP nor VP, but is rather something completely different. This problem was first noted by Stowell (1981), where he showed that (4.22) is also problematic for X-Bar Theory. Recall that when two elements are merged it is one of those two elements that projects. We have seen that the head of an NP is N, the head of DP is D, and the head of VP is V. What is the head of a sentence? To answer this question we will reconsider the VP pro-form tests. Consider the following data.
(4.23) (a) Susan watered the flowers and so did Paul. (b) So did Paul what?
We have to be precise about what so refers to here. Only (4.24 a) is a possible stand-alone answer to (4.23 b).
(4.24) (a) water the flowers (b) *watered the flowers
We see that the pro-form so replaces only the verb and its arguments. Note in particular that the verb is stripped of tense and agreement. Thus, the VP alone doesn’t contain any tense or 4.2. TENSE PHRASES–TP 93 agreement morphology. That is, tense and agreement are encoded outside the VP. The separation of tense and the VP is shown clearly in English progressives.1
(4.25) (a) Mary is eating an apple. (b) Mary was eating an apple.
Observe that tense is encoded on the auxiliary and not in the VP eating an apple. Note also that in Mandarin certain tense/aspect particles are syntactically distinct from the verb. Consider the following examples.
(4.26) (a) wˇo huì ch¯i pínggˇuo I fut eat apple ‘I will eat an apple.’ (b) wˇo zaì ch¯i pínggˇuo I prog eat apple ‘I am eating an apple.’ [Mandarin] Consider now the following Niuean data (Massam, 2020, p.28). Observe again that the tense marker is distinct from the verb. In particular in the first example the tense marker and the verb are separated by negation.
(4.27) (a) ne n¯akai fetataiaki e tua tagata pulotu... pst neg agree abs pl person expert ‘The experts didn’t agree...’ (b) To kai nakai e Moka e apala? fut eat q erg Moka abs apple ‘Will Moka eat the apple?’ [Niuean]
Niuean (niu) is a Polynesian language of the Austronesian family. It is spoken by 2000 people on the island of Niue and by a few thousand others in expatriate communities around the world. It is a verb-initial language, which you can read about in Interchapter D. Niuean has ergative case alignment. You can read about ergativity in Chapter 7.
We have seen cross-linguistic evidence that tense is sometimes encoded separately from the VP. Let’s consider further evidence form English that tense is distinct from the VP. Consider the following example, where the phrase watered the flowers is conjoined with must weed the garden.
(4.28) I [watered the flowers] and [must weed the garden].
1Note, though, that progressive morphology appears on the verb. The morpho-syntax of tense and aspect are complicated, and we will not address the issue in great detail here. For one approach, see Adger (2003). 94 CHAPTER 4. DEVELOPMENTS OF PHRASE STRUCTURE
Consider our current model of sentence structure. Observe that the second bracketed conjunct isn’t a constituent under this model.
(4.29) S
DP Mod VP
D must V DP
I weed D N
the garden
Let’s consider further the VP pro-form with modals and auxiliaries.
(4.30) (a) John washed the dishes, and so did Mary. (so = ‘wash the dishes’) (b) John will wash the dishes, and so will Mary. (so = ‘wash the dishes’) (c) John must wash the dishes, and so must Mary. (so = ‘wash the dishes’)
We see that the VP pro-form so replaces the string wash the dishes. In the last two examples the division is clear. In the first example, however, past tense is expressed on the auxiliary do with the VP pro-form, but in the source sentence it is expressed together on the verb. This is the mystery we will solve next. Let’s begin by looking at the constituent structure we need. Recall from (4.28) that the auxiliary and the VP form a constituent to the exclusion of the subject.
(4.31) S
DP ?
D N Mod VP
John must V DP
weed D N
the garden
In cases where past tense is expressed morphologically from the verb, we see that they, too, must have the same constituent structure. Recall that so replaces only the VP divorced from tense marking. 4.2. TENSE PHRASES–TP 95
(4.32) S
DP ?
D N Tense VP
John pst V DP
water D N
the flower
In languages such as English the head we have identified variously as Aux, Mod and Tense expresses both tense and agreement. It mediates the relationship between the subject and the predicate. Consider the following examples.
(4.33) (a) I am eating an apple. (b) I was eating an apple. (c) You are eating an apple. (d) You were eating an apple.
Observe that both tense and agreement are expressed together outside of the VP. We posit, then, that there is a syntactic head that mediates the relationship between the subejct and the predicate and expresses both tense and agreement. This head is commonly called T, for tense. See, in particular, Stowell (1981) for the original development of these ideas. We have, then, the following structure.
(4.34) TP
DP T′
D N T VP
John will V DP
wash D N
the dishes
Now we tackle the question of how to represent the simple past in English. Again, syntactically we have the following structure for John washed the dishes. Somehow, the T node and the V node coalesce morphologically to give rise to the form washed. 96 CHAPTER 4. DEVELOPMENTS OF PHRASE STRUCTURE
(4.35) TP
DP T′
D N T VP
John pst V DP
washed wash D N
the dishes These kinds of syntax-morphology mismatches are common in language. Consider the following Chichewa data. Chichewa is a Bantu language, which you read about on p. 80. Observe carefully that tense is indicated by tone change on the first prefix on the verb. Specifically, the form of present tense is a high tone.
(4.36) Grammatical Tone in Chichewa (Mchombo, 2004, p.10)
(a) Njovu zi-ma-ímb-íts-án-a mingóli 10.elephants 10.subj-hab-playcaus-recip-fv 4.harmonicas ‘The elephants were making each other play harmonicas.’ (b) Njovu zí-ma-ímb-íts-án-a mingóli 10.elephants prs\10.subj-hab-play-caus-recip-fv 4.harmonicas (prs=H tone) ‘The elephants make each other play harmonicas.’ [Chichewa]
We will eschew a complete discussion of how to handle these mismatches. Instead, we will make use of a rule of affix-hopping that puts the past tense affix on the verb (Chomsky, 1957).
(4.37) TP
DP T′
D N T VP
John -ed V DP
wash D N
the dishes 4.3. CP–THE COMPLEMENTIZER PHRASE 97
4.3 CP–The Complementizer Phrase
You may have come across an S’ projection in earlier studies as a place-holder for the complemen- tizer. As with S, S’ is not compatible with Bare Phrase Structure. In the following example, there is no head for the S’ node and, furthermore, there is no maximal projection for Comp.
(4.38) (a) John knows that Mary ate an apple. (b) S
DP VP
D N V S′
John knows Comp S
that DP VP
D N V DP
Mary ate D N
an apple
Here, the embedded clause is introduced by the complementizer that. Another English comple- mentizer is if. Consider the following examples with their Korean equivalents.
(4.39) (a) John thinks that Mary ate an apple. (b) John wonders if Mary ate an apple. (c) 영희는 민수가 사과를 먹었다고 생각한다. (d) 영희는 민수가 사과를 먹었는지 궁금하다.
The English and the Korean data above illustrate an important point. The verbs think and wonder, and their Korean counterparts, select a declarative and interrogative complement, respec- tively. The selectional restrictions, first discussed by Grimshaw (1979) fall into place if we adopt the same line of reasoning as above. Namely, let’s propose that the complementizer, C, projects to CP, following the Labelling Algorithm we discussed above. Since C is a head it must project when it merges with TP.
(4.40) CP
Cdecl TP 98 CHAPTER 4. DEVELOPMENTS OF PHRASE STRUCTURE
Remember the label is merely a copy of the head. It contains the same information. Now, let’s consider this in light of the subcategorization frames of the verbs think and wonder.
(4.41) (a) THINK: V, decl (b) WONDER: V, int
These facts fall into place now if we assume CP and TP. Observe that the verb know selects a declarative CP as a complement.
(4.42) CP
C TP
DP T′
D N T VP
John V CP
knows C TP
that DP T′
D N T VP
Mary V DP
ate D N
an apple
Note that the matrix clause has a CP even though there is no overt complementizer. We propose more specifically that the C head encodes whether the clause is a statement or a question. This is the illocutionary force of the clause. It indicates how the speaker intends the addressee to accept the proposition. Namely as a statement or as a question or so forth. For simplicity, we will mention only four types of illocutionary force, and will analyze only two of them. Here are some English and Korean examples.
(4.43) Examples of Illocutionary Force
(a) Declarative: Mary ate an apple. 영희가 사과를 먹었다. (b) Interrogative: Did Mary eat an apple? 영희가 사과를 먹었니? 4.3. CP–THE COMPLEMENTIZER PHRASE 99
English Korean declarative statements that 다(고) interrogative questions if, whether 니, 는지, 냐(고), 까 imperative commands 라(고), 오 hortative suggestions Let’s 자, 다
Table 4.1: Types of Illocutionary Force
(c) Imperative: Eat an apple! 사과를 먹어라! 사과를 드십시오 (d) Hortative: Let’s eat an apple. 사과를 먹자. 사과를 먹읍시다.
All sentences have some kind of illocutionary force, so CP is always projected in every clause.2
4.3.1 Topics and Focus
Although English is an SVO language, often we also observe other word orders.
(4.44) (context: You’re going through your vacation photos and are describing where you took which photo.) This picture I took at Halla Mountain. This picture I took on U-do. This picture I took on the boat to Mara-do...
Notice that the object is now at the beginning of the sentence. We say that the phrase this picture is a topic. Topics in English typically appear at the front of the clause. A topic is something that is already part of the discourse. That is, it is old information, not new information. In addition to encoding illocutionary force, CP also encodes information structure, which includes old versus new information. Thus, topics appear in the specifier of CP. Consider the tree for the sentence Beans I like. The DP beans appears in the specifier of CP. We must remember that the DP beans is semantically the direct object of the verb like and still bears a
2We will have to amend this claim in later chapters, where we will see that some non-finite clauses do not have a CP. 100 CHAPTER 4. DEVELOPMENTS OF PHRASE STRUCTURE
(4.45) CP
′ DPi C
D N C TP
beans D T′
I T VP
V ti
like
Topics in Korean are typically marked with 은/는. Note that the topic of the sentence and the subject of the sentence are two BOBBY: Basketball I different concepts. Consider the following example. can take or leave. PEGGY: Honey, don’t (4.46) (a) 민수가 사과를 먹었다. you mean “I can take or 민수와 영희가 뭐 먹었어? (b) leave basketball?” ‑ 민수는 사과를 먹었어. 영희는 몰라. BOBBY: No, Mom, (c) 사과와 오랜지를 누가 먹었어? Garry taught me this. ‑ 사과는 민수가 먹었어. 오랜지는 몰라. It’s the cool new way people from Arizona The first sentence is a baseline sentence. In the second sentence talk. You want I should the first speaker brings Minsoo and Younghui into the conversation. teach you? The second speaker refers back to Minsoo using topics marking. In (King of the Hill episode the third sentence the speaker bring an apple and an orange into KOH209 “The Unbear- the conversation. Here the second speaker refers back to the apple able Blindness of Lay- with topic marking.3 ing”) We mention focus marking only briefly here as it is another property encoded by C. In English, focus marking is often indicated by stress, but movement is optional in most cases. We use capital letters to indicate stress. Consider the following examples.
(4.47) (a) John ate an apple. (b) JOHN ate an apple. (not Mary)
3There are several kinds of topics in languages around the world. Learners of Japanese will note that the Japanese topic marker -wa and the Korean topic marker do not have the same distribution. For a good overview of the different kinds of topics see Cruschina (2011). 4.3. CP–THE COMPLEMENTIZER PHRASE 101
(c) John ate AN APPLE. (not an orange)
The first sentence is the baseline sentence. In the first sentence, John ate an apple. Other people may have eaten an apple, too. John may have eaten other things, too. Negative-marked focused items do move to the front of the sentence in English.
(4.48) (a) Never again will I eat raw spaghetti! (b) cf I won’t eat raw spaghetti again. (c) *I will eat raw spaghetti never again!
4.3.2 Embedded Topics and Focus (advanced)
We also know that complementizers appear in C. What happens if we have a topic in an embedded clause? The model above predicts that the topic appears before the complementizer, since the topic is in SpecCP. If we look at the following sentence, however, we see that the prediction fails.
(4.49) You know that, this behaviour, we will not tolerate.
(4.50) *VP
V CP
know DP C′
this behaviour C TP
that we will not tolerate
There is no way to place the topic in the specifier of CP and still have it appear to the right of the complementizer. On the basis of this observation (and additional data in Italian that we will not discuss here), it has been proposed that the CP layer must be more finely articulated. We call this articulated CP a split CP, following work by Rizzi (1997, 1999)). The structure Rizzi proposed for the CP is as follows.
(4.51) CP = ForceP > (TopP) > (FocP) > FinP
The Force Phrase (ForceP) is location of illocutionary force (see Table 4.1). Recall also that certain verbs select clauses with a specific illocutionary type. Thus, the illocutionary force is predicted to be encoded on the highest head in the CP layer. Here are some examples.
(4.52) (a) I wonder what Mary ate. 102 CHAPTER 4. DEVELOPMENTS OF PHRASE STRUCTURE
(b) *I wonder that Mary ate an apple. (c) I suppose that John will travel to Montreal. (d) *I suppose where John will travel.
The Finiteness Phrase (FinP) is where the finite/non-finite distinction is encoded. It is realized in English as the prepositional complementizer for in some non-finite contexts. Since we deal with non-finite constructions later, we put off our discussion of these constructions until then. For now, we will consider a few non-finite clauses to illustrate the FinP.
(4.53) (a) For him to win the race would be amazing. (b) I want (very much) for him to win the race. (c) I would prefer for Tracy to win the race.
For always selects a non-finite TP. Romance languages also have Finiteness heads. They are often the equivalents of the prepositions to or of.
(4.54) Pierre commence à manger. 3sg inf Pierre start. to eat. [French] ‘Pierre is starting to eat.’ (4.55) O João gosta de comer maçãs. 3sg inf the John like. of eat. apples [Portuguese] ‘John likes to eat apples.’ The non-finite marker de selects an infinitive. [+Finite] Fin selects a tensed T. The topic phrase, TopP, is optional and appears only when there is a topic in the sentence. The topicalized XP appears in SpecTopP. The focus phrase, FocP, will be discussed in a later chapter. We are now ready to draw the tree for the following sentence.
(4.56) You know that, this behaviour, we will punish severely.
Note that the CP is split into its components only if necessary. For convenience, we simply use CP if only one syntactic object appears in the CP layer. This is merely a notational convenience to save space, however. It is assumed that the full split CP is always present. This is shown nicely in the following tree, where the matrix CP does not need to be shown in its split form, but the embedded CP must be split to show both the topic and the complementizer. 4.4. DITRANSITIVE CONSTRUCTIONS 103
(4.57) CP
C TP
D T′
you T VP
V ForceP
know Force TopP
′ that DPi Top
D N Top FinP
this behaviour Fin TP
D T′
we T VP
will VP Adv
V ti severely
punish
4.4 Ditransitive Constructions
Before we undertake the study of ditransitive constructions we have to clarify some terminology. Transitivity is a property of sentences. An intransitive sentence contains one argument. A transitive sentence contains two arguments. A ditransitive sentence contains three arguments. Here are some examples.
(4.58) (a) Mary laughed. - intransitive sentence (b) Pat chopped an apple. - transitive sentence (c) John gave Susan a book. - ditransitive sentence
The number of arguments a particular verb tends to appear with is called the valence or adicity of the verb. There are two sets of terms that are used interchangeably. We will use the first set of terms hereafter. Examples are below. 104 CHAPTER 4. DEVELOPMENTS OF PHRASE STRUCTURE
(4.59) (a) laugh - monovalent or monadic (b) chop - bivalent or dyadic (c) give - trivalent or triadic
So, a monovalent verb takes only a subject (John laughed), and a bivalent verb takes a subject and an object (John saw Mary). A trivalent verb takes a subject, direct object, and an indirect object (John gave Mary a book), with the partial lexical entry as indicated. Until now, we haven’t discussed trivalent verbs in any great detail. The traditional structure assumed for trivalent verbs is the ternary branching structure shown in the following example. Although we have adopted a framework which does not admit ternary branching, let us start with this model to see what kinds of predictions it makes.
(4.60) GIVE: V; DP, PP/DP
(4.61) VP
V DP PP
give D N P DP
the book to D N
Mary
We are going to look at these structures in more detail to see if maintaining a ternary branching structure captures the empirical facts concerning these constructions, or if some other structure does better a better job. It is instructive to consider why a ternary branching structure as in (4.61) was first adopted. This structure has some intuitive appeal since both the DP the book and the PP to Mary are arguments of the verb. That is, they are both selected by the verb give. Recall that the object of a verb appears in the complement position. Since give has two objects, it stands to reason that it should have two complements. In other words, the PP to Mary should not be an adjunct attached to an intermediate VP node the same way the PP on Tuesday would. The ternary structure predicts symmetric behaviour between the two complements. We will see shortly that there are several asymmetries between the two complements (as noted by Barss and Lasnik, 1986). For now, we restrict ourselves to double object constructions (DOC) ditransitives with two DPs. The following argumentation was originally set up by Barss and Lasnik (1986). The proposal we present here was first argued for by Larson (1988). Consider the following data.
(4.62) (a) I showed John himself (in the mirror). (b) *I showed himself John (in the mirror). 4.4. DITRANSITIVE CONSTRUCTIONS 105
(c) I showed the two professors each other’s students. (d) *I showed each other’s students the two professors.
We see here that the first object can refer to a reflexive pronoun in the second object, but not vice versa. Recall from the first chapter that an antecedent must c-command the reflexive pronoun which refers to it. Thus, in the sentences in example (4.62) the first object c-commands the second object, but not vice-versa. The next set of data concerns bound variable pronouns. A variable is any element whose value changes with its context. All variables must be bound by some element that defines its value. We will discuss the notion of binding in much more detail later, but for now we will just use a simple definition. We say that the quantifier must bind the pronoun in order to get the reading that matches up each student with their missing book in the example below. In order for a quantifier to bind a pronoun, the quantifier must c-command it.
(4.63) Every student forgot their book.
In this example every student binds the pronoun their. Another way to say this is as follows.
(4.64) For every x, x a student, x forgot x’s book.
For example, Mary forgot her book, John forgot his book, Fred forgot his book, and so forth for all the students in the relevant context. Consider now the following data.
(4.65) (a) I denied each worker their paycheque. (b) *I denied its recipient each paycheque. (c) I showed every trainer their lion. (d) *I showed its trainer every lion.
Observe that one of the objects is a quantified phrase (each X or every X) and the other object contains a variable. Again, the quantifier in the first DP successfully binds the variable in the second DP, but not vice versa. This observation can be explained if we assume the first DP c- commands the second DP, but the second DP does not c-command the first DP. In other words, the first DP asymmetrically c-commands the second DP. The next set of data we will look at makes use of negative polarity items (NPIs), such as anyone, in the upcoming example. NPIs must be c-commanded by negation or by a yes/no question operator.
(4.66) (a) I didn’t see anyone. (b) Did you see anyone? 106 CHAPTER 4. DEVELOPMENTS OF PHRASE STRUCTURE
(c) *I saw anyone. (≠ I saw no one/someone)
When we apply these facts to double object constructions, we observe the following.
(4.67) (a) I gave no one anything. (b) *I gave anyone nothing. (c) I sent no presents to any of the children. (d) *I sent any of the presents to none of the children.
Again, we see the same pattern. The first DP, which contains some negative marker, asym- metrically c-commands the second DP, which contains an NPI. In all three cases, the first DP asymmetrically c-commands the second DP. Consider the following trees.
(4.68) VP VP VP
V DP1 DP2 V XP VP DP2
DP1 DP2 V DP1
Notice that in none of these trees does DP1 asymmtrically c-command DP2. Recall that we assumed the arguments of a predicate are merged in the complement and specifier position. This gives us the following structure.
(4.69) VP
DP1 V′
V DP2
Now the first DP asymmetrically c-commands the second DP. However, the verb is in the wrong spot. We will discuss the word order problem shortly. Larson’s proposal to adopt the structure in (4.69) was subsequently amended according to a proposal by Kratzer (1996). Kratzer, following Marantz (1984) suggested that the external argument is thematically independent from the VP predicate and is introduced by a light verb. The light verb, indicated by v, is the topic of the next section, but we present the structure here to show the derivation of a trivalent verb. 4.4. DITRANSITIVE CONSTRUCTIONS 107
(4.70) vP
v VP
′ givei DP V
Mary V DP
ti a book
The verb raises from V to v and leaves a trace as we saw above. The light verb allows us to resolve an issue with unary branching. Recall the problem illustrated by the following data.
(4.71) (a) eat an apple quietly (b) sneeze quietly
Before we introduced vP we had the following structure for these VPs. Note that the transitive construction does not raise any problems.
(4.72) VP
VP Adv
V DP quietly
eat D N
an apple
The problem, of course, is with the intransitive construction. Recall that we had to use unary branching to make sure the adverb was an adjunct. The formulation of Merge that we adopted above, though, does not allow for unary branching.
(4.73) VP
VP Adv Unary branching V quietly
sneeze Once we add the light verb to the structure, the adverb can easily adjoin to vP without having to resort to unary branching. 108 CHAPTER 4. DEVELOPMENTS OF PHRASE STRUCTURE
(4.74) vP
vP Adv
v V quietly
sneezei ti
We now discuss what light verbs are.
4.5 Light Verbs
Light verbs, indicated by v, appear with all active ditransitive and bivalent verbs and with most monovalent verbs. The lexical verb always raises to v in active voice. (We cover passives later, where the structure is slightly different.) Here are two examples.
(4.75) vP vP
v VP v V
eati ti DP sneezei ti
D N
an apple
Until now, we have been assuming that subjects are merged into the specifier position of TPs. We must ask ourselves, though, how the subject is assigned a θ-role. Consider the following data, first discussed by Marantz (1984).
(4.76) (a) John threw a rock. John is an
(4.77) (a) Alice caught the thief. Alice is an
The following examples show how the meaning of the predicate can change the meaning.
(4.78) (a) John killed the tree. (b) John killed the evening. (=John wasted the evening) (c) John killed the conversation. (=John dampened the conversation) 4.5. LIGHT VERBS 109
The lexical meaning of kill varies with the object. Thus, if the object is a living organism, kill means roughly ‘cause to die’. If the direct object is a time span, it means ‘waste’. And if the direct object is a social activity, it means ‘dampen’. Again, this variation never happens between a verb and its subject. So, while the subject must receive a θ-role, it does not receive one from the verb itself. We say the subject is ‘severed’ from the verb. To capture these facts, we can say v is responsible for assigning the external θ-role, that is the θ-role to the external argument. Below we will see more arguments in favour of merging the subject below the Specifier of TP. Below, then, are the lexical entries for v and for give.
(4.79) (a) v: VP, DP
(b) GIVE: V, DP
Let us now examine our results. Consider the tree for a simple sentence such as The girl saw a dog.
(4.80) vP
DP v′
D N v VP
the girl sawi V DP
ti D N
a dog
Recall from the discussion on trivalent verbs that the verb raises to v.4 We call any kind of upward movement like this raising. We say V raises to v. When any kind of movement operation takes place, we must record in the tree where the object moved from. This is done by leaving a trace, t, in the original position of the moved object. The trace and the moved object must be labelled with an index to identify which entity moved where. By convention, the first trace of movement is labelled with a subscript «i». Additional traces are labelled j, k, l, etc. Consider the following sentence and its accompanying tree.
(4.81) (a) Mary is reading a book.
4Note that in the context of syntax trees the verb raise is used as a monovalent verb. Outside of this context raise is bivalent. 110 CHAPTER 4. DEVELOPMENTS OF PHRASE STRUCTURE
(b) CP
C TP
′ DPi T
D N T vP
′ Mary is ti v
v VP
readingj V DP
tj D N
a book
If the external argument is indeed introduced in the specifier of vP it must raise to the specifier of TP in English. Observe that the subject appears to the left of the auxiliary in English. There is independent empirical evidence that the external argument raises from SpecvP to SpecTP. Consider the following data (based on Sportiche, 1988)
(4.82) Floated Quantifiers in English
(a) All the children have tasted the chocolate. (b) The childrent have all tasted the chocolate.
The subject in the first sentence is all the children. The quantifier all can and the rest of the subject the children can be discontinuous as in the second sentence. When the quantifier is displaced this way it is called a floated quantifier. We assume the following structure for a quantified nominal.
(4.83) QP
Q DP
all D N
the children
The floated quantifier construction is derived as follows. 4.6. ARGUMENT STRUCTURE ALTERNATIONS 111
(4.84) CP
C TP
′ DPi T
D N T vP
the children have QP v′
Q ti v VP
all tastedj V DP
tj D N
the chocolates
External Argument Internal Argument introduced by v introduced by V subject (in active voice) direct and indirect objects (in active voice)
4.6 Argument Structure Alternations
In this section, we will explore further some of the empirical facts about ditransitive shifted con- structions and argument structure alternations in English. We will consider the structure of dative shift constructions, but we will not worry about the precise structures of the other constructions in this textbook.
4.6.1 Dative Shift
Some trivalent verbs in English can typically undergo dative shift. Consider the following exam- ples.
(4.85) (a) Mary gave a book to John. - oblique dative (b) Mary gave John a book. - double object construction (c) Mary explained the answer to John. - oblique dative (d) *Mary explained John the answer. - double object construction not possible 112 CHAPTER 4. DEVELOPMENTS OF PHRASE STRUCTURE
The precise characterization of which verbs participate in dative shift is debated (Payne, 2010; Pinker, 1989; Harley, 2002; Zwicky and Pullum, 1986; Storm, 1977). One rule of thumb that has been proposed is that Germanic verbs can participate in this alternation, while Latinate verbs cannot. There are many exceptions, however. Offer is Latinate but can participate in Dative shift offer him a book/offer a book to him. Other proposals link the availability of dative shift to the metrical properties of the verb. Monosyllabic verbs and disyllabic verbs with the stress on the first syllable can participate in dative shift, while disyllabic verbs with stress on the second syllable cannot. We will not try to settle the matter here, nor will we worry about the precise analysis. Instead, we will simply assume that the two arguments are merged in VP in either order for verbs that can participate in dative shift. Thus, we have the following VP structures for give.
(4.86) VP VP
DP V′ DP V′
a book V PP Mary V DP
give P DP give a book
to Mary
4.6.2 Spray-Load Alternations
Consider the following sentences.
(4.87) (a) Susan sprayed paint on the wall. (b) Susan sprayed the wall with paint. (c) Alice loaded the truck with hay. (d) Alice loaded hay onto the truck. (e) Peter blamed the accident on Terry. (f) Peter blamed Terry for the accident. (g) George spread the cake with icing. (h) George spread icing on the cake.
These constructions blur the argument/adjunct distinction. There are two VP-internal phrases, either of which can appear as the direct object. The other phrase appears as a PP. Often, one phrase is a
4.6.3 Benefactive Alternation
Consider the following sentences.
(4.88) (a) John made a quiche for Kyumin. (b) Younghui peeled a banana for Marg. (c) Curtis prepared a snack for Alison.
The benefactive for-phrases are normally viewed as adjuncts, since they are not necessary to saturate the theta-grid of the predicates involved. Observe that they can be absent from the sentence without any degradation in acceptability.
(4.89) (a) John made a quiche. (b) Younghui peeled a banana. (c) Curtis prepared a snack.
Consider, however, the following versions, where the benefactive argument has shifted into direct object position.
(4.90) (a) John made Kyumin a quiche. (b) Younghui peeled Marg a banana. (c) Curtis prepared Alison a snack.
It seems as though English allows optional benefactives to appear in the argument structure of predicates. Again, the precise details of this will not be a matter of discussion in this manuscript.
4.7 Light Verbs in Other Languages
Here we look briefly at languages that exhibit overt light verbs. Light verbs typically appear in many constructions and are carry very little meaning, if any. Consider the following Mandarin predicates.
(4.91) (a) dˇap¯entì ‘to sneeze’ (b) dˇah¯aqian‘to yawn’ (c) dˇadi¯anhúa ‘to phone’ (d) dˇazˇi ‘to type’ 114 CHAPTER 4. DEVELOPMENTS OF PHRASE STRUCTURE
The form dˇain Mandarin is often used a light verb. When it is used alone, it is a lexical verb meaning ‘hit’, but in the constructions above, it is a light verb, v, which carries no meaning and serves only to introduce an external argument. Consider now the following set of Urdu data (see p. 316), which shows a similar phenomenon (Butt and Geuder, 2003).
(4.92) (a) yaasiin-nee keek khaa lii-yaa Yassin.textscm.erg cake.m.nom eat take-prfv.m.sg ‘Yassin ate the cake (completely, for the benefit of himself).’ (b) naadyaa-nee xat likh dii-yaa Nadya.fem-erg letter.m.nom write give-prfv.m.sg ‘Nadya wrote a letter (completely).’ (c) naadyaa aab th-ii Nadya.f.nom come sit-prfv.f.sg ‘Nadya has arrived.’ (d) naadyaa gaa pa-ii Nadya. sing fall-prfv.f.sg ‘Nadya burst into singing (fell to singing).’ (e) naadyaa gir ga-yii Nadya.f.nom fall go-prfv.f.sg ‘Nadya fell (down).’ [Urdu] We observe here a small set of light verbs with a semantically bleached meaning (shown in bold face). Note that the main lexical verb provides the core meaning of the sentence. The light verbs merely adjust the meaning slightly. In Korean hata (하다) is the most common light verb. Other light verbs in Korean include doyta (되다) and sulepta (스럽다). In the following examples, the meanings of the verbs are carried by the lexical roots. The light verb simply carries the inflectional morphology.
(4.93) (a) sayngkak-hata 생각하다 ‘to think’ (b) chengso-hata 청소하다 ‘to clean’ (c) kongpwu-hata 공부하다 ‘to study’ 4.7. LIGHT VERBS IN OTHER LANGUAGES 115
Key Concepts
• trivalent verb - a verb that takes two internal arguments
• Larsonian shell - a double VP projection that allows space for two internal arguments to be projected
• tense phrase (TP) - A sentence is headed by a tense head (T), which relates the subject to the predicate, and which is the locus of agreement. A T head projects to a TP.
• complementizer - A complementizer introduces a subordinate clause into a sentence. Com- plementizers often indicate the illocutionary force of a sentence.
• illocutionary force - The illocutionary force of a clause indicates whether it is a state- ment (declarative), a question (interrogative) or a command (imperative). Other types of illocutionary force include hortative, jussive, promissive, and optative.
• light verb - A functional element, v, that introduces the external argument. In English, the light verb has no phonetic content, but other languages have overt light verbs.
• Double Object Construction (DOC) - A construction with two DP arguments. Ex., I gave Peter a present is a double object construction. The alternant I gave a present to Peter is not.
• benefactive alternation - A type of DOC in which the non-
Exercises
(4.1) Draw trees for the following sentences. If any sentence is ambiguous, draw tree for all structures and give unambiguous paraphrases.
1 The boy gave a box of chocolates to his teacher.
2 Mary sent Alice a bouquet of roses.
3 John thinks that Susan will win the race.
4 The teacher of physics gave us some sandwiches for lunch.
5 I think that Mary handed the books to those students.
(4.2) Consider the following Zulu data (Zeller, 2012). What θ-roles are found on the subject and the two objects in these data? Observe that either the direct or the indirect object may be elided. If either argument is elided, then object agreement must appear on the verb. Draw a tree for the first sentence. Treat the verb unika as a V. The numbers in the glosses indicate the noun class (see page 91). Note that the translations have been altered slightly to give additional information to help answer the questions.
1 UJohn u-nik-a abantwana imali. 1a.John 1.sub-give-fv 2.children 9.money ‘John is giving the children money.’
2 UJohn u-ba-nik-a imali (abantwana). 1a.John 1.sub-2.obj-give-fv 9.money 2.children ‘John is giving them money (the children).’
3 UJohn u-yi-nik-a abantwana (imali). 1a.John 1.sub-9.obj-give-fv 2.children 9.money ‘John is giving it to the children (the money).’
Consider now the following additional Zulu data. What are the θ-roles of the three arguments? You may wish to consult Interchapter B on applicatives.
1 ULanga u-phek-el-a umama inyama. 1a.Langa 1.sub-cook-appl-fv 1a.mother 9.meat ‘Langa is cooking meat for mother. (as a favour)’
2 ULanga u-m-phek-el-a inyama (umama). 1a.Langa 1.sub-1.obj-cook-appl-fv 9.meat 1a.mother ‘Langa is cooking meat for her (mother). (as a favour)’ 4.7. LIGHT VERBS IN OTHER LANGUAGES 117
3 ULanga u-yi-phek-el-a umama (inyama). 1a.Langa 1.sub-9.obj-cook-appl-fv 1.mother 9.meat ‘Langa is cooking it for mother (the meat). (as a favour)’
Consider now the following Kiluguru data (Lutz and Ramadhani, 2001). Again, what are the θ-roles of the three arguments. Draw a tree for the first sentence.
1 Chibua ko-w-eng’-a iwana ipfitabu. 1.Chibua 1.sub-2.obj-give-fv 2.children 8.books ‘Chibua is giving children books.’
2 Chibua ko-pf-eng’-a iwana ipfitabu. 1.Chibua 1.sub-8.obj-give-fv 2.children 8.books ‘Chibua is giving children books.’
Finally, consider this last set of Kiluguru data. What are the θ-roles of the three arguments? Describe how object agreement differs between Zulu and Kiluguru in terms of θ-roles.
1 Mayi ko-w-ambik-il-a iwana ipfidyo. 1.mother 1.sub-2.obj-cook-appl-fv 2.children 7.food ‘Mother is cooking food for the children. (because they’re too young to cook it for themselves)’
2 * Mayi ko-pf-ambik-il-a ipfidyo iwana. 1.mother 1.sub-7.obj-cook-appl-fv 7.food 2.children ‘(Mother is cooking food for the children.)’
(4.3) Consider the following sentence.
The children will have been playing checkers.
This sentences is admittedly a little odd out of context, but let’s not let that concern us. (If you want a good context, try this: By noon, the children will have been playing checkers for two hours, so they should have a quick nap.) Our task is this. First, draw a tree for this sentence. Assume that have and been are the head of AuxP (auxiliary phrase) as follows. TP
T AuxP
will Aux AuxP
have Aux vP
been 118 CHAPTER 4. DEVELOPMENTS OF PHRASE STRUCTURE
Once you’ve drawn the complete tree for this sentence, consider the following data with floated quantifiers. Note that there is some variation among dialects of English, so just consider the data here for this question.
All the boys will have been playing checkers.
*The boys all will have been playing checkers.
The boys will all have been playing checkers.
The boys will have all been playing checkers.
*The boys will have been all playing checkers.
How would the grammatical sentences be derived? Just as importantly, how would the ungram- matical sentences be blocked? Are any of the sentences problematic for the treatment of floated quantifiers we have outlined? (In other words, are there any grammatical sentences that cannot be accounted for by the model we are considering, or are there any ungrammatical sentences that the model would allow?)
(4.4) Consider the following Japanese data (Miyamoto, 1999; Sato, 2010). Note the lexical item suru has an irregular form in the past tense, si.
1 Taroo-ga Tokyo-ni ryokoo-o suru Taroo-nom Tokyo-to travel-acc do ‘Taroo travels to Tokyo.’
2 Taroo-ga Eigo-no benkyoo-o suru Taroo-nom English-gen study-acc do ‘Taroo studies English.’
3 *Sachiko-ga kinoo benkyoo-ta. Sachiko-nom yesterday study-pst ‘Sachiko studied yesterday.’
4 Sachiko-ga kinoo benkyoo-si-ta. Sachiko-nom yesterday study-do-pst ‘Sachiko studied yesterday.’
5 Sachiko-ga kinoo benkyoo-o si-ta. Sachiko-nom yesterday study-acc do-pst ‘Sachiko studied yesterday.’
What category do you think suru/si is? Are there any lexical verbs in these sentences (i.e., a lexical item that you would label with a ‘V’). Consider now the following data set. 4.7. LIGHT VERBS IN OTHER LANGUAGES 119
6 Sachiko-ga kinoo benkyoo-si-ta. Sachiko-nom yesterday study-do-pst ‘Sachiko studied yesterday.’ / ‘Sachiko discounted something yesterday.’
7 Sachiko-ga kinoo benkyoo-o si-ta. Sachiko-nom yesterday study-acc do-pst ‘Sachiko studied yesterday.’ / *‘Sachiko discounted something yesterday.’
The form benkyoo-suru has an idiosyncratic reading in addition to the literal meaning. Note, though, that in example g. the idiomatic reading is not available (as indicated by the *). What is the structural difference between these two sentences? Consider also the following data. Can you make a generalization on when the idiomatic reading is or is not available? What phenomenon do you think is taking place here? Explain.
8 ryoori-suru cuisine-do ‘to cook’ / ‘to handle well’
9 ryoori-o suru cuisine-acc do ‘to cook’ / *‘to handle well’
10 boosoo-suru runaway-do ‘to burn up’ / ‘to get out of control’
11 boosoo-o suru runaway-acc do ‘to cook’ / *‘to get out of control’
12 keisan-suru calculation-do ‘to count up’ / ‘to plan meticulously’
13 keisan-o suru calculation-acc do ‘to count up’ / *‘to plan meticulously’
(4.5) The following sentences contain resultative phrases. The resultative phrases are in italics.
1 Peter pounded the metal flat.
2 Susan wiped the table clean.
3 John burned the eggs black. 120 CHAPTER 4. DEVELOPMENTS OF PHRASE STRUCTURE
4 Alice broke the mirror in two.
The phrases in italics are called resultative phrases because they describe the state of the direct object as a result of the action. As a result of the pounding, the metal becomes flat, as a result of the wiping, the table becomes clean, etc. Consider, now, the following data.
1 *Jennifer cried asleep.
2 *John coughed awake.
3 Jennifer cried herself asleep.
4 John coughed himself awake.
What is the usual argument structure of the verbs cry and cough (in a sentence such as Jennifer cried or John coughed)? What are their θ-grids? How do you explain the presence of the reflexive pronouns herself and himself in the last two sentences? (Caution: Do not confuse resultatives with depictives as in John walked home tired. Here, tired describes John’s state while he was walking home. Crucially, John did not become tired as a result of walking home, rather, he was tired while walking home. Depictives and resultatives have quite different properties, so ignore depictives for this question.) 4.7. LIGHT VERBS IN OTHER LANGUAGES 121
Further Reading
• Déchaine and Wiltschko (2002) - This article deals with the structure of pronouns in great detail using data from a variety of languages. This paper should only be tackled once this textbook has been covered in detail.
• Hale and Keyser (2002) - This monograph deals with several aspects of argument structure how the subject, direct object and indirect object are introduced into the clause. It covers much empirical data from English and various Aboriginal languages from North America. Some of the technical discus-sion is best left until after Chapter 7; however, the empirical facts are quite interesting to read through and are clearly laid out.
• Kaufmann (2007) - This paper describes some of the general properties of the middle voice and how it differs from other transitivity alternations. It brings in data from the Niger-Congo language, Fula, spoken in West Africa.
• Larson (1988) - This is the original proposal to handle double object constructions. This article will be acces-sible after the discussion on wh-movement and anaphora. It also presents a more detailed analysis of double object constructions than the one presented here.
• Pollock (1989) - This article proposes splitting TP into separate functional projections: one for tense and one for agreement. It is also one of the original discussions on capturing the difference between English and French word order by using head movement.
• Pylkkänen (2008) - This monograph makes an interesting proposal on how benefactives, causatives and other non-core arguments appear in the syntactic structure. Although some of the details will be difficult to graph at this point, many of the empirical facts will be accessible. 122 CHAPTER 4. DEVELOPMENTS OF PHRASE STRUCTURE Interchapter C: Discourse Configurationality
Configurationality refers to the asymmetric, hierarchical structure of sentences in language. A well known example of this is the subject-object asymmetries we saw in Chapter 3. Such asymme- tries are evidence for the structure in example (4.1) as opposed to (4.2).
(4.1) S
NP VP
V NP
(4.2) S
NP V NP
Configurationality also refers to the correlation between linear order and grammatical function. For instance, in the following sentence, we understand Alex to be the subject and Pat to be the object.
(4.3) Alex saw Pat.
However, if we reverse the order of the two nouns, Pat is the subject and Alex is the object.
(4.4) Pat saw Alex.
In other words the rigidity typically associated with word order in English is associated with the fact that word order is correlated to grammatical function in English. Discourse configurational languages do not exhibit these properties. In fact, the following three properties characterize such languages.
123 124
Properties of Discourse Configuational Languages:
• free word order
• discontinuous constituency
• extensive argument drop
Let’s see how these three properties manifest themselves. We will look at Warlpiri. Example (4.5 a) shows a simple transitive sentence with SOV word order. Examples (4.5 b) and (4.5 c), both grammatical, show the same sentence, but with OVS and VSO word order, respectively. There is no change in meaning when the word order is rearranged in this manner.
(4.5) (a) Ngarrka-ngku ka wawirri panti-rni man-sub aux kangaroo spear-nonpst ‘The man is spearing the kangaroo.’ (b) Wawirri ka panti-rni ngarrka-ngku kangaroo aux spear-nonpst man-sub ‘The man is spearing the kangaroo.’ (c) Panti-rni ka ngarrka-ngku wawirri spear-nonpst aux man-sub kangaroo ‘The man is spearing the kangaroo.’ [Walpiri (Hale, 1983)]
Walpiri (wbp) is a Pama-Nyungan language spoken in north-central Australia. It is an endangered language, spoken by approximately 2500 people in a population of 5000–6000 (2006 census data provided by the Australian Bureau of Statistics). Despite this, it is one of the healthiest aboriginal languages of Australia. As with many Australian languages, it possesses an avoidance register, which consists of a separate set of lexical items certain relatives. See Laughren et al. (1996) for an introduction to the Warlpiri language and Dixon (2011) for a general discussion on the languages of Australia.
Recently, many people have argued that describing word order as “free” is misleading. Rather, word order is believed to depend on discourse factors such as new versus old information, emphasis or topichood. This contrasts with configurational languages such as English, where word order is dependent on grammatical function (i.e., subject versus object), although in configurational languages such as English, word order sometimes deviates from the normal order in response to information structure (see section 4.3.1 in Chapter 4). Discontinuous constituency refers to a constituent, usually a noun phrase, being broken up into two pieces and appearing in separate places in the sentence. We give an example from 125
Mohawk, an Iroquoian language, and Warlpiri, a Pama-Nyugan language. The individual parts of the discontinuous nominal are shown in boldface.
(4.6) (a) Éso wahatsh´vri’ ne onhúhsa’ many he.found ne eggs ‘He found a lot of eggs.’ [Mohawk (Baker, 1996, p.153)]
(b) miyaquintin hu¯itze’ in tlaca’¯ many they.come in people ‘A lot of people come.’ [Walpiri (Baker, 1996, p.153)] In these examples, the noun phrases many eggs and many people are discontinuous as they are broken up across the sentence. The final property is argument drop, which we illustrate with Inuktitut, an Eskimo-Aleut lan- guage spoken across northern North America.
(4.7) (a) Angutiup arnaq kunik-t-aa the.man the.woman kiss-part-3.sg/3.sg ‘The man kissed the woman.’ (b) kunik-t-aa kiss-part-3.sg/3.sg ‘He kissed her.’ [Inukititut (Alana Johns, pc)] Example (4.7 a) shows a standard transitive sentence with an overt subject and object. Example (4.7 b) exhibits only the verb with no overt nouns or pronouns. As long as the arguments are recoverable from the discourse, there is no need to mention them, thus the sentence in (4.7 b) is grammatical.
Inuktitut (iku) is an Eskimo-Aleut language and is spoken across the northern coast of North America. It forms a dialect continuum that extends into Greenland. Inuktitut is an ergative/absolutive language. It has the intriguing property of inflectionally marking whether its arguments are overt or not. See Johns (2010) for a clear discussion of the Eskimo-Aleut languages. See also Pullum (1991) for an essay debunking the wide-spread myth that Inuktitut has hundreds of words for ‘snow’.
The analysis of discourse configurationality has received a number of proposals. These are listed in the further reading section below. 126
Further Reading
• Adger et al. (2009) - This monograph discusses the discourse configurational properties of Kiowa (a Tanoan language spoken in central USA). It makes a novel proposal that relates sentence structure to word structure.
• Baker (1996) - This monograph discusses discourse configurationality and other properties of polysynthetic languages and proposes a single macroparameter to capture the difference between polysynthetic languages and non-polysynthetic languages.
• Hale (1983) - This is one of the earliest theoretical works dealing with non-configurationality.
• Jelinek (1984) - This paper proposes that the overt noun phrases in non-configurational languages are not actually part of the clause, but are adjoined to the CP outside. The actual arguments are the agreement morphemes on the verb themselves.
• Kiss (1995) - This volume contains a number of papers dealing with theoretical aspects of discourse configurational languages from around the world. Chapter 5
The Architecture of Grammar
' $ By the end of this chapter you should:
• understand the Principles and Parameters approach to generative syntax
• understand the basic architecture of the T-model of generative syntax
• understand the difference between overt and covert movement
• understand the concept of building up structure by Merger
• understand head movement and when it occurs (V-to-T and T-to-C)
&• explain do-support in English. %
5.1 Principles and Parameters
The earliest discussions on generative grammar proposed rules specific to different constructions. For instance, there was a special rule for forming passives (John ate the apple → The apple was eaten (by John)). This rule was different from focusing phrases for emphasis (John will not read that book → EVEN THAT BOOK John will not read.) Furthermore, different languages were thought to have different language-specific rules. In light the observations in Chapter 1 concerning Universal Grammar and the Poverty of the Stimulus, a new model for the architecture of grammar was proposed: Principles and Parameters. Those aspects of grammar that are invariant, that is that are part of Universal Grammar (UG), are encoded by principles. One such principle we informally proposed earlier was the principle of reflexives (see p. 19). Other properties of UG we have looked at include the operation Merge. As we proceed, we will see that the passive construction is handled by basic principles of UG and does not need a language-specific or construction-specific rule. Of course not all languages are alike. There are two ways in which languages can vary. First, different languages can have different lexical items. Second, languages have a small number of
127 128 CHAPTER 5. THE ARCHITECTURE OF GRAMMAR parameters that are set during language acquisition. Different languages obviously have different lexical words for the same item. For example, the English word ‘apple’ is ‘pomme’ in French, 사과 (sakwa) in Korean, and ‘apastaminamm’ in Blackfoot. Languages have differences in function words, too. For instance, the English indefinite determiner ‘a’ does not encode specificity. So the sentence, “I’m looking for a book.” can mean either that you’re looking for a specific book or for any book. In Blackfoot, on the other hand, there are distinct determiners for a specific indefinite object and a non-specific indefinite object. In this chapter, we will spend most of our time looking at parameters. A parameter is a property with different possible settingslike a dial on a machine. Parameters are assumed to have a default setting. The default setting is determined by UG. Thus, we are all born with the same settings for each parameter. Exposure to a particular language might present a stimulus that triggers a different setting of the parameter in question. Thus, when investigating parameters, we must keep in mind what the default setting is and what possible triggers could be for changing the parameter setting. It’s helpful to think of parameter settings as light switches. At birth, all of our light switches are set the same way, but as we acquire language, different light switches may change settings depending on our linguistic environment. The role of principles and parameters has changed significantly since the abandonment of Gov- ernment and Binding Theory. On one view the number of true principles is very small, perhaps consisting only of Merge and possibly one or two other principles (Chomsky, 2013, 2015, 2020). Under this view, there is no innate set of parameters; however, certain parameters, such as headed- ness, have only two possible value, so must be acquired anyway. Some researchers have developed or rethought language parameters (Baker, 2001, 2008; Roberts, 2019). Researchers are divided, however, as to whether these parameters are part of UG or whether they simply serve as useful heuristics for investigating language diversity.
Principles and Parameters: Principles are invariant across languages. They are encoded in UG. Parameters are language-specific. They are set by the linguistic data the child is exposed to.
5.1.1 The Pro-Drop Parameter
The first parameter we will discuss is the pro-drop parameter. Consider the following Italian data. Although both sentences mean the same thing, (5.1 b) is the more usual way to express the proposition. (5.1 a) would only be used if the speaker wished to focus or place emphasis on the subject. (Something like: I’M eating an apple...not YOU.)
(5.1) Italian pro-drop 5.1. PRINCIPLES AND PARAMETERS 129
(a) Io mangi-o una mela. I eat-1sg.prs an apple ‘I’m eating an apple.’ (b) Mangi-o una mela. eat-1sg.prs an apple ‘I’m eating an apple.’
The traditional explanation for the ability of languages such as Italian to drop subjects is related to the recoverability of the subject from the morphology on the verb. Notice that the verb mangio has the morpheme o which indicates that the subject is first person singular (and also indicates present tense). Since the verbal morphology tells us who the subject is, the subject can be dropped. This phenomenon is referred to as the pro-drop parameter. Italian is referred to as a pro-drop language, whereas English is a non-pro-drop language. It is tempting to say that the rich agreement morphology triggers a positive setting for this parameter; however, we will see below that this is not the case. Let’s look at some paradigms across a few languages. Since orthography varies greatly here and is often phonologically opaque, we will examine the verbal paradigms written in IPA.
(5.2) Pro-drop and non-pro-drop languages
non-pro-drop pro-drop English French German Portuguese Persian Cantonese 1sg spik paKl ge-@ fal-u miræv-æm gOĘ£N 2sg spik paKl ge-st fal-5S miræv-i gOĘ£N 3sg spik-s paKl ge-t fal-5 miræv-æd gOĘ£N 1pl spik paKl-˜O ge-@n f5l-amuS miræv-im gOĘ£N 2pl spik paKl-e ge-t fal-5IS miræv-id gOĘ£N “ 3pl spik paKl ge-@n fal- ˜aU miræv-ænd gOĘ£N “ Persian (fas) (also known as Farsi) is spoken by 22 million people, mostly in Iran. It is part of the Indo- Iranian branch of the Indo-European family. One of the more interesting properties of Persian is the so-called Ezafe vowel that appears as a linker in certain nominal constructions containing adjective phrases or other material. Ghomeshi (1997) presents an insightful discussion on this phenomenon.
Looking first at the Portuguese and Persian paradigms, we notice that each person/number combination is distinct. In other words, the person/number combination can be determined by the agreement morphology. These two languages are also ‘null subject’ languages, or ‘pro-drop’ languages. Again, the traditional explanation for this was the content of the subject is recoverable 130 CHAPTER 5. THE ARCHITECTURE OF GRAMMAR from the agreement morphology. However, when we examine the Cantonese data, we see that all person/number forms are identical, yet Cantonese is still a pro-drop language (see p. 90 for more information on Cantonese). There have been many theories as to the nature of pro-drop. We will mention one here. First, we must ask which is the default UG setting for the pro-drop parameter. If we assume pro-drop is the default setting, then something must trigger the non-pro-drop setting. In other words, there must be some positive evidence that the child can latch on to and say, “Aha! I am acquiring a non-pro-drop language.” On the other hand, if we assume that non-pro-drop is the default setting, then there must be some positive evidence that triggers the pro-drop setting. First, it has been noticed that young children go through a pro-drop stage. Eventually, speakers of non-pro-drop languages consistently use full nouns or pronouns in subject position. So, the actual acquisition data suggest that pro-drop is the default setting. Second, It has been noticed that pro-drop languages consistently lack expletives, while non-pro-drop languages do have expletives. In the following examples, the expletive is in boldface.
(5.3) (a) There’s a book on the table. (b) Il y a un livre sur la table. it there has a book on the table ‘There’s a book on the table.’ [French]
(c) Es gibt ein Buch auf dem Tisch. it gives a book on the table ‘There’s a book on the table.’ [German]
(d) (*Ele) ha um livro na mesa. (it) has a book on the table ‘There’s a book on the table.’ [Portuguese]
(e) (*keoi5) hai2 zeong1 toi2 soeng6bin6 yau5 yat1 bun2 syu1 (it) on cl table surface has one cl book ‘There’s a book on the table.’ [Cantonese]
Thus, it has been proposed that upon hearing an expletive, the child know that the language cannot be a null-subject language (Jaeggli and Hyams, 1987). Interestingly, it has been noticed that children start using expletives around the same time that they stop pro-dropping. This offers strong evidence for the notion that expletives are the trigger for the null-subject parameter. It follows from this discussion that the default setting for the parameter must be set to pro-drop. The reason again for this is as follows. Hearing an expletive triggers the child to set the parameter 5.2. MINIMALISM AND THE MODEL OF GRAMMAR 131 to “non-pro-drop”. Failing to hear an expletive cannot be a trigger, since it does not provide a positive trigger for the child during language acquisition. For a more fine-grained investigation into pro-drop, see Gilligan (1987).
5.2 Minimalism and The Model of Grammar
The model of grammar that we are exploring here was initiated by Chomsky in the 1990’s and is known as the Minimalist Program (?). The basic tenets of this approach to generative syntax are reminiscent of Occam’s Razor. The components of the grammar consist of a Lexicon, which contains the lexical items of the language (see Chapter 2). The lexical items encode all the idiosyncratic information about the language. For instance the lexical item EAT indicates that it optionally takes a DP complement, while the lexical item DEVOUR indicates that it obligatorily takes an DP complement. The functional heads of the language are also stored as lexical items, and as we will see later on, they, too, store idiosyncratic information. The Lexicon, together with the principles and parameters interact to form the grammar of the language. We do not wish to make our model of grammar any more complicated than is necessary to explain the facts about human language. Clearly, some kind of Lexicon as described is necessary. We also need some way to put the lexical items together to form sentences. This is the topic of the next section.
5.2.1 Bare Phrase Structure and Merge
In GB theory, a module of grammar known as X-Bar Theory was used as a model for building up phrase structure. In Minimalism, researchers thought that if we can develop a theory of phrase structure that didn’t rely on the mechanisms of X-Bar Theory, but that can still capture all the facts then this simpler theory is to be preferred. This simpler theory that emerged is called Bare Phrase Structure, which we describe here (Chomsky, 1994). Any sort of language system will need a way of combining lexical items into larger and larger hierarchical units. Let us call this method of combining lexical items Merge. Merge takes two lexical items and combines them into one set. Let’s look at an example. In constructing the phrase the dog, we merge together the two lexical items the and dog.
(5.4) Merge (the, dog) → {the, dog}
We also know that the determiner the and the noun dog together form a DP that is the D the is the head of this phrase. We call the head of a phrase the label and notate it as follows.
(5.5) Merge (the, dog) → {the, {the, dog}}
We represent this as in the tree structure notation below on the left. However, the more familiar notation below on the right is often used for convenience. These two trees are just two ways of 132 CHAPTER 5. THE ARCHITECTURE OF GRAMMAR expressing the same concept namely, the DP the dog. The representation on the right is the one more commonly used by most generative syntacticians as it is the easiest to read. We should always be aware that this is merely a notational substitute for the tree on the left or the set notation above.
(5.6) the DP
the dog D N
the dog
We can continue building the structure and for the verb phrase see the dog by merging the verb saw with the DP formed above. This is then followed by merging in a v.
(5.7) VP → vP
V DP v VP
see D N V DP
the dog see D N
the dog
In the interests of keeping the grammar as simple as possible, we assume that Merge can operate only on the root node of a tree. Consider the following hypothetical structures.
(5.8) A B E
C D F G
H I
The root nodes in these structures are A, B and E. So, we could merge A with {B, {C, D}} to give rise to the following structure (assuming A projects and becomes the label).
(5.9) A
A B
C D
Another option is for {B, {C, D}} to merge with {E, {F, {G, {H, I}}}} to give rise to the following structure (assuming E projects and becomes the label). 5.3. HEAD MOVEMENT AND PHRASAL MOVEMENT 133
(5.10) E
B E
C D F G
H I
Note, however, that merger cannot take place to a lower node on the tree. Thus, merger between B, C, D and F is impossible.
5.2.2 Move
Merge is one operation in UG. Another operation is called Move. We have already seen some examples of movement in the previous chapter. Here, we will look at the properties of movement in more detail. There are two kinds of movement: head movement and phrasal movement. As the names suggest, head movement is movement of just a head, any of the lowest nodes in the tree. Phrasal movement is movement of any XP, any object of the form {γ,{α, β} }. We introduce here the basic properties of movement. As we have seen above, when an element moves, it leaves a trace. The trace helps us keep track of what has moved where. This is especially important when more than one thing moves in the tree. Move and Merge are similar in various respects. Like Merge, Move can target only the root node of the tree in the case of phrasal movement. Head movement is slightly different. Head movement targets the head of the root node. As a result, only upward movement is possible. Consider the following hypothetical tree. Recall that Merge can target only the root node, XP. Likewise, if we wish to move the phrase {Z, {Z, WP}}, it can target only XP and not any of the lower nodes. The outcome of this movement operation is shown below.
(5.11) XP → XP
X YP ZPi XP
Y ZP Z WP X YP
Z WP Y ti
5.3 Head Movement and Phrasal Movement
Head movement involves movement of only a head (hence its name). In the previous chapter we were informally introduced to one instance of head movement. Specifically, we saw that V raises to v in our discussion of trivalent verbs. When a head moves, it can target only another head position, 134 CHAPTER 5. THE ARCHITECTURE OF GRAMMAR not the root node. Specifically, it targets the head of the root. Consider an actual example in which the verb raises. Assume we have reached the following stage in the derivation of the phrase see a dog. The verb see raises from V to v leaving a trace as shown.
(5.12)
vP vP
v VP v VP
V DP seei V DP
see D N ti D N
a dog a dog Next, v still requires a DP to assign a θ role to. The external argument merges in the specifier of vP. At this point we need to make a comment on the notation used. In BPS we typically use the notation XP to indicate a phrase. The notation X’ (borrowed from the now defunct X-Bar Theory) is used merely for convenience to make the tree easier to read.
(5.13) vP
DP v′
D N v VP
John seei V DP
ti D N
a dog
Below are the set theoretic and syntagmatic tree notations for this example using strict BPS. Note that precise mechanism for head movement in BPS is a matter of ongoing research. We represent it here as an ordered set.
(5.14) (a) {v, {D, {D, John} }, {v, {
(b) v
D v
D John v see
seei see a
ti a dog
We have also seen phrasal movement (or XP movement) from before. Recall that the subject raises to SpecTP. Here, for reference is the final structure. The arrows are shown only for emphasis.
(5.15)
CP
C TP
′ DPi T
D N T vP
′ John will ti v
v VP
seej V DP
tj D N
a dog
Let’s consider why the subject raises to SpecTP. Consider the following data.
(5.16) (a) There is a book on the table. (b) There are two books on the table. (c) It seems that John likes tuna. (d) It is raining. (e) *Is a book on the table. (f) A book is on the table. (g) *Seems that John likes tuna. 136 CHAPTER 5. THE ARCHITECTURE OF GRAMMAR
(h) John seems to like tuna. (i) *Is raining.
Recall from above that the subjects of the first four sentences are expletives. An expletive is required when no other subject is available. In later chapters we will discuss the relation between tense, agreement and Case; however, we can see from these data that there is a requirement for there to be some subject in the sentence. When no subject is available, an expletive appears in the Specifier of TP. This property was originally formulated as a requirement on the part of sentences to have subjects; however, it has been observed that other XPs may have the property of requiring some element to appear in its Specifier. This property is called the Extended Projection Principle (EPP).
EPP (Extended Projection Principle)
• If a head, X, has the EPP property, then the Specifier of XP must be filled.
• In English, T has the EPP property.
We will look at other instances of XP movement in subsequent chapters. For the remainder of this chapter we consider some other instances of head movement (although we do come back to the issue of the EPP at the end of this chapter).
5.3.1 V-to-T Movement
Recall that a verb selects its direct object by merging with it. As a result, the verb is typically adjacent to the direct object. In English, the verb and the object are obligatorily adjacent, as shown in the following examples.
(5.17) (a) John often eats anchovies. (b) *John eats often anchovies.
Consider, however, the following data from French and Irish in which the verb and its direct object are not adjacent. Note that non-specific objects in French are introduced in a PP headed by de (‘of’).
(5.18) (a) Jean mange souvent des anchois. John eats often of the anchovies ‘John often eats anchovies.’ [French] 5.3. HEAD MOVEMENT AND PHRASAL MOVEMENT 137
(b) Phóg Máire an lucharachán. kissed Mary the leprechaun ‘Mary kissed the leprechaun.’ [Irish (Carnie, 2002, p.303)] We observe that elements in a sentence can be separated from their thematically related heads. That is, the verb assigns an internal theta-role to the direct object when it merges with it, but the verb and the direct object are separated in the surface form of the sentence. Let’s consider first how to derive the word order for French. Compare the French sentence above with the data below.
(5.19) (a) Mary has often eaten apples. (b) Marie a souvent mangé des pommes. Mary has often eaten of the apples ‘Mary has often eaten apples.’
When an auxiliary is present, we observe that French and English exhibit the same word order. Note that adverbs of frequency adjoin to vP. Consider the following schematic for the word order differences between English and French.
English Subject Adverb Verb Object Subject Aux Adverb Verb Object French Subject Verb Adverb Object Subject Aux Adverb Verb Object
Observe that the verb appears to the left of the adverb in French only when there is no auxiliary. To account for the difference between English and French word order, Pollock (1989) proposed that in French the verb raises to T if no auxiliary is present. Consider first the structure for (5.17 a). 138 CHAPTER 5. THE ARCHITECTURE OF GRAMMAR
(5.20) CP
C TP
′ DPi T
John T vP
Adv vP
′ often ti v
v VP
eatsj V DP
tj D N
anchovies
Now consider the structure for (5.18 a).
(5.21) CP
C TP
′ DPi T
Jean T vP
mangej Adv vP eats ′ souvent ti v often v VP
tj V PP
tj des anchois of the anchovies As mentioned, the verb does not raise to T if there is already an auxiliary in T. Consider the structure for (5.19 b). 5.3. HEAD MOVEMENT AND PHRASAL MOVEMENT 139
(5.22)CP
C TP
′ DPi T
Jean T vP
a Adv vP has ′ souvent ti v often v VP
mangéj V PP eaten tj des anchois of the anchovies Recall that T hosts tense and agreement features (TP = tense phrase) and that the V-v complex hosts only the lexical verb and a light verb in some languages. In both English and French, when an auxiliary is present under T, the auxiliary hosts the tense and agreement morphology. Also, in French, the lexical verb raises to T and hosts the tense and agreement morphology. There is a problem in English, though, when there is no auxiliary. Consider again the following data.
(5.23) (a) Nous av-ons mang-é les pommes we have-1pl.prs eat.part the apples ‘We have eaten the apples.’ (b) Nous mangi-ons les pommes we eat-1pl.prs the apples ‘We are eating the apples.’ (c) John is eating an apple. (d) John eats an apple every day.
In the first three examples, the word that hosts the tense and agreement morphology appears under the T node, which is the locus of tense and agreement. Consult the trees above to convince yourself of this. In the last sentence, the verb eats hosts tense and agreement (the /-s/ morpheme), but does not appear under T. A more accurate representation of the structure of T is shown in the following representation for the sentence John likes tuna. 140 CHAPTER 5. THE ARCHITECTURE OF GRAMMAR
(5.24) CP
C TP
′ DPi T
John T vP
′ -s ti v
v VP
likej V DP
tj D N
tuna
Observe in the tree above that the inflectional affix and the verb appear on different heads. It is suggested that English undergoes affix hopping or affix lowering due to the need of the morpheme to attach to a word (Chomsky, 1957; Skinner, 2009). This is a poorly understood aspect of grammar and is thought to take place at PF. We will not worry about the derivation of English affixal morphology here.
5.3.2 T-to-C Movement
Recall that C is the locus of illocutionary force (place where illocutionary force is found). Recall also that yes/no questions in English are formed by subject-aux inversion. When no auxiliary is present, do-insertion takes place.
(5.25) (a) Mary will eat an apple. (b) Will Mary eat an apple?
Let’s consider the derivation of the second sentence. When T merges with vP, the subject raises to SpecTP because of the EPP property of English T. 5.3. HEAD MOVEMENT AND PHRASAL MOVEMENT 141
(5.26) TP
′ DPi T
Mary T vP
′ will ti v
v VP
eatj V DP
tj D N
an apple
Now, the C head merges with TP. In yes/no questions, matrix C attracts the T head. If there is nothing under T, then do-insertion takes place. (Note that T-to-C movement does not always take place; however, we discuss the exceptions below. In a yes/no question, the matrix T always raises to C.) This gives us the following structure.
(5.27) CP
C TP
′ willk DPi T
Mary T vP
′ tk ti v
v VP
eatj V DP
tj D N
an apple
French does not have do-support. When there is no auxiliary the main verb raises to T, so there is never need for a dummy auxiliary. Consider the following pair of sentences. In (5.28 b), the verb parlez (‘speak’) undergoes V-to-T movement, and then T-to-C movement. Again, this 142 CHAPTER 5. THE ARCHITECTURE OF GRAMMAR happens only in formal settings in French.1 (The form in this example uses a 2nd person plural pronoun, but this is also the polite form to address one person. Note also that the hyphen is an orthographic convention of French and is not intended to show a morphological break-down.)
(5.28) (a) Vous parlez français. you.pl speak.2pl French ‘You (pl) speak French.’ (b) Parlez-vous français? speak.2pl-you.pl French ‘Do you speak French?’ [written French]
Here is the tree for (5.28 b).
(5.29) CP
C TP
′ parlezj Di T speak vous T vP you ′ tj ti v
v VP
tj V DP
tj français French To recap, while the verb in English undergoes head movement only from V to v, in French the verb raises further to T. This movement is traditionally referred to as V-to-T movement (really, we should call it V-to-v-to-T movement, but the term was coined before the introduction of v). The position of the tensed verb with respect to adverbs of frequency is one way to distinguish between languages with V-to-T movement (such as French) and languages without it (such as English). There are two other common properties that distinguish these kinds of languages. Recall that English has subject-aux inversion for yes/no questions. If there is no auxiliary, then English has a phenomenon known as do-support. In languages with V-to-T movement, do-support is not
1The issue subject-verb and subject-aux inversion in French is more complex than is suggested here. See Roberts (1993) for details. 5.3. HEAD MOVEMENT AND PHRASAL MOVEMENT 143 necessary if there is no auxiliary. Instead the lexical verb inverts with the subject. Note that this happens only in formal varieties of French. In spoken French intonation is used to indicate yes/no questions.
(5.30) (a) John writes letters to Mary. (b) Does John write letters to Mary?
(5.31) (a) Elle écrit des lettres à Jean. she writes of the letters to John ‘She writes letters to John.’ (b) Écrit elle des lettres à Jean? writes she of the letters to John ‘Does she write letters to John?’ [written French] Let’s consider the structure for (5.31 b).
(5.32) CP
C TP
′ écritj Di T writes elle T vP she ′ tj ti v
v VP
′ tj PP V
des lettres V PP of the letters tj P DP
à Jean to
Correlates of V-to-T Movement:
• lack of do-support
• lexical verb inverts with the subject in yes/no questions
• lexical verb appears before adverbs of frequency (such as often, never, etc.) in the absence of auxiliaries 144 CHAPTER 5. THE ARCHITECTURE OF GRAMMAR
We now return to the Irish facts introduced above. Consider the following data.
(5.33) (a) Phóg Máire an lucharachán. kissed Mary the leprechaun ‘Mary kissed the leprechaun.’ (b) Tá Máire ag-pógáil an lucharachán. is Mary prog-kiss the leprechaun ‘Mary is kissing the leprechaun.’ (c) Duirt mé gur phóg Máire an lucharachán. said I that kissed Mary the leprechaun ‘I said that Mary kissed the leprechaun.’ [Irish (Carnie, 2002, p.303,309)]
As (5.33 a) shows, Irish has VSO order. If an auxiliary is present, though, the verb appears after the subject (5.33 b). It appears as though the verb raises to C in Irish. Consider, however, the embedded clause in (5.33 c). There is an overt complementizer, nevertheless, the verb still appears to the left of the subject. The VP-Internal Subject Hypothesis provides an answer for us. Assume that Irish has V-to-T raising (as in French) and that the subject remains in SpecvP(McCloskey, 1996; Koopman and Sportiche, 1991). This gives us the following structures for the three Irish sentences above.
(5.34)CP CP
C TP C TP
T vP T vP
′ ′ phógi DP v tá DP v kissed is Máire v VP Máire v VP
ti V DP ag-pógáili V DP kissing ti D N ti D N
an lucharachán an lucharachán the leprechaun the leprechaun 5.4. PARAMETERIZATION AND WORD ORDER 145
CP
C TP
T vP
′ duirti D v said mé v VP I ti V CP
ti C TP
gur T vP that ′ phógj DP v kissed Máire v VP
tj V DP
tj D N
an lucharachán the leprechaun
To summarize the word order properties so far we have the following results.
EPP on T V-to-T English yes no French yes yes Irish no yes
In the next section we explore one more parameter that gives rise to word order differences.
5.4 Parameterization and Word Order
Recall the six logically possible word orders: SOV, SVO, etc. The following chart gives the relative frequencies of these basic word orders for the world’s languages for those languages which have a dominant order (Dryer, 2011). 146 CHAPTER 5. THE ARCHITECTURE OF GRAMMAR
SVO English, Mandarin (see p. 90), Cantonese, Swahili 41.1% SOV Turkish, Korean, Persian, Japanese, Lakota (p. 207) 47.6% VSO Irish (see p. 162), Tagalog, Lushootseed, Welsh 8% VOS Chol, Coeur d’Alene, Malagasy 2.1% OVS Hixkaryana, Pari 0.9% OSV Nadëb, Kxoe, Tobati 0.1%
In this section we will concentrate on SOV order. Object-initial languages have received less attention in the generative literature (but see Barrie, 2013; Kalin, 2014). Let’s consider some examples of SOV languages.
(5.35) SOV word order
(a) Minswu-ka sakwa-lul mek-ess-ta. 민수가 사과를 먹었다 Minsoo-nom apple-acc eat-pst-decl ‘Minsoo ate an apple.’ [Korean] (b) Gakusei-ga hon-o yon-da. student-nom book-acc read-pst ‘The student read the book.’ [Japanese] (c) Yazar makale-yi bitir-di. author articleacc finishpst ‘The author finished the article.’ [Turkish (Özsoy, 2019, p.3)] (d) Le Lak’ota ki ehangni S. ahiyela iwakte a-gli dem Lakota top long ago Cheyenne in triumph they-come ‘The Lakota long ago triumphed over the Cheyenne.’ [Lakota (Ingham, 2003, p.77)] (e) Ram lai-go pre-dom. Ram book-acc buy-pst ‘Ram bought the book.’ [Tiwa (Muchahary, 2014, p.223)]
Tiwa, also known as Lalung, (lax) is Sino-Tibetan language spoken in northeastern India. The language is endangered and is undergoing shift to Assamese (Muchahary, 2014).
There are several well known correlates of SOV and SVO word order (Greenberg, 1963). We will cover three of them here. Recall from Chapter 3 that adpositions can be either left-headed (prepositions) or right-headed (postpositions). Here is another example from Japanese.
(5.36) kuruma-to car-with ‘with a car’ 5.4. PARAMETERIZATION AND WORD ORDER 147
(5.37) PP
DP P
kuruma to SVO languages typically have post-nominal relative clauses, while SOV languages typically have pre-nominal relative clauses. Here are some examples from English and Korean. The head noun is underlined and the relative clause is in boldface.
(5.38) Relative clause placement
(a) the book that Mary read (b) Yenghuy-ka ilk-un chayk 영희가 읽은 책 Younghui-nom read-pst book ‘the book that Youngui read’
The third property that we discuss is polarity questions. We saw that for SVO languages such as English and French polarity questions are formed either by Subject-Aux inversion or Subject- Verb inversion. In SOV languages we often observe sentence-final question particles. Consider the following Korean data. Recall that the sentence-final affix indicates the illocutionary force of the sentence.
(5.39) Sentence-final illocutionary markers in Korean
(a) Minswu-ka Pwusan-ey ka-ss-ta. 민수가 부산에 갔다. Minsoo-nom Busan-to go-pst-decl ‘Minsoo went to Busan.’ (b) Minswu-ka Pwusan-ey ka-ss-ni? 민수가 부산에 갔니? Minsoo-nom Busan-to go-pst-int ‘Did Minsoo go to Busan?’ [Korean] Japanese has a sentence-final particle to indicate polarity questions, as the following examples show.
(5.40) Sentence-final question marker in Japanese
(a) Gakusei-ga hon-o yon-da. student-nom book-acc read-pst ‘The student read the book.’ (b) Gakusei-ga hon-o yon-da ka? student-nom book-acc read-pst int ‘Did the student read the book?’ [Japanese] 148 CHAPTER 5. THE ARCHITECTURE OF GRAMMAR
The following chart summarizes the correlates of SVO and SOV word order.
property OV VO adposition postposition preposition N and Relative Clause RelC N N RelC sentence-final question particles question formation Subject-Aux/V inversion
Let’s consider the account for SOV word order, which has been partially introduced in previous chapters. Recall the general structure for XPs.
(5.41) XP
Specifier X′
X Complement
The Headedness Parameter or the Head-Directionality Parameter proposes that the head of an XP can be either on the left or on the right of the complement (Chomsky, 1981; Stowell, 1981; Travis, 1989). SOV languages such as Korean, Turkish, and Japanese, then, have the following structure. They are referred to as right-headed languages (whereas English and French are left- headed languages).
(5.42) XP
Specifier X′
Complement X
Let’s consider the structure for some sentences in SOV languages.
(5.43) 5.4. PARAMETERIZATION AND WORD ORDER 149
CP
TP C
′ DPi T -ta
Minswu-ka vP T
′ ti v -ass
VP v
PP V kaj
DP P tj
N D -ey
Pwusan Under the Headedness Parameter all phrases have one of the two settings. In Korean all phrases are head-final, and in English all phrases are head-initial.
(5.44) left-headed right-headed English, French, Irish Korean, Turkish, Japanese XP XP
X ZP ZP X
We have seen that SVO and SOV languages have correlates as shown in the chart above. English represents a typical SVO langauge, and Korean represents a typical SOV language. Not all languages fit into one of these categories so neatly. Some languages have mixed properties, and we refer to such languages as disharmonic. Consider the following Mandarin data.
(5.45) (a) zài Shànghˇai in Shanghai ‘in Shanghai’ (b) Lˇis¯i kàn de sh¯u Lisi read de book ‘the book that Lisi read’ (c) Lˇis¯i kàn zhè běn sh¯u. Lisi read this cl book ‘Lisi is reading this book.’ 150 CHAPTER 5. THE ARCHITECTURE OF GRAMMAR
(d) Lˇis¯i kàn bù kàn zhè běn sh¯u? Lisi read neg read this cl book ‘Is Lisi reading this book?’ (e) Lˇis¯i kàn zhè běn sh¯u ma? Lisi read this cl book int ‘Is Lisi reading this book?’
Mandarin has SVO word order and prepositions, but also has prenominal relative clauses. Polarity questions are formed either by the V-not-V formula or with sentence-final particles. For an amazing and intelligent discussion on sentence-final particles in Mandarin see Pan(to appear) and Pan and Paul (2016). Although above it was stated that under the Headedness Parameter all phrases were either left-headed or right-headed some language have mixed headedness specifications. One language we will consider is German. Given the diagnostics above German appears to be an SVO language. Consider the following data. (See more about German in Interchapter E.)
(5.46) (a) mit dem Auto with the car ‘with the car’ (b) das Buch, das Bettina gelesen hat the book the Bettina read has ‘the book that Bettina read’ (c) Peter hat das Buch gelesen. Peter has the book read ‘Peter read the book.’ (d) Hat Peter das Buch gelesen? has Peter the book read ‘Did Peter read the book?’ [German] Observe that German has prepostions, postnominal relative clauses, and uses Subject-Aux inversion to form yes/no questions. Consider, however, the following additional German data.
(5.47) German word order
(a) Bettina weiß, daß Peter das Brot ißt. Bettina knows that Peter the bread eats ‘Bettina knows that Peter is eating the bread.’ (b) Bettina weiß, daß Peter das Brot gegessen hat. Bettina knows that Peter the bread eaten has ‘Bettina knows that Peter ate the bread.’ 5.4. PARAMETERIZATION AND WORD ORDER 151
(c) Bettina ißt das Brot. Bettina eats the bread ‘Bettina is eating the bread.’ (d) Bettina hat das Brot gegessen. Bettina has the bread eaten ‘Bettina ate the bread.’ [German] Let’s consider the embedded clauses first. Observe that they closely follow SOV order (as in Korean, for example). The word order in German seems to fall out naturally if we assume a mixed word order (Bach, 1962; Travis, 1984). Let’s consider the structure for the embedded clause in (5.47 b).
(5.48) CP
C TP
′ daß DPi T that Peter vP T
′ ti v hat has VP v
DP V gegessenj eaten das Brot tj the bread Specifically, V, v, and T are right-headed, but C is left-headed. Now, we return to the main clause. For reasons discussed in Interchapter E, it has been proposed that the auxiliary raises from T to C in German main clauses. If there is no auxiliary, then the verb raises to T (as in French), then raises to C in main clauses. Consider first the structure for (5.47 d). 152 CHAPTER 5. THE ARCHITECTURE OF GRAMMAR
(5.49) CP
′ DPi C
Bettina C TP
′ hatj ti T has vP T
′ ti v tj
VP v
DP V gegessenk eaten das Brot tk the bread There is one final property of word order in German we must discuss. When V takes a DP complement, VP and vP are right-headed (as in Korean); however, when V takes a CP complement they is left-headed (as in English). This assumption is necessary to account for the word order in the data below.
(5.50) Bettina hat gewusst, daß Peter das Brot gegessen hat. Bettina has known that Peter the bread eaten has ‘Bettina knew that Peter ate the bread’
Observe that the matrix verb is to the left of the CP complement. For more details see Travis (1984). We can now do the full tree for (5.47 a). 5.4. PARAMETERIZATION AND WORD ORDER 153
(5.51) CP
′ DPi C
Bettina C TP
′ weißj ti T knows T vP
′ tj ti v
v VP
tj V CP
tj C TP
′ daß DPk T that Peter vP T
′ tk v ißtl eats VP v
DP V tl
das Brot tl the bread As a final example, consider now, the following data from Vata, a Kru language from West Africa (Koopman, 1984).
(5.52) (a) A la saka li we have rice eat ‘We have eaten rice.’ (b) A li saka we eat rice ‘We eat rice.’ [Vata] Observe that the verb appears to the left of the object when there is no auxiliary present, suggesting V-to-T movement. Note also that when the verb is not raised, its complement, the direct object, appears to the left of the verb. Taking a cue from the analysis for word order in 154 CHAPTER 5. THE ARCHITECTURE OF GRAMMAR
German above, one possibility to account for word order in Vata is to assume that the VP and vP are right headed, but that the TP is left-headed. These data are also important because they show that the model for verb movement (head movement, such as V-to-T and T-to-C), which has captured word order facts in more familiar languages (English, French, German, and Irish) also shows promising results for other languages around the world. If this account of word order is on the right track, we can posit the following structures for Vata, based on Koopman (1984).
(5.53) CP
C TP
′ Di T
a T vP we ′ la ti v have VP v
DP V lij eat saka tj rice
(5.54) CP
C TP
′ Di T
a T vP we ′ lij ti v eat VP v
DP V tj
saka tj rice 5.4. PARAMETERIZATION AND WORD ORDER 155
In this section we have seen that the Headedness Parameter can The Dida subgroup account for the difference between SVO languages such as English is a dialect continuum and SOV languages such as Korean. We have also seen that there that includes Vata are languages with mixed headedness such as German and Vata. (dic) and other di- alects. It is spoken in Ivory Coast and is a member of the Eastern sub-branch of the Kru branch of the Niger-Congo phylum (Sande, 2017). 156 CHAPTER 5. THE ARCHITECTURE OF GRAMMAR
Key Concepts
• generative grammar A grammar that generates all and only the grammatical sentences of a language
• principle an invariant property of UG that underpins all human language
• parameter A property of human language that can vary from one language to the next.
• Pro-drop parameter A parameter which determines whether a language requires overt subjects or not.
• Headedness parameter A parameter which determines the order between a head and a complement. SVO languages are left-headed. SOV languages are right-headed
• Minimalism A research program in which principles and parameters of grammar are kept to a minimum. New prin- ciples and parameters are proposed only as required output conditions
• head movement Movement of a head to an immediately c-commanding head
• phrasal movement Movement of an XP to a c-commanding specifier position.
• Extended Projection Principle Also known as the EPP. This is a property of particular heads. A head with the EPP property requires something to appear in its Specifier. In English, T has the EPP property. 5.4. PARAMETERIZATION AND WORD ORDER 157
Exercises
(5.1) Draw Spell-Out trees for the following English sentences. If any sentence is ambiguous, draw the trees for both meanings and give unambiguous paraphrases.
1 The very hungry student ate the really tasty apple.
2 John thinks that Mary will win the race.
3 Will the children eat the cake with a fork?
4 Did the woman with the microscope quickly identify the bacterium?
5 John told Mary that Bill spoke to the boy with a loud voice.
6 The note was scribbled in the book with a pen.
7 Was Mary told that the letters for Bill were mailed to Busan.
(5.2) Draw Spell-Out trees for the following Korean sentences. Remember to include the case marker (nom and acc as well as the topic marker (top) as part of the N. The other morphology should be part of the tree.
1 민수가 그 사과를 영희에게 줬다 Minswu-ka ku sakwa-lul Yenghuy-eykey cwu-ess-ta Minsoo-nom dem apple-acc Younghui-to give-pst-decl ‘Minsoo gave the apple to Youngui.’
2 영희는 인호가 수현에게 책을 보냈다고 Yenghuy-nun Inho-ka swuhyen-eykey chayk-ul ponay-ss-tako Younghui-top Inho-nom Soohyun-to book-acc send-pst-decl.comp 생각한다. sayngkak-ha-n-ta think-lv-prs-decl ‘Younghui thinks that Inho sent the book to Soohyun.’
3 하늘은 민수에게 규민이 라면을 끓었다고 Hanul-un Minswu-eykey Kyumin-i lamyen-ul kkulh-ess-ta-ko Haneul-top Minsoo-to Kyumin-nom ramen-acc boil-pst-decl-comp 말했다. mal-ha-yess-ta word-lv-pst-decl ‘Haneul told Minsoo that Kyumin boiled the noodles.’
(5.3) Draw Spell-Out trees for the following French sentences. (Note that the hyphen is an orthographic convention of French. Treat penses and tu as separate words.) 158 CHAPTER 5. THE ARCHITECTURE OF GRAMMAR
1 Pierre a mangé la pomme. Pierre has eaten the apple ‘Pierre has eaten the apple.’
2 Marie pense que les invités aiment beaucoup le café. Marie thinks that the guests like a lot the coffee ‘Marie thinks that the guests like coffee a lot.’
3 Les étudiants pensent que Marie a lu un livre. the students think that Mary has read a book ‘The students think that Mary read a book.’
4 Penses-tu que Marie a mangé la pomme hier? think-you that Mary has eaten the apple yesterday ‘Do you think that Mary ate the apple yesterday?’
(5.4) Consider the following Mongolian data. Determine whether Mongolian is an SVO or an SOV language. Explain your answer and draw a tree for the first sentence.
(5.5) Consider the following Portuguese data.
1 O Pedro tem comido uma maçã. the Peter has eaten an apple ‘Peter has eaten an apple.’
2 O Pedro comeu uma maçã. the Peter ate an apple ‘Peter ate an apple.’
3 Tem o Pedro comido uma maçã. has the Peter eaten an apple ‘Has Peter eaten an apple.’
4 Comeu o Pedro uma maçã. ate the Peter an apple ‘Did Peter eat an apple.’
Draw a tree for the all four Portuguese sentences. What evidence did you use to decide how to draw the trees?
(5.6) Consider the following Italian data.
1 Gianni veste il bambino John dresses the baby ‘John dresses the baby.’ 5.4. PARAMETERIZATION AND WORD ORDER 159
2 Gianni veste sempre il bambino John dresses always the baby ‘John always dresses the baby.’
3 *Gianni sempre veste il bambino John always dresses the baby ‘(John always dresses the baby.)’
Draw a tree for the first Italian sentence. What evidence did you use to determine where the verb appears? 160 CHAPTER 5. THE ARCHITECTURE OF GRAMMAR
Further Reading
• Adger (2003) - This textbook is an excellent introduction to the mechanics of generative syntax within the Minimalist Program. It is a recommended next step after this textbook.
• Baker (2001) - This monograph contains a very accessible discussion on the current status of parameters in syntactic theory.
• Chomsky (1994) - This is Chomsky’s original monograph that outlines Bare Phrase Struc- ture.
• ? - This is Chomsky’s first most comprehensive discussion on the Minimalist Program. Nov- ice readers should be warned that most of the discussion is highly technical and should only be tackled once the reader has worked through the material in this textbook.
• Cowper (1992) - This textbook contains a highly accessible and concise discussion on the history and development of generative syntax.
• Haegeman (1994) - This textbook contains an in depth introduction to many aspects of Government and Binding Theory. It is a wonderful resource that ties together much of the discussion on this topic.
• Hyams (1986) - This is the original proposal for the Pro-drop parameter. The discussion is rather technical in parts, so the reader may wish to acquire more background in the study of L1 acquisition.
• Kayne (1994) - This monograph presents a restrictive theory of word order called Antisym- metry. The reader is well advised to have a strong command of the concepts in this text-book before tackling this monograph.
• Koopman (1984) - This book was one of the first in-depth studies on head movement in a non-Indo-European language. It contains discussions on several Kru languages, including Vata.
• Pollock (1989) - This is the original proposal that sought to derive the differences between word order in French and English by head movement. It also includes a discussion of infini- tives, so the reader is advised to wait until Chapter 9 has been covered. Interchapter D: Verb-Initial Languages
Verb-initial languages (both VSO and VOS) make up approximately 10% of the world’s languages and are found in a wide variety of geographical locations. They are also found in a great deal of genetically unrelated language families. We have already seen one verb-initial language - Irish, a VSO language (see p. 162 for more information on Irish). All extant Celtic languages are verb- initial. Other Verb-initial languages around the world include Niuean (Austronesian Niue, see p. 93), Jakaltek (Mayan - Guatemala), Tagalog (Austronesian - Philippines), Arabic (Semitic - Northern Africa and the Middle East), Chinook (Penutian - Oregon and Washington, only 12 speakers), Halkomelem (Salish - Vancouver Island, Cowichan Bay, Nanaimo), and Berber (Afro- Asiatic - Northern Africa). Although genetically unrelated, verb-initial languages exhibit many common properties. These include post-nominal adjectives example (5.1), inflected prepositions, example (5.2), and prever- bal particles that mark tense, mood, aspect, etc. example (5.3). There are other properties of verb-initial languages, but will restrict ourselves to these ones here. Note in particular that the preposition is inflected for its object (3pl). In Irish, inflected propositions are not possible when an independent DP complement to the preposition is present. Thus, in (5.2 b) and (5.2 c), the prepo- sition le (‘with’) has a complement DP Máire agus Eoghan (‘Mary and Owen’), so the uninflected form must be used as in (5.2 c).
(5.1) Y torthau mawr the loaves big [Welsh] ‘the big loaves’
(5.2) (a) Bhí mé ag caint leofa inné was I talk PROG with.them yesterday ‘I was talking to them yesterday.’ (b) leofa Máire agus Eoghan with.them Mary and Owen
161 162
(c) le Máire agus Eoghan with Mary and Owen ‘with Mary and Owen’
Irish (gle) and Welsh (cym) are Celtic languages. The Celtic branch of the Indo-European family was once spread across much of Europe as far east as modern day Turkey. They are now spoken in the British Isles and on a small part of northwestern France. All Celtic languages are threatened; however, Irish is enjoying a resurgence through successful revitalization plans. There are currently about 70,000 L1 speakers of Irish.
(5.3) ‘Oku sai’ia ika ‘a Mele prs like fish abs Mele ‘Mele likes fish.’ [Niuean] Recall from the previous chapter that the presence of an overt complementizer in an embedded clause in Irish with VSO order indicates that that VSO order cannot arise by general T-to-C movement. The following example from Tagalog shows that T-to-C movement cannot be responsible for VSO order in the embedded clause in that language, either. Thus, an analysis in which the subject remains in situ and the verb raises to T might be more appropriate for Tagalog, too. Consider the following example.
(5.4) Nagulat si Isabel na kumakain si Lito ng pansit. surprise.nom prt Isabel comp eat.nom prt Lito acc noodles ‘Isabel is surprised that Lito is eating noodles.’ [Tagalog (Mercado, 2003, ex.2)] In example (5.4), we observe a complementizer. Recall, that an overt complementizer blocks V-to-C movement in V2 languages. If VSO were truly derived from V-to-C movement, we would expect to find a different word order in embedded clauses in VSO languages; however, embedded clauses are still verb-initial, thus arguing against an analysis in which VSO is derived by V-to-C movement.
Tagalog (tgl) is an Austronesian language and is the most widely spoken language of The Philip- pines. Like the majority of Austronesian languages Tagalog is verb-initial. Also like many Aus- tronesian languages, Tagalog has a complex voice system that is quite different from Indo-European or East Asian languages. For further information see Kroeger (1993) and Schachter and Otanes (1972).
Finally, we will look at wh-constructions in verb-initial languages. First, let’s consider a standard sentence and a clefted sentence in Lushootseed (Hess, 1995). 163
(5.5) (a) Pu-ˇcala-t-@b P@ tiPiì wiw’su tiP@P sqw@bayP prfv-chase-tr-obl obl det children det dog ‘The children chased the dog.’ (b) tiP@P sqw@bayP ti Pu-ˇcala-t-@b P@ tiPiì wiw’su det dog det prfv-chase-tr-obl obl det children ‘A dog is what the children chased.’ [Lushootseed] Example (5.5 a) shows VSO order, the typical word order for Lushootseed. In the clefted sentence in (5.5 b) we observe that the normal VSO word order has been subverted so that the clefted XP precedes the verb. Specifically, the boldfaced determiner is what marks the clause as a cleft construction. Now, observe a wh-question in Lushootseed (asp = aspect): 164
Further Reading
• Rackowski and Travis (2000) - This is a collection of papers all dealing with the syntax of verb initial languages. Many of these contributions build on the proposals presented here and solve some on going challenges.
• McCloskey and Hale (1984) - This paper discusses inflection in Irish and includes a discussion on inflected prepositions. Much of the Irish data from this section was taken from this article.
• Carnie et al. (2005) - This volume contains several papers on verb-initial languages from around the world. The book includes research on how verb-initial order is obtained and on the typological correlates of verb-initial order. Chapter 6
Case Theory
' $ By the end of this chapter you should:
• understand the Case Filter and the Inverse Case Filter
• recognize passive constructions
• draw trees for passive sentences
• be familiar with Middle Voice
• understand the basic structure of NP, VP, AdvP, AdjP and PP
• be able to draw trees for multiclausal structures
• understand some basic transformations, including passivization, wh-movement, and
&scrambling. %
6.1 Case and the Distribution of DPs
Case is responsible for keeping track of the grammatical roles of noun phrases (or arguments in a sentence. From the Western tradition of grammar the notion of case has roots back to early Classical studies, which look at Latin and Ancient Greek. In Asia, the earliest studies on case were conducted on Sanskrit by P¯an. ini. Let’s start by looking at the following Latin sentence. Notice that the subject is marked with nominative case (nom) and the direct object is marked with accusative case (acc). Notice the suffixes on the noun phrases. We call these case suffixes.
(6.1) amic-us puell-am amat. friend-nom girl-acc loves ‘The friend loves the girl.’
Observe case suffixes in Korean.
165 166 CHAPTER 6. CASE THEORY
(6.2) 철수가 사과를 먹었다. Celswu-ka sakwa-lul mek-ess-ta Cheolsoo-nom apple-acc eat-pst-decl ‘Cheolsoo ate an apple.’
Although the precise details of case in Tagalog are a matter of debate, case in Tagalog is indicated by pre-nominal particles rather than by suffixes. Consider the following example (Kroeger, 1993, p.13), see also page 162.
(6.3) b-um-ili ang lalake ng isda sa tindahan
There are numerous kinds of cases in languages around the world. For now, we will consider only the two cases in (6.1) - the nominative and the accusative. We note that the subject appears with nominative case and the direct object appears with accusative case. For now, we will not worry about other cases you may know such as dative, ablative, and so forth.
Nominative Case is assigned to the subject. Accusative Case is assigned to the object.
Although case marking is extremely limited in modern English, it still appears on pronouns. Compare I saw him and He saw me. The pronouns I and he are used as subjects only, and are thus assumed to be marked with nominative case, while the pronouns me and him are used as objects only are marked with accusative case. Case markings are not always visible, however. For example, in the English translation of the Latin sentence above there is no visible case marking on the noun. We still say that the nouns have been assigned Case, though. Notice the capital ‘C’ on the word Case here. We use the term ‘case’ to refer to the various morphological markings as in Latin, Russian, Finnish and other languages with overt case morphology. The term ‘Case’, with a capital ‘C’ is used to refer to the identification of the structural position of the noun that is, is the noun in subject position or object position. This type of Case is more theoretical and will be built up in this chapter. While the presence of case varies from language to language, it is assumed that Case is present in all languages. For our purposes, we will start with the assumption that Case and case are identical for nominate and accusative, though we will see below that we will modify this assumption slightly. Thus, if the form of a pronoun is he or she, for example, we can conclude that this argument has nominative Case. If the form of a pronoun is him or her, we can conclude it may have accusative Case. Note that the forms him and her also appear as complements to prepositions. We will discuss this difference later, however. First we will cover nominative Case. 6.1. CASE AND THE DISTRIBUTION OF DPS 167
6.1.1 Nominative Case
Consider the following sentences. Pay close attention to the subject of the verb eat in all three sentences.
(6.4) Distribution of Nominative and Accusative Pronouns
(a) She ate the spinach. (b) For her to eat the spinach would be surprising. (c) I would really like for her to eat the spinach.
In example (6.4 a), the verb is tensed. In particular, it is marked with past tense. Furthermore, the subject of this sentence appears with nominative Case, as we have discussed above. In examples (6.4 b) and (6.4 c), however, we still understand her to be the logical subject of the sentence that is, her gets the external θ-role (the subject θ-role) from eat. However, her is marked with accusative Case. Notice further that the verb eat in the latter two sentences are infinitives. That is, they are not have any tense. This correlation led to the conclusion that nominative Case and tense are intimately intertwined such that tensed T is responsible for assigning nominative Case (Chomsky, 1980, 1981). If there is no logical subject in a tensed clause, then an expletive appears in SpecTP. Consider the following sentences, recalling the discussion of expletives in the previous chapter.
(6.5) (a) It’s raining. (b) It seems that John left early. (c) John seems to have left early.
Looking first at (6.5 a), observe that there is no meaningful subject. There is no ‘it’ that is doing the raining. In fact, in all these sentences the word it does not contribute any meaning to the sentence it does not refer to anything. Since the expletive does not refer to anything, it does not get a θ-role only actual participants in an event or state get a θ-role. They are also sometimes referred to as pleonastic pronouns. Compare this to a sentence such as It’s in the kitchen as a response to a question such as Where’s my book? Here, it does refer to something, so it bears a θ-role. Under our assumption that tensed T assigns nominative Case, there must be a nominal of some type to be assigned this Case. That’s the job of the expletive it does not mean anything; it’s just there for T to assign nominative Case to (and to satisfy the EPP as discussed in the previous chapter). 168 CHAPTER 6. CASE THEORY
6.1.2 Accusative Case
In traditional grammar it is assumed that certain verbs assign accusative case to the direct object.
(6.6) (a) I like bananas. (b) I like it here. (c) I like it in Hong Kong. (d) *I like here. (e) *I like in Hong Kong.
The verb like assigns a
6.1.3 Case Assignment
Borrowing from observations made on traditional studies of Latin grammar, arguments of a clause are considered to be assigned Case. We know Case is morphologically realized in many languages (such as Latin), but in English, it remains only on pronouns.
(6.7) (a) I like him. (b) He likes me.
Nevertheless, the distribution of nouns has the same properties across languages with active case morphology (such as Latin, Korean, and Russian) and languages with impoverished case morphology (such as English, French, and Mandarin). A tensed T assigns nominative Case. We have also said that v assigns accusative Case, but we will come back to the role of v and accusative Case later on in this chapter and in chapter 7.
Nominative Case is assigned by the tensed T head. Accusative Case is assigned by the light verb, v. (to be revised slightly)
Consider the following tree for John ate an apple. Note how Case is assigned to each of the arguments. Specifically, tensed T and v assign case at a distance. That is to say, there is no need for the direct object to be adjacent to v or to be in the Specifier of vP in order for v to assign accusative Case to it. The subject moves to the Specifier of TP; however, this is due to the EPP. Nominative Case assignment is shown in red and accusative Case assignment is shown in blue. 6.2. THE CASE FILTER 169
(6.8)
CP
C TP
′ DPi T
D N T vP
′ John ti v
v VP
atej V DP
tj D N
an apple
Before continuing, we briefly discuss prepositions. Prepositions assign Case to their comple- ments. From the data below we see that pronouns appear with accusative case morphology. This is not the same kind of accusative Case that is assigned by v. Here it is important to keep mor- phological case distinct from Case. In most languages of the type discussed here subjects in basic sentences are inflected with nominative case and direct objects are inflected with accusative case. The case that appears on the object of a preposition varies idiosyncratically from one language to the next. We will not worry about the nature of the Case assigned by prepositions. It is important for us, however, that prepositions do assign Case. We must also remember that in English, the object of a preposition is inflected with accusative case.
(6.9) (a) John baked a cake for me. (b) *John baked a cake for I.
6.2 The Case Filter
Recall that only tensed T assigns nominative Case. Consider the following data, concentrating only on the underlined clauses.
(6.10) (a) That John/he lost the race was devastating. (b) For John/him to lose the race would be devastating. (c) *John/him to lose the race would be devastating. 170 CHAPTER 6. CASE THEORY
In (6.10 a) the verb lost is inflected for past tense, so T assigns nominative Case to the subject. In (6.10 b), the verb lose is an infinitive. T is not tensed and so cannot assign nominative Case to the subject. Instead, the subject is assigned Case from the preposition for. Recall that the morphological realization of case assigned by prepositions in English is accusative. If we look at (6.10 c), we see that the sentence is unacceptable. The Theta Criterion is not violated since John/him has a θ-role from v as the subject of the verb lose. In this sentence, John/him lacks Case. It does not receive nominative Case, and there is no preposition to assign Case to it. We posit the Case Filter, which states that DPs (and pronominal Ds) must be assigned Case. Thus, sentence (6.10 c) is ungrammatical because it violates the Case Filter. Consider, now, the following example.
(6.11) *Johni seems that ti likes chocolate.
Recall that seem-type verbs do not appear with a vP as there is no external argument. The subject of seem can be an expletive, which has no θ-role.
(6.12) It seems that John likes chocolate.
So, (6.11) does not violate the Theta Criterion. Observe, however, the subject John receives nominative Case in the lower clause, and in the higher clause. We propose, then, that a DP can be assigned Case only once.
Case Filter: All DPs must be assigned Case once and only once.
Let’s consider the structure for (6.11) to see how it violates the Case Filter. 6.3. PASSIVIZATION 171
(6.13)
CP
C TP
′ DPi T
John T VP
V CP
seems C TP
′ that ti T
T vP
′ ti v
v VP
likej V DP
tj D N
chocolate Here, the DP John raises from the embedded vP to the specifier of the embedded TP, to satisfy EPP. It also receives nominative Case from the embedded T. The DP then raises to the specifier of the matrix TP to satisfy EPP again, where it is assigned nominative Case from the matrix T. Thus, the Case Filter has been violated. Every DP can be assigned Case once and only once. John has been assigned Case twice.
6.3 Passivization
Consider the following pair of sentences.
(6.14) (a) Mary ate the mango. (b) The mango was eaten (by Mary).
The sentence in (6.14 b) has undergone a process called passivization. In traditional grammar we say that (6.14 a) appears in the active voice and that (6.14 b) appears in the passive voice. 172 CHAPTER 6. CASE THEORY
Notice also that the adjunct by-phrase by Mary is optional. The hallmark of the passive voice is that the object of the active sentence is the subject of the passive sentence. Compare some more passive and active sentence pairs.
(6.15) (a) John kicked the chair. → The chair was kicked (by John). (b) Susan bought the computer. → The computer was bought (by Susan). (c) The passengers boarded the airplane. → The airplane was boarded (by the passengers).
Passive sentences in English contain the auxiliary be plus the past participle form of the verb (which contains what is often called the passive morpheme -en). The passive voice has two impor- tant properties. (i) The external argument is absent (or appears in an optional by-phrase, and (ii) no accusative Case is assigned. The lack of accusative Case assignment can be seen more easily with pronouns in English.
(6.16) (a) Mary saw him. (b) He was seen (by Mary).
The distinction is clearer in Korean, which has overt Case marking. Observe the case marking on ‘house’. Note crucially, that there is no accusative object in the passive sentence.
(6.17) (a) 영회가 집을 나무로 만들었다. Yenghuy-ka cip-ul namwu-lo mandul-ess-ta. Younghui-nom house-acc wood-instr make-pst-decl ‘Younghui made the house out of wood.’ (b) Cip-i namwu-lo mandul-eci-ess-ta. 집이 나무로 만들어졌다. house-nom wood-instr make-pass-pst-decl ‘Younghui made the house out of wood.’ [Korean] In order to talk about passives we will introduce the following terms. Note that unless otherwise specified, the object refers to the direct object. We will address the issue of indirect objects and ditransitive verbs later in the chapter. For now, we will assume a single internal argument–that is a single object, the direct object.
(6.18) (a) grammatical subject - The entity that appears in the Specifier of TP and bears nominative case morphology. In many languages the grammatical subject triggers subject agreement on the verb or highest auxiliary. (b) thematic subject - The entity that bears the external θ-role (c) grammatical object - The entity that is the sister to V and bears accusative case morphology. In some languages the object triggers agreement distinct from the subject agreement. 6.3. PASSIVIZATION 173
(d) thematic object - The entity that bears the internal θ-role
Our task is to account for passive sentences in a simple and straightforward way. The correlation between the active form and the passive form is remarkably constant. In all cases, the thematic subject of the active sentence is either absent in the passive sentence or appears in an optional by- phrase in the passive sentence. The thematic object of the active sentence is the grammatical subject of the passive sentence. There is no grammatical object in the passive sentence. As mentioned, in the passive voice there is no accusative Case assignment and there is no θ-role to assign to an external argument (the thematic subject). Recall that v has two jobs. It introduces the external argument and it assigns accusative Case. These are the two things that are absent in passive voice. We propose, then, that passives are formed by the absence of v. Here is the intermediate structure for The mango was eaten.
(6.19) TP
T VP
was V DP
eaten D N
the mango
There is no v, so accusative Case cannot be assigned to the thematic object. Furthermore, no external argument can be introduced because v is also in charge of assigning a θ-role to a subject. Recall, however, that T assigns nominative Case. The DP object needs Case; T needs to assign Case to a DP, so the object is assigned nominative Case (and appears with nominative case morphology). Finally, the DP the mango raises to the Specifier of TP to satisfy the EPP.
(6.20)
T assigns nominative case to the CP thematic object, which becomes
the grammatical subject. C TP
′ DPi T V assigns a θ-role to the
the mango T VP thematic object.
was V ti
eaten 174 CHAPTER 6. CASE THEORY
6.4 Alternative Types of Passives
6.4.1 Inherent Case
So far, we have discussed structural Case, which is assigned according to the structural position of the argument. We now turn to another situation. Consider the following German data. You can read more about German in Interchapter E.
(6.21) (a) Ich habe den Kind gesehen. I have the.acc child seen ‘I saw the child.’ (b) Der Kind wurde gesehen. the.nom child was seen ‘The child was seen.’ (c) Ich habe dem Kind geholfen I have the.dat child helped ‘I helped the child.’ (d) Dem Kind wurde geholfen. the.dat child was helped ‘The child was helped.’ [German] Example (6.21 b) illustrates a canonical passive. The accusative direct object in the active sentence appears with nominative Case in the passive sentence. In the active sentence in (6.21 c), however, the direct object appears with dative Case. Certain verbs in German assign inherent Case (Chomsky, 1986; Belletti, 1988), which remains invariant under passivization. Thus, in the passive sentence in (6.21 d), dative Case appears on the derived subject, rather than nominative. It is typically assumed that verbs such as help in German assign Case directly to the direct object (Woolford, 2006). Since the object is assigned dative Case inherently by the verb, the absence of v in passives does not affect Case assignment. It is an ongoing question, however, how nominative Case is handled. Recall that according to the Case Filter, a DP is assigned Case once and only once. One recent suggestion is that T attempts to assign nominative Case, but if it fails to do so then it gives up, but failure to assign nominative Case does not result in ungrammaticality (Preminger, 2014).
6.4.2 “Get”-Passives
Colloquial English has an additional passive construction with similar properties to the standard passive. Consider the following examples. While the standard passive can refer to either a state or an event, the get-passive can refer only to an event. Also, the get-passive is often used to express an unintentional or unexpected event. 6.4. ALTERNATIVE TYPES OF PASSIVES 175
(6.22) (a) Mary got arrested by the police. (b) My bike got stolen. (c) Pat got vaccinated against covid-19.
The following examples show that the get-passive can only have an eventive interpretation. The first sentence refers to an event of someone breaking the window with a rock at 5:00 pm. The second sentence refers to a state of the window being broken. Observe that the get-passive cannot be used with the stative interpretation.
(6.23) (a) The window was broken with a rock at 5:00 pm. (b) The window was broken for over a week before someone fixed it. (c) The window got broken with a rock at 5:00 pm. (d) *The window got broken for over a week before someone fixed it.
Finally, consider the following data.
(6.24) (a) His bike got stolen. (b) Did his bike get stolen? (c) *Got his bike stolen?
These examples show that do-support is necessary for polarity questions in get-passives. The precise analysis of the get-passive is a matter of ongoing research. See Biggs and Embick (to appear) for a recent proposal and a discussion of earlier work. The fact that do-support is necessary to form polarity questions suggests that the auxiliary get does not appear under T.
6.4.3 Middle Voice
Finally, we discuss the middle voice construction. This construction has some rather mysterious properties that are not fully understood; however, the following generalizations seem to hold. First, in a middle voice construction, the DP that has the θ-role of the object appears as the subject. Furthermore, this construction always describe a state rather than a particular event. Consider the following examples.
(6.25) (a) Peter washed the cashmere sweater. (b) Cashmere sweaters do not wash easily. (c) *The cashmere sweater washed yesterday. 176 CHAPTER 6. CASE THEORY
In the normal active sentence in (6.25 a, the direct object, the cashmere sweater, has a
(6.26) *Cashmere sweaters wash.
(6.27) (a) Susan sliced the bread. (b) This bread just won’t slice. (c) This bread slices easily. (d) *This bread slices.
6.4.4 Impersonal Passives
So far, we have seen that the external argument is removed or demoted to a by-phrase in passives. Thus, a passivized trivalent verb appears with only two arguments and a passivized bivalent verb appears with only one. In English, monovalent verbs cannot be passivized. They can, however, in German (Donaldson, 2007, p.150). Consider the following data.
(6.28) No impersonal passives in English
(a) The children danced. (b) *It was danced (by the children). (c) The baby cried. (d) *It was cried (by the baby).
(6.29) Impersonal passives in German
(a) Die Kinder haben getanzt. the children have danced ‘The children danced.’ (b) Es wurde getanzt. it was danced ‘There was dancing.’ (c) Es wurde in diesem Bett geschlafen. it was in this bed slept ‘Someone slept in this bed.’ [German] These constructions are referred to as impersonal passives because they don’t talk about or relate the event to anyone or anything. These sentences merely assert that the event took place without saying who the participants were. 6.4. ALTERNATIVE TYPES OF PASSIVES 177
6.4.5 SE in Romance
The morpheme se is found in virtually all varieties of Romance. We will deal with this morpheme more fully in Chapter 10, but for now, we will discuss the impersonal passives, which use the se morpheme. Although Romance languages have passives that are structurally similar to those found in English, they are not as common as the impersonal passives found with se. The following example shows an active sentence, passive sentence and impersonal se passive in Portuguese. Note that the hyphen here is an orthographic convention of Portuguese and is not intended to show a morphological break down.
(6.30) (a) Eles comeram as toranjas. they ate.3.pl the grapefruit.pl ‘They ate the grapefruits.’ (b) As toranjas foram comidas. the grapefruit.pl were eaten ‘The grapefruits were eaten.’ (c) As toranjas comeram-se. the grapefruit.pl ate.3.pl-se ‘The grapefuits were eaten.’ [Portuguese] Like the standard passive construction, the impersonal passive undergoes lacks an external argument. Morphologically, the impersonal se passive is formed with the active form of the main verb that agrees with the promoted argument and the presence of the se morpheme. There is no passive morphology as in English passive. The impersonal se passive can appear with agent-oriented adverbs, but not with by-phrases. This is illustrated with Italian data (Frigeni, 2004).
(6.31) (a) Gli elettori si corruppero deliberatemente. the electors se corrupted.3.pl deliberately ‘The voters were bribed deliberately.’ (b) I voti si scrutinano (*da due segretari). the votes se counted.3.pl (*by two officers) ‘The votes were counted (*by two officers).’ [Italian]
6.4.6 Mandarin: The Ba-Construction
Consider the following examples from Mandarin (see p. 90). Mandarin is an SVO language; however, the thematic object in the sentences in the right column appear to the left of the verb and are accompanied by a morpheme glossed as ba. Thus, SVO becomes S ba-O V.
(6.32) The ba-construction (Li, 2006, p.377) 178 CHAPTER 6. CASE THEORY
(a) wo sha-le ta le I kill-prfv him sfp ‘I killed him.’ (b) wo ba ta sha le I ba him kill sfp ‘I killed him.’ (c) wo wang-le yaoshi le I forget-prfv key sfp ‘I forgot the key.’ (d) wo ba yaoshi wang le I ba key forget sfp ‘I forgot the key.’ [Mandarin] As seen by the English translations, there appears to be little difference in meaning between the ba-sentences and their non-ba counterparts. While much is known about the structure of these sentences, less is know about the semantics of the ba-construction (though see Li and Thompson (1981) for one of the most detailed discussions on the semantic properties of the ba-construction). 6.4. ALTERNATIVE TYPES OF PASSIVES 179
Key Concepts
• case - the morphological marker that relates a noun to its grammatical function
• Case - an abstract licensing function that relates a noun to its grammatical function
• Case Filter - a principle that states that all nominal phrases (DPs) must bear Case
• nominative - the Case borne by the grammatical subject in many languages, including English
• accusative - the Case borne by the direct object in many languages, including English
• active voice - the form of a sentence in which the thematic arguments correspond to their grammatical counterparts
• passive voice - the form of a sentence in which the thematic object is the grammatical subject
• structural Case - Case that is assigned by a functional head (finite T and v)
• inherent Case - Case that is assigned directly by a particular lexical item (usually a verb)
• middle voice - A structure in which the logical subject is absent and the direct object appears in subject position. The middle voice asserts a general state about the entity in question. Ex. This sweater washes easily refers to the fact that the sweater is easy to wash. This sentence does not refer to a particular event of sweater-washing. 180 CHAPTER 6. CASE THEORY
Exercises
(6.1) Draw trees for the following sentences.
1 The apples were washed in the kitchen with a wet cloth.
2 John was told that these cookies were eaten yesterday.
3 The sad child was given the candies in the kitchen.
4 The church on the top of the hill was built during the Renaissance.
5 Those boys were punished after school.
6 The apple was eaten in the kitchen.
7 John thinks that his car was stolen from the driveway.
(6.2) Draw trees for the following Korean sentences. For the third sentence, treat telep-hi-eci as a verb (i.e., as a single V node).
1 문이 닫혔다 mwun-i tat-hi-ess-ta. door-nom close-pass-pst-decl ‘The door was closed.’
2 민지가 길이 막혔다고 말했다. Minci-ka kil-i mak-hi-ess-tako mal-ha-yess-ta Minji-nom road-nom block-pass-pst-decl.comp word-do-pst-decl ‘Minji said that the roads were jammed.’
3 손이 크레파스로 더럽혀졌다. son-i khuleyphasu-lo telep-hi-eci-ess-ta hand-nom crayon-with dirty-caus-pass-pst-decl ‘(My) hand got dirty from crayons.’
4 하늘은 민수에게 라면이 끓였다고 말했다. Hanul-un Minswu-eykey lamyen-i kkulh-i-ess-ta-ko mal-ha-yess-ta Haneul-top Minsoo-to ramen-nom boil-pass-pst-decl-comp word-lv-pst-decl ‘Haneul told Minsoo that the noodles boiled.’
(6.3) Draw trees for the following French sentences.
1 La voiture a été volée. The car has been stolen ‘The car was stolen.’ 6.4. ALTERNATIVE TYPES OF PASSIVES 181
2 Marie pense que la porte a été fermée. Marie thinks that the door has been closed. ‘Marie thinks that the door was closed.’
(6.4) Consider the following sentences.
1 This book was scribbled in.
2 This bed was slept in.
3 This paper was typed on.
These sentences are examples of pseudo passives. How do pseudo passives differ from regular passives? What problem do pseudo passives present for Case Theory? Consider, now, the following data. What factor determines whether a pseudo passive is possible?
1 *This book was scribbled a note in.
2 *This paper was typed an essay on.
(6.5) Consider the following German data. These constructions are referred to as long passives. What is different about German long passives from standard passives?
1 ...weil der Lastwagen und der Traktor zu reparieren versucht wurden since the.nom truck and the.nom tractor to repair try.part were.3pl ‘...since somebody tried to repair the truck and the tractor.’
2 *...weil der Lastwagen und der Traktor zu reparieren geplannt wurden since the.nom truck and the.nom tractor to repair plan.part were.3pl ‘...since somebody planned to repair the truck and the tractor.’
(6.6) Degema is argued not to have a true passive construction. Consider the following data and comment on the differences between them and canonical passives in English (data from Kari, 2004). (fe = factitive enclitic – This morpheme does not figure in the answer to this problem.)
1 Ohoso o-gbiye-¯un ól¯oló Ohoso 3.sg-kill-fe bottle ‘Ohoso broke a bottle.’
2 Ól¯oló o-wú-¯un bottle 3.sg-die-fe ‘The bottle broke.’ 182 CHAPTER 6. CASE THEORY
3 Ohoso o-tó-n ómó yo. Ohoso 3.sg-burn-fe child the ‘Ohoso burned the child.’
4 Ómóyo o-tú-¯un child the 3.sg-be.burnt-fe ‘The child got burned.’ [Degema] 6.4. ALTERNATIVE TYPES OF PASSIVES 183
Further Reading
• Keenan (1985) - This book chapter provides an overview of passive constructions in the world’s languages.
• Jung (2014) - This article is a theoretically advanced discussion of passives and causatives in Korean. The empirical facts should be accessible by this point, however.
• Li (2006) - This comprehensive review papers offers an in depth discussion of the properties of the ba-construction in Mandarin and also gives a brief comparison with a similar construction in Taiwanese Chinese. Much of the descriptive content should be accessible by this point.
• Klaiman (1991) and Zúñiga and Kittilä (2019) - These are two monographs that discuss cross-linguistic properties of grammatical voice.
• Wanner (2009) - This monograph provides an in depth look at the passive in English. 184 CHAPTER 6. CASE THEORY Interchapter E: Verb Second in Germanic
Verb second (V2) is a phenomenon in which the tensed verb of a matrix clause appears as the second element in the sentence. It is found in almost all Germanic languages, except English (although it was found in older varieties of English). Consider the following German examples.
(6.1) (a) Johann geht morgen in die Oper. Johann goes tomorrow in the opera ‘Johan is going to the opera tomorrow.’ (b) Morgen geht Johan in die Oper tomorrow goes Johan in the opera ‘Tomorrow, John is going to the opera.’ [German] Notice that the verb geht (‘goes’) is the second element in each clause. It is not the second word in the sentence; rather, it follows the first constituent attached to the clausal spine, as shown below.
(6.2) (a) Der Musikstudent aus Tübingen geht morgen in die Oper the music.student from Tübingen goes tomorrow in the opera ‘The music student from Tübingen is going to the opera tomorrow.’ (b) In die Oper über den Herrenfriseur geht Johann morgen in the opera about the barber goes Johann tomorrow ‘Johann is going to the opera about the barber tomorrow.’ [German] In the examples above the first constituent is underlined. The following Dutch examples illus- trate the same point.
(6.3) (a) Tasman heeft Nieuw-Zeeland ontdek-t Tasman has New Zealand discover-pst ‘Tasman discovered New Zealand.’ (b) In 1642 heeft Tasman Nieuw-Zeeland ontdek-t in 1642 has Tasman New Zealand discover-pst ‘In 1642 Tasman discovered New Zealand.’ [Dutch (Zwart, 2011, p.281)]
185 186
In the examples so far there has been only one main verb and no auxiliaries. If an auxiliary is present, it appears in V2 position, and the main verb is at the end of the clause. Verb-second effects are achieved by V-to-C raising in V2 languages. In other words, in V2 languages, the verb obligatorily raises to C, unless it is blocked from doing so. There are two pieces of evidence to support this analysis. The first comes from blocking effects just alluded to above. If another C element, such as a complementizer, is present in the clause, then the verb will not be able to move up to second position. Consider the following Danish examples (Vikner, 1995).
(6.4) (a) ...at Peter ofte har drukket kaffe om morgenen. ...that Peter often has drunk coffee in the morning ‘...that Peter has often drunk coffee in the morning.’ (b) *...at Peter har ofte drukket kaffe om morgenen. ...that Peter has often drunk coffee in the morning ‘(...that Peter has often drunk coffee in the morning.)’ (c) *...at har Peter ofte drukket kaffe om morgenen. ...that has Peter often drunk coffee in the morning ‘...that Peter has often drunk coffee in the morning.’
The presence of the complementizer at (‘that’) prevents the verb from raising to C. Note that, unlike German and Dutch which have SOV word order, Danish has SVO word order. A closely related phenomenon called conditional inversion is found in English (Whitney, 1889, p.231) and (Sinclair, 2005, p.481). Consider the following examples.
(6.5) (a) If Peter had been smarter he could have won the game. (b) Had Peter been smarter he could have won the game.
The proposed structure for V2, then, is as follows.
(6.6)
CP
Spec C′
C TP We are now in a position to draw some trees for German V2 sentences. Recall that German is a partially SOV language in that VP, vP and TP are right headed (see Chapter 5). Here are two examples of V2 with their associated trees below.
(6.7) (a) Susi hat gestern in der Oper eine Aria gesungen. Susi has yesterday in the.dat opera an Aria sung ‘Susi sang an aria in the opera yesterday.’ 187
(b) Morgen liest Susi den Roman. Tomorrow reads Susi the.acc novel ‘Susi is going to read the novel tomorrow.’ [German]
CP
′ DPi C
D N C TP
′ Susi hatj ti T
vP T
AdvP vP tj
gestern PP vP
′ P DP ti v
in D N VP v
der Oper DP V gesungenk
D N tk
eine aria 188
CP
′ AdvPi C
morgen C TP
′ liestj DPk T
D N vP T
Susi ti vP tj
′ tk v
VP v
DP V tj
D N tj
den Roman 189
Further Reading
• Vikner (1995) - This monograph offers an in depth analysis of various word-order properties across a wide range of Germanic languages and dialects. The reader is cautioned, however, that the theoretical discussion can be quite technical in parts.
• Voyles (1992) - This monograph offers a comprehensive discussion of Proto-Germanic.
• Holmberg (2015) - This review article provides an up-to-date theoretical discussion of different approaches to V2 phenomena in Germanic and in other languages. 190 Chapter 7
Case Alignment Systems
' $ By the end of this chapter you should be able to:
• understand Ergativity
• recognize antipassive constructions
• draw trees for antipassive constructions
• understand unaccusativity and how it is structurally represented
&• understand Burzio’s Generalization. %
7.1 Unaccusativity
Until now, we have treated monovalent verbs as a single class of predicates structured as in the following tree.
(7.1) CP
C TP
′ DPi T
D N T vP
′ John ti v
v V
sneezedj tj
191 192 CHAPTER 7. CASE ALIGNMENT SYSTEMS
In this section, we will take a critical look at several monovalent verbs and see if they do indeed for a homogenous class, or whether they for two distinct classes. Consider the set of monovalent verbs in (7.2). These verbs can usually appear with cognate objects, an object that is lexically related to the verb.
(7.2) Cognate Objects
(a) I dreamed a wonderful dream. (b) I sighed a huge sigh of relief. (c) I slept the sleep of the dead. (d) na-nun ca-m-ul ca-ss-ta. 내가 잠을 잤다. I-top sleep-nlzr-acc sleep-pst-decl ‘I slept.’ (e) na-nun chwu-m-ul chw-ess-ta. 내가 춤을 췄다. I-top dance-nlzr-acc dance-pst-decl ‘I danced.’
Now look at the set of monovalent verbs in (7.3). These verbs cannot appear with a cognate object or a dummy reflexive.
(7.3) No Cognate Objects
(a) *I arrived an exhausting arrival. (b) *The ghost appeared a frightening appearance.
Let’s turn now to Cantonese. Consider the following Cantonese verbs, which are intransitive in English (see page 90 for more information on Cantonese).
(7.4) (a) fan3 gaau3 sleep sleep ‘to sleep’ (b) sik6 ye5 eat stuff ‘to eat’ (c) waak6 wa2 draw drawing ‘to draw’ (d) coeng3 go1 sing song ‘to sing’ 7.1. UNACCUSATIVITY 193
Many languages, including Cantonese, have a strict transitivity requirement that is, there must be a direct object, even if the direct object is semantically vacuous or a cognate object. This is particularly apparent with eat in Cantonese. Note, however, the following examples that do not take a cognate object.
(7.5) (a) heoi3 go ‘to go’ (b) lei6 arrive ‘to arrive’
Another difference found with monovalent verbs in English is their ability to appear in an expletive construction. The set of monovalent verbs in (7.6) can appear with the expletive there in, whereas the set of monovalent verbs in (7.7) cannot. The examples in (7.6) have a rather literary feel and are not common in casual conversation.
(7.6) (a) There arrived several travellers. (b) There fell some leaves from the tree.
(7.7) (a) *There sneezed a dog. (b) *There yawned a tired traveller. (c) *There laughed several children.
We turn, now, to a phenomenon in Italian called ne-cliticization, discussed by Burzio (1986). The Italian partitive clitic ne represents the entity of which a sub-part is expressed. Observe that the direct object in Italian can be indexed by the clitic ne. In the following example the clitic ne refers to the books–the direct object.
(7.8) Ne-cliticization in Italian
(a) I ragazzi hanno letto tre libri the.m.pl boys have.3pl read.part three books ‘The boys have read three books.’ (b) I ragazzi ne hanno letto tre the boys ne have.3pl read.part three ‘The boys have read three of them.’
This clitic cannot refer to the subject, as the following examples show. 194 CHAPTER 7. CASE ALIGNMENT SYSTEMS
(7.9) Failed ne-cliticization in Italian
(a) Tre regazzi hanno letto i libri three boys have read the books ‘Three boys have read the books.’ (b) Ne hanno letto (tre) i libri (tre) ne have read (three) the books (three) ‘(Three of them have read the books.)’
As expected, the subject of a monovalent verb cannot typically support the ne clitic, as in (7.10).
(7.10) Failed ne-cliticization with Italian monovalent verbs
(a) Tre uomini hanno tossito. three men have coughed ‘Three men have coughed.’ (b) *Ne hanno tossito tre ne have couged three ‘(Three of them have coughed.)’
Observe, however, that with the arrive-class of monovalent verbs ne-cliticization is possible.
(7.11) Ne-cliticization with monovalent verbs in Italian
(a) Tre uomini sono arrivati three men are arrived ‘Three men have arrived.’ (b) Ne sono arrivati tre ne are arrived three ‘Three of them have arrived.’
If ne-cliticization is restricted to direct objects, then it is surprising that it is possible with the arrive-class of verbs. Recall the process of noun incorporation from Interchapter A. The direct object of a verb can incorporate into the verb. This is illustrated in the Hare dialect of Slavey (Rice, 1991).
(7.12) Hare dialect of Slave
(a) léxudek’a lé-xu-de-k’a together-tooth-asp-grind ‘S/he is grinding his/her teeth together.’ 7.1. UNACCUSATIVITY 195
(b) lédek’a lé-de-k’a together-asp-grind ‘S/he is grinding it together.’
This process is normally restricted to direct objects, but there is a set of monovalent verbs in which the subject can incorporate. Slavey is an Dené- Yeniseian language (7.13) rátakeli˛ rá-ta-ke-li˛ spoken in Northern down-water-asp-flow Canada. It is divided ‘Water flows down.’ into two sets of dialects, North Slavey (scs) and If noun incorporation is restricted to objects, it is again sur- South Slavey (xls). prising that it should be found with subjects on some monovalent The data shown here verbs. are from North Slavey. In Italian, the past participle agrees with the object, if the object North Slavey is spoken has raised above the past participle. Consider the following exam- in the Northwest Ter- ples first. Note that mela (‘apple’) is feminine in Italian. When the ritories in Canada by apple is in object position, to the right of the verb, default agree- about 800 people. It ment (masculine) appears on the participle. When the object is is a highly endangered passivized and becomes the grammatical subject, feminine agree- language. ment appears on the participle (and on one of the auxiliaries, too). The last example shows that the participle does not agree with the subject. This lack of agreement is also shown in (7.10 a).
(7.14) Italian Participle Agreement
(a) Ho mangi-at-o la mela have.1sg eat-part-sg.m the.f apple ‘I ate the apple.’ (b) La mela é stat-a mangi-at-a the.f apple is been eat-part-f ‘The apple was eaten.’ (c) La ragazza ha toss-it-o the.f girl has cough-part-m ‘The girl has coughed.’
Observe, now, in the following data that the subject triggers agreement on the participle in the arrive-class of monovalent verbs (Kayne, 1989). See also example (7.11 a). 196 CHAPTER 7. CASE ALIGNMENT SYSTEMS
(7.15) (a) Le ragazze sono arriv-at-e the.f.pl girls are arrive-part-f.pl ‘The girls have arrived’ (b) Gli studenti sono part-it-i the.m.pl students are leave-part-m.pl ‘The students have left.’
Finally, we will look at resultatives in English. Consider the following examples with secondary predicates. These are called object and subject complements in traditional grammar. There are two types of secondary predicates: resultatives (as mentioned above) and depictives. The difference between these two is important for the discussion below. A depictive describes the state of the subject or the object in the main clause. Consider the following examples.
(7.16) Depictives in English
(a) John drank the tea hot. (b) Mary walked home tired.
In the first sentence hot describes the state of the tea while John was drinking it. In the second sentence tired describes Mary’s state while she walked home. Thus, in the first example the depictive predicates the object, and in the second sentence the depictive predicates the subject. Resultatives, on the other hand, describe the state of the object as a result of the event of the main clause. While depictives can modify either the subject or the object, resultatives can only modify the object in English, a property first discussed by Simpson (1983).1 Consider the following examples.
(7.17) Resultatives in English
(a) Alice pounded the metal flat. (b) *Alice pounded the metal tired. (* on resultative reading)
The first sentence means that the metal became flat as a result of Alice pounding it. Here, the depictive flat predicates the object. In the second sentence, however, the secondary predicate tired cannot be used to mean that Alice became tired as a result of pounding the metal. It can only be used as a depictive, in which case it means that Alice was tired while she pounded the metal. We say that resultatives have a direct object restriction Simpson (1983). In light of the difference between depictives and resultatives, consider the following data.
1Note that in Chinese resultatives can modify either the subject or the object (Huang, 1988). 7.1. UNACCUSATIVITY 197
unaccusative unergative cognate objects in English and Korean impossible possible cognate objects in Cantonese impossible obligatory there expletives possible impossible ne-cliticization in Italian possible impossible participle agreement in Italian obligatory impossible subject incorporation in Slavey possible impossible dummy reflexives in English impossible possible
Table 7.1: Summary of Unaccusativity Diagnostics
(7.18) Resultatives and Dummy Reflexives in English
(a) *Fred laughed silly. (b) Fred laughed himself silly. (c) *Pat cried to sleep. (d) Pat cried himself to sleep. (e) *I fell hurt. (f) *I fell myself hurt.
As expected the resultatives in (7.18) cannot be used to predicate the subject. Note, though, that with laugh and cry a dummy reflexive can be used, and the resultative now has an object. We call these reflexives dummy reflexives because the verbs are otherwise used only in intransitive constructions. The verb fall, which is part of these arrive-class of verbs, cannot be appear with a dummy reflexive. The arrive-class of verbs are called unaccusative for reasons to be made clear below. The other class of verbs (including laugh, cry, etc.) are called unergative. The following chart summarizes the findings in this section. With regards to ne-cliticizaton and participle agreement in Italian and subject incorporation in Slavey, what we see is that the subject of the unaccusative verbs are behaving like an object. Note also that the subject of an unaccusative in many cases has a
(7.19) CP
C TP
′ DPi T
D N T VP
John V ti
arrived
Observe that the grammatical subject is underlying an internal argument, that is a thematic object. As such, we expect it to behave as objects in some ways as just mentioned. Let’s see, now, how we can capture the other properties in Table 7.1. It will be instructive to compare the tree for an unaccusative in (7.19) with a tree for an unergative construction. Here is the tree for John sneezed.
(7.20) CP
C TP
′ DPi T
D N T vP
′ John ti v
v V
sneezedj tj
In an unaccusative construction, the grammatical subject is the underlying object, so there is no space for a cognate object or dummy reflexive to appear. In an unergative construction, on the other hand, the verb does not have a complement, so it is possible for an object to appear. Compare the following constructions for unergatives with cognate objects.
(7.21) (a) The child sneezed a terrible sneeze. (b) Chelswu-ka kkwu-m-ul kkw-ess-ta. 철수가 꿈을 꿨다. Cheolsoo-nom dream-nlzr-acc dream-pst-decl ‘Cheolsoo had a dream.’ 7.1. UNACCUSATIVITY 199
(7.22) (a) CP
C TP
′ DPi T
D N T vP
′ the child ti v
v VP
sneezedj V DP
tj D NP
a Adj NP
terrible N
sneeze
Finally, we address there-expletive constructions. If we consider the structure we can understand the difference between unaccusatives and unergatives with respect the there-expletives. Let’s build the structure from the beginning. First the verb arrive selects the DP a traveller. The verb assigns a
(7.23) VP
arrived D N
a traveller Next, T merges with VP. T has the EPP property, so something must appear in the specifier of TP. Furthermore, there is no v to assign accusative Case to the internal argument, so it must receive nominative Case from T. In the cases we have been discussing so far, the internal argument raises to SpecTP.
(7.24) 200 CHAPTER 7. CASE ALIGNMENT SYSTEMS
TP
′ DPi T NOM D N TEPP VP
arrived
Finally, C merges with TP to provide illocutionary force to the proposition.
(7.25) CP
C TP
′ DPi T NOM D N T VP
arrived Alternatively, the expletive there can be merged into SpecTP to satisfy EPP on T. T still assigns nominative Case to the internal argument. 7.1. UNACCUSATIVITY 201
(7.26)
CP
C TP
there T′ NOM T VP
arrived D N
a traveller A particular subtype of unaccusative verbs is found in the causative-inchoative alternation, which we saw in Chapter 2. Consider the following examples.
(7.27) (a) John broke the vase. (b) The vase broke.
Recall that we had to posit two lexical entries for break. Recall also that a large number of verbs alternate in the same way (boil, shatter, melt, etc.). Several Korean verbs have the same property, but exhibit a morphological change (끓다/끓이다, 열다/열리다, 닫다/닫히다 etc.). It would be rather unparsimonious to list all the alternating verbs in the Lexicon twice. It would also miss the generalization that these verbs alternate in the same way. Instead we have the following two lexical entries.
(7.28) (a) v: VP, DP
(b) BREAK: V, DP
Thus, to derive the sentences in (7.27) the verb break selects the DP the vase. If no v is merged with VP, then the thematic object becomes the grammatical subject as in (7.27 b). If v merges with VP, then an external argument will merge in the Specifier of vP. The external argument becomes the grammatical subject as in (7.27 a).
Constructions that lack vP
• unaccusative
• passive
• seem-type verbs (seem, appear, look like, etc.) 202 CHAPTER 7. CASE ALIGNMENT SYSTEMS
nominative-accusative ergative-absolutive
S S NOM ABS ACC ERG
A P A P
Figure 7.1: Case Alignment Systems
7.2 Ergativity
Not all languages assign nominative and accusative Case. Many of the world’s languages exhibit an ergative/absolutive Case agreement system. In these languages, the subject of a bivalent verb is assigned ergative Case, while the object of the bivalent verb (the PATIENT) and the unique argument of a monovalent verb (the SUBJECT) are assigned absolutive Case. Thus, in the sentence John chopped the tree, “John” is the AGENT and “the tree” is the PATIENT. In the sentence John laughed, “John” is the SUBJECT. Figure 7.1 shows these two patterns of case alignment. In nominative accusative languages, the SUBJECT (S) and the AGENT (A) both have nominative case, while the PATIENT (P) has accusative case. In ergative languages the AGENT (A) has ergative case, while the SUBJECT (S) and the PATIENT (P) have absolutive case. Nominative languages are more widely known simply because the world’s more commonly stud- ied languages (as L2 languages) happen to be nominative. Ergative languages, however, are found all over the world. Let’s begin with an illustration of nominative-accusative alignment. Here is a Korean example that illustrates the nominative/accusative Case system. Note the case markers.
(7.29) Case in Korean
(a) Minswu-ka wus-ess-ta. 민수가 웃었다 Minsoo-nom laugh-pst-decl ‘Minsoo laughed.’ (b) Minswu-ka sakwa-lul mek-ess-ta. 민수가 사과를 먹었다 Minsoo-nom apple-acc eat-pst-decl ‘Minsoo ate an apple.’
Now, let’s look at an example in an ergative language. The following example is from Dyirbal (Dixon, 1994). Note that in Dyirbal there is no overt marker of absolutive Case. Ergative Case is marked with a suffix, however. In (7.30 a), mother is the SUBJECT and has absolutive Case. In 7.2. ERGATIVITY 203
(7.30 b), mother is the AGENT and has ergative Case; father is the PATIENT and has absolutive Case.
(7.30) Dyirbal Case Marking
(a) yabu-∅ banaga-nyu mother-abs returned-nonfut ‘Mother returned.’ (b) ŋuma-∅ yabu-ŋgu bura-n father-abs mother-erg saw-nonfut ‘Mother saw father.’
In the first two situations above, the two difference Case systems were illustrated by differences in case marking on the nouns. Con- Dyirbal (dbl) is an sider first the following examples from Khanty (Nikolaeva, 1999), a Australian language nominative/accusative language. Note that the subject agreement spoken in the Cairns is the same for both the SUBJECT in (7.31 a) and for the AGENT rain forests on the in (7.31 b). (The vowel change is related to phonological properties north east coast of of Khanty and does not bear on the discussion here.) The object Australia. It is a highly agreement is shown in blue. endangered language with only about 40 to (7.31) Agreement in Khanty 50 speakers left Dixon (a) ma jelðŋ@n om@s-l-@m (1987). I at.home sit-tns-1.sg.sub ‘I’m sitting at home.’ (b) ma tm klah wel-s@-l-am I these reindeer kill-tns-pl.obj-1.sg.sub ‘I killed these reindeer.’ [Khanty]
Contrast the example above with an ergative/absolutive language, Abaza. Note that gender is neutralized in the 3rd person absolutive, but is distinguished in the ergative. That is, there are separate forms for he and she in the ergative only.
(7.32) (a) d-θád 3sg.abs-gone ‘S/he has gone.’ (b) h-θád 1pl.abs-gone ‘We have gone.’ 204 CHAPTER 7. CASE ALIGNMENT SYSTEMS
(c) h-l-bád 1pl.abs-3sg.f.erg-saw ‘She saw us.’ (d) d-h-bád 3sg.abs-1pl.erg-saw ‘We saw him/her.’ [Abaza]
These data show a clear distinction between absolutive Case and ergative Case for the 3rd person. Thus, the subject of the intransitive in (7.32 a) (the SUBJECT) and the object off the transitive in (7.32 d) (the PATIENT) both have the same form /d-/. This contrasts with the subject of the transitive (the AGENT) in (7.32 c), /l-/. As mentioned, the 3rd person ergative marker distinguishes gender. Thus, (7.32 c) can only mean ‘She saw us’. The form for ‘He saw us’ has a different morpheme. The distinction for the 1st person plural is less clear, since both forms are /h-/ in the absolutive and the ergative. However, the data in (7.32 c) and (7.32 d) show that they occupy different positions, suggesting the need to maintain the distinction.
Warning! Do not confuse the terms ‘AGENT’ and ‘PATIENT’ with the theta- relations of the same name! AGENT - subject of a bivalent verb
In a nominative-accusative language like English, the SUBJECT and the AGENT have many properties in common. They both appear with the same morphological case (nominative) in oppo- sition to the PATIENT (which bears accusative case). The SUBJECT and the AGENT can also serve as the ‘same subject’ in conjunction constructions. In the following examples, the missing argument in the second conjunct is ‘John’. In the first example, the overt ‘John’ and the empty argument are both subjects with nominative Case. In the second example, the overt ‘John’ is the subject (nominative), and the empty argument is an object in an accusative Case position. Leaving the the argument empty is possible only when both arguments are subjects that is when they both have nominative Case.
(7.33) (a) John1 laughed and he1 kicked the tree. (b) John1 laughed and e1 kicked the tree. (c) John1 laughed and Mary kicked him1. (d) *John1 laughed and Mary kicked e1
In an ergative language, the SUBJECT and the PATIENT have these same properties in com- mon but with some variation. They both appear with the same morphological case (which we call 7.2. ERGATIVITY 205 morphological ergativity). In some cases, they can also serve as the ‘same argument’ (which we call syntactic ergativity). Morphological ergativity is more common than syntactic ergativity. If a language is syntactically ergative, it is also morphologically ergative; however, if a language is morphologically ergative, it is not necessarily syntactically ergative. Dyirbal is an example of a language that is both morphologically and syntactically ergative. Consider the following example.
(7.34) ŋuma-∅1 banaga-nyu e1 yabu-ŋgu bura-n father-abs return-non.fut mother-erg see-non.fut ‘Father returned and mother saw (him).’
Some ergative languages have passives as discussed in the previous chapter. Some ergative languages have another kind of construction called an antipassive. Descriptively, the passive transformation demotes the subject to an oblique case (that is, a by-phrase) or omits it altogether, and promotes the thematic object to the grammatical subject position. An antipassive demotes the absolutive object of a transitive clause to an oblique Case or omits it altogether, and shifts the ergative subject to the absolutive subject. Consider the following data (Dixon, 1994, p.13).
(7.35) Antipassive in Dyirbal
yabu-∅ ŋuma-ŋgu bura-n mother-abs father-erg see-non.fut ‘Father saw mother.’
ŋuma-∅ bural-ŋg-nyu yabu-gu father-abs see-antipass-nonfut mother-dat ‘Father saw mother.’ [Dyirbal] The first sentence is transitive and has an ergative subject and absolutive object. The second sentence is intransitive with an absolutive subject. The absolutive object has been demoted to an oblique (dative) object, and is optional (just like the by-phrase in English). Another illustration of the antipassive is offered by Inuktitut (see p. 125). Consider the following data (Spreng, 2005). In the first example, the agent is marked with ergative case, and the patient is marked with absolutive case, as expected. This is reflected in the agreement on the verb. In the second example, notice that the AGENT is now the SUBJECT of an intransitive sentence, so is now absolutive. The PATIENT has been demoted to an oblique, marked by mik.
(7.36) Antipassive in Inuktitut
(a) angupti-up arnaq-∅ kunik-taa man-erg woman-abs kiss-part.3sg.3sg ‘The man kissed the woman.’ 206 CHAPTER 7. CASE ALIGNMENT SYSTEMS
(b) anguti-∅ kunik-si-vuq arna-mik man-abs kiss-antipass-ind.3sg woman-obl ‘The man kissed the woman.’ [Inuktitut]
Some languages exhibit properties of both nominative-accusative languages and ergative-absolutive languages. Such language are said to exhibit split ergativity. Consider the following Halkomelem data (Wiltschko, 2006). Halkomelem exhibits typical properties of ergativity. Only the subject of a transitive construction triggers agreement. The subject of an intransitive construction does not trigger verbal agreement. Again, for clarity, the ergative argument is shown in red, and the absolutive argument is shown in blue.
(7.37) (a) q’ó:y-t-es te Strang te qwá:l kill-tr-3.erg det Strang det mosquito ‘Strang killed the mosquito.’ (b) í:mex te Strang walking det Strang ‘Strang is walking.’ [Halkomelem] Note that the examples above contain 3rd person subjects. Con- sider now the following data, which contain 1st and 2nd person Halkomelem (hur) is subjects. an endangered Salish (7.38) (a) máy-t-tsel language spoken in help-tr-1sg.nom and around Vancouver, ‘I help him.’ Canada. In addition (b) yó:ys-tsel to split ergativity, 1sg.nom work- Halkomelem also ex- ‘I work.’ hibits an interesting (c) máy-t-chexw constraint in which a help-tr-2sg.nom sentence cannot have ‘You help him.’ a third person object (d) yó:ys-chexw work-2sg.nom and a second person ‘You work.’ [Halkomelem] subject. In such a In contrast to the data in (7.37), the 1st and 2nd person sub- situation, a passive is jects trigger subject agreement in both transitive and intransitive used (Galloway, 1993). verbs, suggesting nominative-accusative alignment. This is an in- stance of split ergativity, as 1st and 2nd persons trigger nominative- accusative alignment, while 3rd person triggers ergative-absolutive alignment. In this case, we call this a person-based split. There are other kinds of splits, which can be found in the discussions in the references. 7.3. SPLIT INTRANSITIVITY 207
7.3 Split Intransitivity
Consider the following Lakota data (Mithun, 1991), paying close attention to 1st person agreement. Note that there is no agreement for 3rd person in any of these forms. Although stress is indicated here, it is determined by stress placement rules and is not lexical.
(7.39) Lakota bivalent verbs
(a) a-wá-’u loc-1sg.ag-bring ‘I brought it.’ (b) wa-ktékte 1sg.ag-kill ‘I’ll kill him.’ (c) a-má-’u loc-1sg.pat-bring ‘He brought me.’ (d) ma-ktékte 1sg.pat-kill ‘He’ll kill me.’ [Lakota]
Lakota (lkt) is a dialect of the Sioux language, a member of the Sioux family, spoken in central North America. The other dialects are Dakota and Nakota. Sioux is an SOV language with aggluti- nating morphology. See Buechel and Manhart (2002) for more details. Lakota figures prominently in the film Dances With Wolves.
From the data above it appears as though /wa-/ indexes the 1st person subject, and that /ma-/ indexes the 1st person object. In the examples shown so far, the agreement morpheme with the abbreviation ag (agent) references the subject and the agreement morpheme with the abbreviation pat (patient) references the object. Consider, now, the following intransitive forms (Mithun, 1991).
(7.40) Lakota monovalent verbs
(a) wa-psíča 1sg.ag-jump ‘I jumped.’ (b) wa-hí 1sg.ag-come ‘I came.’ 208 CHAPTER 7. CASE ALIGNMENT SYSTEMS
nominative-accusative
AG S PAT
AG PAT A P
Figure 7.2: Split Intransitivity
(c) ma-khúže 1sg.pat-sick ‘I’m sick.’ (d) ma-xwá 1sg.pat-sleepy ‘I’m sleepy.’
Observe with the verbs jump and come subject agreement is indexed by the agent affix, as expected. However, with be sick and be sleepy the subject is indexed by the patient affix. This system of agreement is called split intransitivity or active-stative alignment. This case alignment system is shown in Figure 7.2. The terms agent and patient are used rather than the terms for Case introduced in the previous chapter. One reason for this is that a precise mechanism for Case assignment in split intransitive languages is a matter of ongoing research. As such, descriptive terms from the typological literature are used (see for example Blake, 1994). As Mithun (1991) shows, monovalent verbs that depict a more stative or less volitional eventuality tend to take patient agreement, while monovalent verbs that depict or more active or more volitional eventuality tend to appear with agent agreement. Dixon (1979, 1994) distinguishes between split-S split intransitivity and fluid-S split in- transitivity. In split-S split intransitivity monovalent verbs are divided into two classes as de- scribed. Each member of the two classes typically behaves consistently with respect to agreement. That is, verbs that appear with agent agreement always take agent agreement. Verbs that appear with patient agreement always take patient agreement. Oneida is a split-S split intransitive lan- guage. Consider the following examples Michelson and Doxtator (2002).2 Note that there is no agreement for neuter arguments in Oneida. That is, nothing agrees with ‘it’ in these examples.
2The symbol ‘v’ represents the sound [2]. The apostrophe represents a glottal stop. The colon represents vowel length and can be a morpheme in Oneida. 7.3. SPLIT INTRANSITIVITY 209
Oneida (one) is an Iroquoian language spoken in Eastern North America on the border between Canada and the United States. It is a critically endangered language although revitalization efforts are underway. It is a highly polysynthetic language with extensive agreement and noun incorpo- ration. Like all Iroquoian languages, it lacks labial consonants other than /w/ (Lounsbury, 1953; Michelson and Doxtator, 2002).
(7.41) Oneida Transitive Agreement
(a) wa’khni:nú: wa’-k-hninu-´: fact-1sg.ag-buy-punc ‘I bought it.’ (b) vwakka:lí: v-wak-kaly-´: fut-1sg.pat-bite-punc ‘It will bite me.’ (c) wa’ehni:nú: wa’-ye-hninu-´: fact-3sg.f.ag-buy-punc ‘She bought it.’ (d) vyakoya’takénha’ v-yako-ya’takenha-’ fut-3sg.f.pat-help-punc ‘It will help her’ (e) waha:k´v: wa’-ha-kv-´: fact-3sg.m.ag-see-punc ‘He saw it.’ (f) wa’tho’nikuha:l´v: wa’-te-ho-’nikuhal-´v: fact-duc-3sg.m.pat-bother-punc ‘It bothered him.’
In the transitive examples above, the active agreement prefix indexes the subject and the patient agreement prefix indexes the object. Consider, now the following monovalent verbs. These are active verbs, in which the single argument appears with agent agreement.
(7.42) Oneida Active Intransitive Agreement
(a) íkkvhe’ i-k-kv-he’ epen-1sg.ag-see-hab ‘I see.’ 210 CHAPTER 7. CASE ALIGNMENT SYSTEMS
(b) wa’uketkétsko’ wa’-yu-atketskw-’ fact-3sg.f.ag-get.up-punc ‘She got up.’
(7.43) Oneida Stative Intransitive Agreement
(a) waketshá:nit wak-e-tshanit-∅ 1sg.pat-epen-be.industrious-stat ‘I’m industrious.’ (b) lotshá:nit ho-tshanit-∅ 3sg.m.pat-be.industrious-stat ‘He’s industrious.’ (c) yakotiw´v yako-atiwv-´ 3sg.f.pat-be.thin-stat ‘She’s thin.’
In fluid-S split intransitive languages many monovalent verbs can appear with either agent agreement or patient agreement. In such as case, there is a change in meaning. When the verb appears with agent agreement, then the subject is generally more in control of the event. When the verb appears with patient agreement, then the subject is generally less in control of the event. Consider the following pair of examples from Northern Pomo (Deal and O’Connor, 2010). The agreement (nominative versus accusative) correlates with the degree to which the speaker is in control of the event.
(7.44) Fluid S Intransitivity in Northern Pomo
(a) man c’eday-či 3sg.f.nom slide-asp ‘She slides/slid (on purpose)’ (b) ma:dal c’eday-či 3sg.f.acc slide-asp ‘She slides/slid (by accident)’
Here is one final example from Tibetan (Chang and Chang, 1980). The voluntary form has agent marking on the subject pronoun in addition to overt marking on the verb for voluntary action. The second example lacks agent marking. Chang and Chang note that the second example would be used if the speaker is referring to an event of going to Lhasa with their parents. That is, the speaker is not in control of the event. 7.3. SPLIT INTRANSITIVITY 211
(7.45) (a) Na-s lhasa-r p’yin-pa-yin 1-ag Lhasa-to went-prfv-voluntary ‘I went to Lhasa.’ (b) Na lhasa-r p’yin-pa-yin 1 Lhasa-to went-prfv-involuntary ‘I went to Lhasa.’ [Tibetan] 212 CHAPTER 7. CASE ALIGNMENT SYSTEMS
Key Concepts
• unaccusative - A monovalent verb with no vP, and no external argument. The single argument of an unaccusative is merged inside VP.
• unergative - A monovalent verb with a vP. The single argument of an unergative is merged in the Specifier of vP.
• ergative - The case assigned to the subject of a bivalent verb in ergative-absolutive languages.
• absolutive - The case assigned to the subject of a monovalent verb or the object of a bivalent verb in ergative-absolutive languages
• split ergativity - A phenomenon in which a language exhibits some properties of ergative- absolutive alignment and some properties of nominative-accusative alignment
• split intransitivity - A phenomenon in which the single argument of a monovalent verb sometimes has subject-like properties and sometimes has object-like properties, especially in terms of agreement. 213
Exercises
(7.1) Draw trees for the following sentences. The underlined verbs are unaccusative.
1 Mary knows that the presents arrived yesterday.
2 It seems that the children left for school already.
3 These students were told that the teachers went to a meeting.
4 Were the presents given to the good children yesterday?
5 The ice melted quickly.
(7.2) Consider the following sentences from Georgian. What type of Case system does Georgian have? List the Georgian Case markers and name the Cases they represent.
1 student-i mivida student went ‘The student went’
2 student-ma çeril-i dacera student letter wrote ‘The student wrote a letter.’
(7.3) Consider the following data from Chukchi. Looking at the idiomatic English translations of these sentences, one might think that both Chukchi sentences have the same valency. This is not the case, however. Explain how the valency changes between these two sentences (i.e., does it increase or decrease; if so, by how much), stating your evidence. What specific phenomenon is taking place that allows for the change in valency? Explain.
1 @tl@g-e @n-in l’ulq@l r@-gt@kwan-nen father-erg 3sg-poss face.abs caus-freeze-3sg.3sg.aor ‘Father got his face frozen.’
2 @tl@g-@n l’o-n@-gt@kwat-g’e father-abs face-caus-freeze-3sg.aor ‘Father got his face frozen.’ [Chukchi]
(7.4) Consider the following data from Tauya, an ergative-absolutive language, where absolutive case is marked with a null morpheme (data from MacDonald, 1990, slightly simplified).
1 Pe fanu-ni fenaPa yauaPa that man-erg woman saw ‘That man saw the woman.’ 214
2 ya-ni fanu yauePa I-erg man saw ‘I saw the man.’
3 * ya fanu yauePa I man saw ‘(I saw the man.)’
4 ya-ni pai yauePa I-erg pig saw ‘I saw the pig.’
5 ya pai yauePa I pig saw ‘I saw the pig.’
Ergative marking is obligatory in some cases, and optional in others. Explain what determines the variation in ergative case marking. Consider next the following data. How does topic marking interact with ergative case marking?
1 Pe fanu-ra fofeaPa that man-top came ‘That man came.’
2 Pe fanu-ni fenaPa yauaPa that man-erg woman saw ‘That man saw the woman.’
3 *Pe fanu-ni-ra fenaPa yauaPa that man-erg-top woman saw ‘(That man saw the woman.)’
4 Pe fanu-ra pai yauaPa that man-top pig saw ‘That man saw the pig.’ 215
Further Reading
• Aldridge (2008) - This paper provides a brief discussion of recent generative approaches to ergativity
• Dixon (1994) - This is one of the most comprehensive discussions on ergativity and split ergativity from a typological perspective. Much of the discussion should be accessible at this stage.
• Hale and Keyser (2002) - This monograph discusses the argument structure of verbs and fleshes out the distinction between unaccusatives and unergatives in detail. In particular, it deals with the problem noted at the end of this chapter. Some of the discussion is rather advanced; however, this data rich book is strongly recommended.
• Levin and Rappaport Hovav (1994) - This monograph offers an in depth discussion of the lexical properties of unaccusative verbs.
• McGregor (2009) - This paper provides a recent discussion on the typological implications of ergativity.
• Perlmutter and Soames (1978) - This paper is the original proposal for the distinction between unaccusatives and unergatives. 216 Interchapter F: Second Positions Clitics
A distinction is generally drawn between morphemes (pieces of words put together by morphology) and words themselves (put together by syntax). Many languages sport clitics, which cannot be comfortably classified as either words or as morphemes. While some morphemes are free, some are bound and cannot appear alone. Clitics exhibit similar behaviour; they must attach to a lexical host. Morphemes tend to be quite rigidly ordered in most languages; whereas words have typically freer word order within a sentence. Clitics behave more like words in this respect as they tend to have fairly liberal ordering properties. Interchapter G discusses further properties of clitics. Many languages around the world have clitics which must appear in the second position in the sentence. Because of this type of placement, they are often called second position clitics (2P clitics for short) or Wackernagel clitics, after Jacob Wackernagel, who first described these clitic in 1892. Consider the following example from Serbo-Croatian (Halpern, 1995), where the auxiliary je (aux) is a second position clitic.
(7.1) (a) Čovek je voleo Mariju. man.nom aux loved Mary.acc ‘The man loved Mary.’ (b) Čovek je Mariju voleo. man.nom aux Mary.acc loved ‘The man loved Mary.’ (c) Voleo je Mariju čovek. loved aux Mary.acc man.nom ‘The man loved Mary.’ (d) Voleo je čovek Mariju. loved aux man.nom Mary.acc ‘The man loved Mary.’ (e) Mariju je čovek voleo. Mary.acc aux man.nom loved ‘The man loved Mary.’
217 218
(f) Mariju je voleo čovek. Mary.acc aux loved man.nom ‘The man loved Mary.’ [Serbo-Croatian] As this example shows, word order is quite free in Serbo-Croatian, but the clitic must appear as the second element in the sentence. There are two types of 2P clitics, which are defined as follows. 2P clitics that appear after the first word are called 2W clitics. 2P clitics that appear after the first syntactic phrase are called 2D clitics, where D stands for (syntactic) daughter).
2W clitic - a 2P clitic that appears after the first word 2D clitic - a 2P clitic that appears after the first phrase
In the example above, it is not clear whether Serbo-Croatian has 2W or 2D clitics, since the first syntactic constituent is also a single word. Serbo-Croatian, in fact, has both types of clitics as the following examples show. The first sentence contains a 2W clitic, and the second contains a 2D clitic. There is no significant difference in meaning between these two sentences. Thus, Halpern proposes that 2W and 2D clitics in Serbo-Croatian are in free variation.
(7.2) (a) Taj je čovek voleo Mariju. that aux man.nom loved Mary.acc ‘That man loved Mary.’ (b) Taj čovek je voleo Mariju. that man.nom aux loved Mary.acc ‘That man loved Mary.’ [Serbo-Croatian] Other languages with both 2W and 2D clitics include Luiseño, Ngiyambaa, Warlpiri, and Pashto. Like Serbo-Croatian, 2W and 2D clitics in Luiseño are in free variation. In Pashto, however, 2W and 2D clitics are in complementary distribution. The following examples are from Luiseño (Steele, 1976, p.597) and Pashto, respectively, and the clitics are shown in boldface.
(7.3) (a) wiiwiš Paxaat up naPq. wiwish delicious aux is.burning ‘The delicious wiwish is burning.’ (b) wiiwiš up Paxaat naPq. wiwish delicious aux is.burning ‘The delicious wiwish is burning.’ [Luiseño]
Finally, there are some languages (such as Czech) that exhibit only 2D clitics, and some lan- guages (such as Proto-Indo-European, Alse and Shuswap) that exhibit only 2W clitics. The fol- lowing Czech example shows that the clitic mi must appear after the first phrase (2D position) and cannot appear after the first word (2W position). 219
Further Reading
• Franks and King (2000) - This volume presents an in depth study of clitics in Slavic languages.
• Halpern (1995) - This volume offers a comprehensive introduction and analysis of clitic phenomena in a wide variety of languages around the world.
• Halpern and Zwicky (1996) - This book contains several papers on 2P clitics and other second position effects. The papers are from a variety of theoretical backgrounds. 220 Chapter 8
Wh-Movement and Relative Clauses
' $ By the end of this chapter you should be able to:
• understand the basic properties of wh-movement
• be able to draw trees for various kinds of wh-questions
• understand and account for the differences between pied-piping and preposition stranding
• understand the difference between matrix and embedded questions
&• understand the notion of Attract Closest and how it relates to multiple wh-questions %
8.1 Wh-Movement
Recall that movement to the specifier of TP is triggered by the EPP. Recall also that yes/no questions trigger head movement of T to C. We now discuss content questions and introduce the concept of wh-movement. Consider the following English and Mandarin sentences, paying attention to the position of the object.
(8.1) (a) Alice bought an apple. (b) Míngx¯ing mˇai le pínggˇuo. Mingxing buy prfv apple ‘Mingxing bought an apple.’
Recall that the verb buy assigns at θ-role to the object DP an apple. We say that the direct object is in its thematically related position.
221 222 CHAPTER 8. WH-MOVEMENT AND RELATIVE CLAUSES
(8.2) VP VP
V DP V DP
buy an apple mˇai pínggˇuo
Now consider the following sentences, in which the direct object is being questioned.
(8.3) (a) What did Alice buy? (b) Míngx¯ing mˇai le shénme. Mingxing buy prfv what ‘What did Alice buy?’
A wh-word (so called because most question words in English begin with “wh”) appears at the left edge of the English sentence, and there is now a gap in the position of the direct object. In the Mandarin question, though, the question word remains in the same position as the object in the declarative sentence. That is, it remains in its thematically related position. Note that the questioned element can be a phrase as in Which apple did Alice buy? From now on we will refer to the questioned element as a wh-phrase, even if it contains only one word. 1 Before we try to figure out where the wh-word moves, let’s look at content questions from some other languages in which the wh-phrase also appears in a different position from its corresponding answer. We will come back to languages like Mandarin, where the wh-phrase does not move. Con- sider first the following German examples and their English counterparts. Note that the positions of the direct object and the location phrase are inside the sentence (the so-called Mittelfeld in tra- ditional descriptions of Germanic linguistics). However, when either of these phrases is questioned, the wh-phrase (was and wo, respectively) appear at the left edge of the clause. For reference, the direct object is in red, and the location is in blue.
(8.4) German Content Questions
(a) Peter hat einen Apfel auf dem Markt gekauft Peter has an apple at the market bought ‘Peter bought an apple at the market.’ (b) Was hat Peter auf dem Markt gekauft? what has Peter at the market bought ‘What did Peter buy at the market?’ (c) Wo hat Peter den Apfel gekauft? Where has Peter bought the apple ‘Where did Peter buy the apple?’ 1Note that sometimes the wh-word in English does not move to the left edge of the clause. Echo questions, for example, do not involve movement: You bought what?!? Here, the speaker is surprised at what the addressee bought and is not actually requesting information. 8.1. WH-MOVEMENT 223
Onondaga, has relatively free word order (see Interchapter C), so the direct object (shown in red) can appear anywhere within the clause. If the direct object is questioned, again the wh-phrase (nwade’) must appear at the left edge of the clause.
(8.5) Onondaga Content Questions, Gloria Williams and Nora Carrier, speakers
(a) John wahahní:no˛’ ne’ ganakda’ John he bought it det bed ‘John bought a bed.’ (b) wahahní:no˛’ ne’ ganakda’ John he bought it det bed John ‘John bought a bed.’ (c) ne’ ganakda’ John wahahní:no˛’ det bed John he bought it ‘John bought a bed.’ (d) nwade’ John wahahní:no˛’ what John he bought it ‘What did John buy?’ (e) *John wahahní:no˛’ nwade’ John he bought it what ‘(What did John buy?)’
Onondaga (ono) is an Iroquoian language spoken in eastern North America on the border between Canada and the United States. Due to aggressive colonization there are very few speakers of Onondaga remaining. Onondaga is a polysynthetic language with extensive morphology and noun incorporation. The most extensive grammar of Onondaga is found in Woodbury (2018).
Finally, consider the following Chamorro data (Chung, 2009). First, note that Chamorros is a verb-initial language. (See Interchapter D for more information on verb-initial languages.) Note that the case alignment system in Chamorro is rather complex , so case markers are simply identified as case here.
(8.6) (a) Ha-konfitma i kotte i intensión i Covenant Agreement. agr-confirm the court the intension the Covenant Agreement ‘The court confirmed the intention of the Covenant Agreement.’ (b) Hägas ha-läknus ennao siha na planu si Speaker Benigno R. Fitial. long ago agr-presented that pl lk plan case Speaker Benigno R. Fitial ‘Speaker Benigno R. Fitial presented those plans long ago.’
Again, observe that the wh-phrases all appear at the left edge of the clause. 224 CHAPTER 8. WH-MOVEMENT AND RELATIVE CLAUSES
(8.7) (a) Hayi siña luma’la’ gi $3.05 gi ora na suetdu? who can wh.agr.live loc $3.05 loc hour one salary ‘Who can live on an hourly wage of $3.05?’ (b) Pära manu guätu na un-konni’ si Rita? to where over there comp agr-take case Rita ‘To where did you take Rita?’ (c) Hafa malago’-mu? what wh.want-agr ‘What do you want?’
Let’s return to example (8.1 a). The wh-phrase what is understood as the object that Alice bought, so we assume it is theta-marked by the verb. Notice that there is a gap after the verb buy. The direct object position is empty. We propose that the wh-word what has raised from the direct object position to the front of the sentence. In fact, the data presented above all show the same properties. A wh-phrase appears at the left edge of the clause which corresponds to a gap in the sentence. This gap corresponds to the position where the wh-phrase is understood. Consider, now, the following examples. This sentence contains a trivalent verb along with a temporal adverbial modifier. In each case, when one of the elements in the sentence is questioned, a gap appears in its associated position. Observe further that the auxiliary raises to the left of the subject, unless the wh-phrase is the subject of the sentence.
(8.8) Gaps with wh-movement
Mary gave a book to John yesterday. What did Mary give to John yesterday? Who did Mary give a book to yesterday? When did Mary give a book to John ? Who gave a book to John yesterday?
Let’s consider the derivation of (8.1 a) up to the point when C merges with TP. At this point, the verb has already raised to v, and the subject DP Alice has raised to the specifier of TP to satisfy the EPP property of T. The Mandarin question provides support for this proposal since the question word appears in object position, but does not raise. This is a general property of wh-phrases in Mandarin and other languages that we will discuss in more detail later on in this chapter. 8.1. WH-MOVEMENT 225
(8.9) CP
C[+wh] TP
′ DPi T
Alice T vP
′ did ti v
v VP
buyj V DP
tj what
Recall that C is the locus of illocutionary force. For content questions, we encode interrogative force on C with the feature [wh], which we propose must be checked by a wh-word. In the sentence above, the DP what raises to the specifier of CP. As with yes/no questions, T-to-C movement takes place in non-subect matrix questions (i.e., questions involving the top-most CP). Thus, we propose that a C head with a [wh] feature has the EPP property in English (and in the other languages above with wh-movement). Here is the tree after the wh-phrase moves to the specifier of CP.
(8.10) CP
′ DPk C
what C[+wh]EPP TP
′ didl DPi T
Alice T vP
′ tl ti v
v VP
buyj V tk
tj
Chomsky (1977) proposed that wh-movement takes place to the left edge of the clause. The projection that hosts the wh-phrase is now known as CP. We posit that C[+wh] in English has the 226 CHAPTER 8. WH-MOVEMENT AND RELATIVE CLAUSES
EPP property (as does T in English). As with polarity questions, the auxilary (or modal) in T raises to C. Note that, in English, if the corresponding declarative form has no auxiliary a dummy do appears in the interrogative form, as in the example above. We have seen that in many languages wh-movement involves raising the wh-phrase to the left edge of the clause. We posit this position to be SpecCP. We have seen in English that the auxiliary raises to C, too, except in subject wh-questions. Consider, now, the following French data, paying attention to the difference between standard French and colloquial French.2 Note that the use of the hyphen in the first example is an orthographic convention of French. The verb and the pronoun are two separate words.
(8.11) French wh-questions
(a) Où achètes-tu du fromage? [Standard French] where buy.2sg-you of the cheese ‘Where do you buy cheese?’ (b) Où tu achètes du fromage? [Colloquial French] where you buy.2sg of the cheese ‘Where do you buy cheese?’ (c) Où que tu achètes du fromage? [Colloquial French] where comp you buy.2sg of the cheese ‘Where do you buy cheese?’
Recall that in French the lexical verb raises to T if there is no auxiliary verb. We propose that in Standard French the verb raises to C. Thus, we can generalize and say that T raises to C in both English and in Standard French. Note that in Colloquial French T does not raise to C; however, a complementizer may appear. These facts suggest the following structures, with the optional complementizer as shown.
2Note that there is a great deal of dialectal variation in varieties of spoken French around the world. The data here are typical of some varieties heard in France and in Quebec. 8.1. WH-MOVEMENT 227
(8.12) Standard French CP
′ AdvPi C
Où C TP
′ achètesj Dk T
tu T vP
tj vP ti
′ tk v
v VP
tj V PP
tj du fromage
(8.13) Colloquial French CP
′ AdvPi C
Où C TP
′ (que) Dk T
tu T vP
achètesj vP ti
′ tk v
v VP
tj V PP
tj du fromage
The next phenomenon we will look at is embedded questions. So far, we have looked at matrix questions. A matrix question is one in which the wh-phrase raises to the matrix CP. Matrix questions require an answer in cooperative discourse. For example, the sentence What does 228 CHAPTER 8. WH-MOVEMENT AND RELATIVE CLAUSES
John think Mary bought? is a matrix question, and it requires an answer. An embedded question is one in which the wh-phrase raises only as far as an embedded CP. Crucially, they are interpreted in an embedded clause. These are statements which do not necessarily require an answer; however, embedded questions are sometimes used to ask question indirectly. Consider the following examples.
(8.14) (a) What does John think that Mary bought? - matrix question, requires an answer (b) John knows what Mary bought. - embedded question, does not require an answer
Like embedded polarity questions, embedded wh-questions do not induce subject-auxiliary in- version in Standard English.3 The precise analysis of T-to-C movement is a matter of ongoing research. We will consider the structures here. Consider the following example.
(8.15) (a) Mary wonders what Susan bought. (b) CP
C TP
′ DPi T
Mary T vP
′ ti v
v VP
wondersj tj CP
′ DPk C
what C TP
′ DPl T
Susan T vP
′ tl v
v VP
boughtm tk tm
3In some varieties of English, however, inversion is found in embedded clauses. See https://ygdp.yale.edu/ phenomena/inversion-embedded-questions. 8.1. WH-MOVEMENT 229
The next property of wh-movement we discuss is unboundedness. Unboundedness refers to the possibility for movement to span any number of clauses. Of course, there is a practical limit on the number of clauses movement can span. If the sentence becomes too complex it will become incomprehensible. Consider the following sentence where the DP which book moved up three clauses.
(8.16) Which book does Mary think that John said that Sally told us she would buy?
The unboundedness property of wh-movement has the potential to lead to ambiguity. Recall the following sentence from the first chapter.
(8.17)
When did John say t that Pat was fired t ? The original merged position of the wh-adverb, when, is either in the matrix clause (shown in red) or the embedded clause (shown in blue) giving rise to the two following possible meanings. The first meaning is asking when John said what he did. The second meaning is asking when Peter was fired. Wh-movement can theoretically span any number of clauses. It is constrained in practice only by memory, computational complexity, and pragmatic issues discouraging the use of overly complex sentences in actual speech. A well known property of wh-movement in English is preposition stranding. Preposition stranding is found in almost all varieties of casual speech and is also found in more formal registers. It occurs with most prepositions. Preposition stranding consists of raising the DP complement of a preposition to the specifier of CP. This is shown in (8.18 a), where the preposition to has been stranded. Pied-piping occurs when the entire PP raises to the specifier of CP, a construction more closely associated with very formal speech. (8.18 b) shows an example of pied-piping.
(8.18) (a) Who was Mary talking to? (b) To whom was Mary talking? 230 CHAPTER 8. WH-MOVEMENT AND RELATIVE CLAUSES
(8.19)
CP
′ DPi C
who C TP
′ wasj DPk T
Mary T vP
′ tj tk v
v VP
talkingl V PP
tk P ti
to
(8.20)
CP
PP C′
P DPi C TP
′ to whom wasj DPk T
Mary T vP
′ tj tk v
v VP
talkingl V ti
tk 8.1. WH-MOVEMENT 231
8.1.1 Multiple Wh-Questions
Next, we consider multiple wh-questions. Consider the sentence Who bought what? This sentence contains two wh-phrases, so it is often referred to as a multiple wh-question. Such constructions often trigger what’s called a pair-list reading as follows.
(8.21) A - Can you tell me who bought what? B - Well, Alice bought the oranges, Fred bought the apples, and Sally bought the pears.
Note that with multiple wh-questions the higher of the two wh-phrases must raise. Consider the following examples.
(8.22) Multiple Wh-Questions in English
(a) Who bought what? (b) *What did who buy? (c) What did John give to who? (d) *Who did John give what to?
In both cases, the closer wh-phrase moves to the specifier of CP. Consider the derivation for these sentences before the wh-phrase moves to the specifier of CP. The closer of the two wh-phrases is shown in green and the other wh-phrase is shown in red. The green phrase raises to the specifier of CP. 232 CHAPTER 8. WH-MOVEMENT AND RELATIVE CLAUSES
(8.23)
CP
C′
C TP
′ DPi T
who T vP
′ ti v
X v VP
boughtj V DPi
tj what
If a feature needs to attract something to its specifier (because of the EPP or some other reason), it always chooses the closest element with a matching feature. This notion of closeness is referred to as Attract Closest.
8.1.2 Wh-Movement and Successive Cyclicity
Recall that wh-movement is unbounded, as the following sentences show. When a wh-phrase moves outside of its own clause to a higher clause, we call this long distance movement.
(8.24) (a) What did John eat ? (b) What does Mary think that John ate ? (c) What did Bill say that Mary thinks that John ate ?
In this section we will look at long distance wh-movement in more detail. Before we take up the issue of long distance movement, however, we will examine the interaction between wh-movement and anaphors. Consider the following sentence. 8.1. WH-MOVEMENT 233
1 1 (8.25) [Which picture of himself ]i does John like ti ?
This sentence appears to violate the principle of anaphor binding that states that anaphors must be c-commanded by their antecedents. In its original merged position, however, the antecedent, John, does c-command the anaphor, himself. Thus, let us assume that it is necessary for the antecedent to c-command the anaphor at some point during the derivation (Lebeaux, 1991; Fox, 1999; Lebeaux, 2009).4 We will return to binding in chapter 10, so we will wait until then to sharpen the exact formulation of anaphor binding. In the meantime, however, we can use this fact about anaphor binding as a diagnostic for movement. To refresh our memories, recall that the antecedent must be in the same clause as the anaphor. The following examples shows this. Observe that himself can refer only to Bill and not to John.
(8.26) John1 thinks that Bill2 likes this picture of himself*1/2.
With this much in mind now, consider the following example.
1/2 1 2 (8.27) [Which picture of himself ]i does John think [CP that Bill likes ti ]?
Here, himself can refer to either John or Bill. Let us consider a possible derivation for this sentence. The following structure is in line with what we have assumed so far. The wh-phrase is merged as the complement of the verb like, where it receives a θ-role. It then raises to the specifier of the matrix CP to satisfy the EPP feature on C[wh]. Here is the structure. Note that this structure will be revised! 4Lebeaux (1991) and Fox (1999) originally proposed that the wh-phrase undergoes reconstruction at LF. Whether the anaphor is licensed by reconstruction or derivationally, as discussed here, is a matter of on going research that we will not discuss further here. 234 CHAPTER 8. WH-MOVEMENT AND RELATIVE CLAUSES
(8.28) CP
′ DPi C
which picture C TP of himself ′ doesj DPk T
John T vP
′ tk v
v VP
thinkl V CP
tk C TP
′ that DPm T
Bill T vP
′ tm v
v VP
likesn V ti
tn Again, we see that the anaphor is c-commanded by the antecedent Bill in its merged position represented by ti , namely the sister to the embedded verb. In this structure, however, there is no way to capture the fact that the anaphor can also be coreferential with the matrix subject John. If the wh-phrase makes a pit stop on its way to the specifier of the matrix CP, then it can locally c-commanded by John. We propose that the wh-phrase moves successive cyclically through the specifier of every CP on its way to the matrix SpecCP. Here is the proposed derivation for this sentence. 8.1. WH-MOVEMENT 235
(8.29) When the wh-phrase stops in the specifier of the interme-
diate CP, it is bound by John. From this position, John
c-commands the anaphor inside the wh-phrase. John and
the wh-phrase are also sufficiently close enough to license
CP the anaphor. We assume that the specifier of the CP is
part of the superordinate clause. ′ DPi C
which picture C TP of himself ′ doesj DPk T
John T vP When the wh-phrase is
′ merged in its themati- tk v cally related position, it
v VP is in the same clause as
Bill. The anaphor con- think V CP l tained inside of it is also
′ c-commanded by Bill, so tk ti C the anaphor is licensed in C TP this position.
′ that DPm T
Bill T vP
′ tm v
v VP
likesn V ti
tn
Let’s consider now some more data in support of successive cyclic nature of wh-movement. The first line of evidence comes from wh-copy constructions (McDaniel, 1986; du Plessis, 1977). 236 CHAPTER 8. WH-MOVEMENT AND RELATIVE CLAUSES
Wh-copy constructions are found in many languages. We will consider the following German data. (You may wish to read about German word order in Interchapter E.) Consider the following data.
(8.30) Wh-Copy Constructions in German
(a) Weni hat Peter ti gesehen? who.acc has Peter seen ‘Who did Peter see?’
(b) Weni denkst du weni Peter ti gesehen hat? who.acc think you who.acc Peter seen has ‘Who do you think Peter saw?’
Notice that there are two copies of the wh-phrase wen (who.acc). The lower copy is evidence that the wh-phrase moved through the specifier of the intermediate CP. Unlike English, German has the option of spelling out the trace as a copy of the moved element. Wh-copy constructions are found in other Germanic languages (du Plessis, 1977; Sternefeld, 1991; Barbiers et al., 2009; Hiemstra, 1986), as well as Romani (McDaniel, 1986) and Passamoquoddy (Bruening, 2006). The following tree shows the derivation for the long-distance wh-question in German. First, recall that some phrases in German are right-headed. Observe that the wh-phrase leaves a copy in the intermediate SpecCP rather than a trace as we saw for English above. 8.1. WH-MOVEMENT 237
(8.31) CP
′ DPi C
wen C TP
′ denkstj Dk T
du T vP
′ tj tk v
v VP
tj tj CP
′ DPi C
wen C TP
′ DPl T
Peter vP T
′ tl v hat
VP v
ti tm gesehenm
The next line of evidence comes from Irish (see p. 162). Irish complementizers agree with the illocutionary force of their clauses (McCloskey, 2001). Of interest here are the complementizers go (declarative) and aL (interrogative the L indicates a phonological change on the following conso- nant.) Consider the following examples. Note that the complementizers often fuse morphologically with tense morphology.
(8.32) Illustration of Irish complementizers
(a) Deir siad gur ghoid na síogaí í say they comp.pst stole the fairies her ‘They say that the fairies stole her away.’ 238 CHAPTER 8. WH-MOVEMENT AND RELATIVE CLAUSES
(b) Cá fhadi aL bhé said fá Bhaile Átha Cliath ti? what length comp.int were they around Dublin ‘How long were they in Dublin?’
The first example contains a declarative complementizer (inflected for past tense), which intro- duces the embedded clause. The second example contains an interrogative complementizer because the sentence is a question. Whenever a wh-phrase appears in the specifier of a CP in Irish, the in- terrogative complementizer, aL, appears in the C head rather than the declarative complementizer, go. Consider, now, the following example of long distance movement in Irish.
(8.33) Cé aL dúradh léithi aL cheannódh é? who comp.int was said with her comp.int would buy it ‘Who was she told would buy it?’
This example contains a wh-phrase cé (‘who’) that has undergone long distance movement from the embedded clause. The matrix clause is interrogative and is accordingly marked with an interrogative complementizer. The embedded clause, however, is declarative. One would expect a declarative complementizer; however, we observe an interrogative complementizer in this clause, too (shown in boldface). This fact follows from the assumption that wh-movement is successive cyclic. When the wh-phrase moves through the specifier of the embedded CP, it triggers the appearance of the interrogative complementizer in the embedded clause. Consider following structure for (8.33). Note that we have not considered passives in Irish, so we’ll make a few assumptions about the overall structure. These assumptions don’t affect the point made here–namely, that wh-movement proceeds successive cyclically, that is through every intermediate SpecCP. As the dashed line shows, when the wh-phrase moves through the intermediate SpecCP it triggers the interrogative form of the complementizer (aL) to appear on C. 8.1. WH-MOVEMENT 239
(8.34) CP
′ DPi C
cé C TP who aL T VP comp.int ′ dúradhj PP V was said léithi tj CP with her ′ ti C
C TP
aL T vP comp.int ′ cheannódhk ti v would buy v VP
tk V D
tk é it The final line of evidence come from Kikuyu (Sabel, 2000). Kikuyu exhibits a phonological phenomenon known as tonal downstep in which the relative pitches of the tones become lower. Downstep is indicated by a raised exclamation mark. In a declarative sentence, downstep occurs at the left edge of the verb and the right edge of a major constituent, usually the clause. In an interrogative sentence no downstep occurs. Rather, there is a slight phonological change in the vowel of the verbal complex (on the tense marker, specifically).
(8.35) Downstep in Kikuyu
(a) Kariok˘i á-!tϵ´m-íre mo-t˘e! Kariuki agr-cut-tns nc9-tree ‘Kariuki cut a tree.’ (b) Nóo o-tϵm-írϵ´ mo-t˘e who.foc agr-cut-tns nc9-tree ‘Who cut a tree?’ 240 CHAPTER 8. WH-MOVEMENT AND RELATIVE CLAUSES
Kikuyu is a Bantu language of the Niger-Congo family. (See page (80) for more information on Bantu in general. See also footnote 2 on page 79 for information on noun classes (nc).) Kikuyu is spoken by over 8 million people in Kenya. It is an SVO language. It is also a tonal language, meaning that pitch is contrastive on vowels.
Kikuyu also exhibits optional partial wh-movement, in which a wh-phrase moves only as far as one of the intermediate CPs (Sabel, 2000). Despite the fact that the wh-phrase only moves as far as an embedded clause, it is not an embedded question, since the wh-phrase is still interpreted in the matrix clause. Consider the following examples, paying close attention to downstep and phonological changes in the verbal complex (shown in red). Note that there is no difference in meaning between these sentences.
(8.36) Partial wh-movement in Kikuyu
(a) [CP1 Nóoi ó-γw-eciíri-a [CP2 ti Ngoγe a-úγ-írϵ [CP3 áte ti who-foc agr-tns-think-tns Ngugi agr-say-tns that o-on-írϵ´ Kaanakϵ ]]] agr-see-tns Kanake ‘Who do you think Ngugi said saw Kanake?’ ! (b) [CP1 ó-γw- éciiri-á [CP2 Nóoi Ngóγe a-úγ-írϵ [CP3 áte ti agr-tns-think-tns who-foc Ngugi agr-say-tns that o-on-írϵ´ Kaanakϵ ]]] agr-see-tns Kanake ‘Who do you think Ngugi said saw Kanake?’ ! (c) [CP1 ó-γw- éciiri-á [CP2 Ngóγe a-úγ-írϵ´ [CP3 áte Nóo agr-tns-think-tns Ngugi agr-say-tns that who-foc o-on-írϵ´ Kaanakϵ ]]] agr-see-tns Kanake ‘Who do you think Ngugi said saw Kanake?’
In (8.36 a) the wh-phrase has raised to the matrix SpecCP. In (8.36 b) the wh-phrase has raised only part way. This is known as partial wh-movement. The wh-phrase appears in an intermediate SpecCP, but is still interpreted in the matrix clause. That is, it is still interpreted as a main question. The fact that the wh-phrase can undergo partial movement in (8.36 b) suggests that it passes through the intermediate SpecCP (CP) in (8.36 a). In (8.36 c) the wh-phrase remains in situ, as in Mandarin and Korean. As discussed above, wh-movement to the matrix clause causes downstep (!) to vanish. Observe that in the 2nd and 3rd examples downstep is still present. Wh- movement also causes a phonological change on the verb (shown in red). Observe the difference in the tense suffix (in red) on the verb say between (8.36 b) and (8.36 c). When the wh-phrase moves to SpecCP2 it triggers this change on the verb. Crucially now, observe in (8.36 a) that this change is still observed, suggesting that the wh-phrase has moved through the intermediate SpecCP. 8.2. CROSS-LINGUISTIC PATTERNS OF WH-MOVEMENT 241
This ends our discussion of successive-cyclicity. We have seen empirical arguments from English, German, Irish, and Kikuyu in support of successive-cyclic wh-movement. As noted in the references in this section, such evidence is found in a very wide number of languages.
Successive Cyclicity Wh-movement targets the specifier of every intermediate CP.
8.2 Cross-Linguistic Patterns of Wh-Movement
We have seen that for many languages wh-phrases raise to the specifier of CP. If there is more than one wh-phrase, then only the highest one raises. The rest remain in their merged position. In this section we will look at some other patterns of wh-movement found cross-linguistically. First, we will take a look at wh-in-situ languages, where no wh-movement takes place. Then we will examine some languages with multiple wh-movement.
8.2.1 Wh-in-situ
In many languages the wh-phrase does not move to the specifier of CP. Rather, it remains in its original merged positions, referred to as the in situ position. This phenomenon is often referred to as wh-in-situ. Recall from the beginning of this chapter that Mandarin was such a language. Consider the following additional data.5
(8.37) Examples of wh-in-situ
(a) (i) Zh¯angs¯an mˇai le shénme? Zhangsan buy prfv what ‘What did Zhangsan buy?’ (ii) Zh¯angs¯an mˇai le pínggˇuo? Zhangsan buy prfv apple [Mandarin] ‘Zhangsan bought an apple.’
(b) (i) lei5 heoi3 bin1dou6 a3? you go where sfp ‘Where are you going?’ (ii) ngo5 heoi3 Hoeng1Gwong2 lo4. I go Hong Kong sfp [Cantonese] ‘I’m going to Hong Kong’
5The Thai data are adapted from their source and are romanized according to ISO 11940-2. 242 CHAPTER 8. WH-MOVEMENT AND RELATIVE CLAUSES
(c) (i) Minswu-ka mwues-ul sa-ss-ni? 민수가 무엇을 샀니? Minsoo-nom what-acc buy-pst-int ‘What did Minsoo buy?’ (ii) Minswu-ka sakwa-lul sa-ss-ta. 민수가 사과를 샀다. Minsoo-nom apple-acc buy-pst-decl [Korean] ‘Minsoo bought an apple.’
(d) (i) Nít súe: ’arai mûe:awa:nní:? Nit buy what yesterday ‘What did Nit buy yesterday?’ (ii) Nít súe: naengsûe: mûe:awa:nní:? Nit buy book yesterday [Thai (Ruangjaroon, 2005, p.11)] ‘Nit bought a book yesterday.’
(e) (i) Taro-wa nani-o tabe-mashi-ta-ka? Taro-top what-acc eat-polite-pst-int ‘What did Taro eat?’ (ii) Taro-wa ringo-o tabe-mashi-ta. Taro-top apple-acc eat-polite-pst [Japanese] ‘Taro ate an apple.’
(f) (i) Ne nofo a ai i loto i te fale? pst stay abs who in inside the house ‘Who stayed inside the house?’ (ii) Ne ffuti nee Niu te atu teelaa. pst pull erg Niu the bonito that [Tuvaluan (Besnier, 2002, p.18,132)] ‘Niu landed that bonito.’
Tuvaluan is a Polynesian language of the Austronesian family. It is spoken on the island of Tuvalu. Like most Austronesian languages, it is verb initial (see Interchapter D) although it does allow a wide range of word orders. It has ergative-absolutive case alignment.
Notice that in every case, the wh-phrase occupies the same position as a non-wh-phrase. In other words, there is no overt wh-movement. As a typological fact, note that SOV are typically wh-in situ and SVO languages (along with verb-initial languages) typically have wh-movement. Chinese languages and Thai are exceptions to this generalization. We now consider the analysis of wh-in-situ. Let’s start by considering the following two English questions.
(8.38) (a) Which book did Mary say that John read? 8.2. CROSS-LINGUISTIC PATTERNS OF WH-MOVEMENT 243
(b) Mary said which book John read.
In both of these sentences the wh-phrase which book is the object of the verb read. In the first sentence it is interpreted as a matrix question and raises to the matrix SpecCP. In the second sentence it is interpreted as an embedded question and raises to the intermediate SpecCP. In both cases it raises to the CP where it is interpreted. Consider, now, the following Korean questions.6
(8.39) (a) 영희는 민수가 무엇을 먹었다고 말했니? Yenghuy-nun Minswu-ka mwues-ul mek-ess-ta-ko mal-ha-yess-ni? Younghui-top Minsoo-nom what-acc eat-pst-decl-comp word-do-pst-int ‘What did Younghui say that Minsoo ate?’ (b) 영희는 민수가 무엇을 먹었는지 말했다. Yenghuy-nun Minswu-ka mwues-ul mek-ess-nunci mal-ha-yess-ta. Younghui-top Minsoo-nom what-acc eat-pst-int word-do-pst-decl ‘Younghui said what Minsoo ate.’
The wh-phrase mwues-ul (‘what’) is interpreted in the matrix CP in the first example and in the lower CP in the second example. In the case of Korean, the verbal morphology help us. The interrogative suffix (int) on the verb tells us that the wh-phrase is interpreted in that clause. Consider lastly the following Mandarin data.
(8.40) (a) Míngměi gàosù-le Lˇisì Zh¯angs¯an qù-le nˇalˇi? Mingmei tell-prfv Lisi Zhangsan go-prfv where ‘Where did Mingmei tell Lisi that Zhangsan went?’ (b) Míngměi gàosù-le Lˇisì Zh¯angs¯an qù-le nˇalˇi. Mingmei tell-prfv Lisi Zhangsan go-prfv where ‘Mingmei told Lisi where Zhangsan went.’
The Mandarin example is ambiguous the same way the Korean example is. This time, however, there is no verbal morphology to disambiguate the sentence. Our understanding of wh-in-situ will depend partly on resolving this ambiguity. First, however, let’s consider the syntax of wh-in-situ. Consider the structures for the following two examples.
(8.41) wh-in-situ in Korean and Mandarin
(a) Yenghuy-ka mwues-ul mek-ess-ni? 영희가 무엇을 먹었니? Younghui-nom whatacc eat ‘What did Younghui eat?’
6Korean speakers will note that these sentences have other meanings in addition to the ones given here. The different meanings can be detected by changing the intonation of the sentence. For the purposes of this discussion, please consider only the meanings given here. 244 CHAPTER 8. WH-MOVEMENT AND RELATIVE CLAUSES
(b) Míngměi ch¯i-le shénme? Mingmei eat-prfv what ‘What did Mingmei eat?’
(8.42) Structures for wh-in-situ
CP
TP C[wh]
′ DPi T -ni
Yenghuy-ka vP T
′ ti v -ess
VP v
DP V mekj
mwues-ul t (a) j CP
C[wh] TP
′ DPi T
Mingmei T vP
′ ti v
v VP
chi-lej V DP
t shenme (b) j
We saw above that for English the C[wh] head has the EPP property. We propose, then, that in wh-in-situ languages the C[wh] head lacks the EPP property. As such, the wh-phrase remains in situ. We have yet to explain how the different meanings of the wh-in-situ examples arise. We need a way to represent meaning, the same way we have been representing structure up until now. The idea 8.2. CROSS-LINGUISTIC PATTERNS OF WH-MOVEMENT 245
Lexicon
Overt Movement Spell-Out
MovementCovert
Morphology
PF LF
Figure 8.1: T-Model of Syntax
that thought or meaning could be represented formally descends from work on the philosophy of language (Frege, 1891; Russell, 1914). Logical Form (LF) refers to the level of representation that encodes meaning (Montague, 1970; May, 1985). Chomsky and Lasnik (1995) postulated further a level of phonological form (PF), which is responsible for converting the syntactic structure to a speech signal. PF and LF are the two interfaces. LF interfaces with the meaning and thought centres of the brain. PF interfaces with the speech and motor control centres of the brain. The model Chomsky proposed is shown in Figure 8.1. Let’s consider this model before getting back to the analysis of wh-in-situ. Lexical items are drawn from the Lexicon and put together by Merge. At some point, the structure reaches a point called Spell-Out, and the structure is transferred to LF (for interpretation) and to PF (for externalization - that is to be given a set of motor commands for speech or signing). After Spell-Out on the path to LF further movement operations can take place; however, this will be covert movement as such movement will not be detectable by PF. Movement prior to Spell-Out is detectable by PF, so we refer to it as overt movement. On the path from Spell-Out to PF varoius morphological and phonological operations take place, but these do not concern us here. Let’s take an abstract example. Assume the following structure has been built by overt movement. 246 CHAPTER 8. WH-MOVEMENT AND RELATIVE CLAUSES
(8.43) XP
X YP
Y ZP
ZQW
This structure undergoes Spell-Out is is transfered to the two interfaces, PF and LF.
PF LF XP XP
X YP X YP (8.44)
Y ZP Y ZP
ZQW ZQW
PF converts this into a linear signal for speech or signing. Let’s say a covert movement operation takes place, however, as shown. ZP raises to SpecXP; however, PF does not know this covert movement has taken place.
PF LF XYZQR XP
′ (8.45) ZPi X
ZQW X YP
Y ti
The entire path from drawing lexical items from the Lexicon to the final stages of the interfaces is called the derivation. The derivation includes overt movement, covert movement, and the morphological and phonological operations at PF. As mentioned, however, we will not be concerned with PF operations here. Let’s consider the ambiguous Mandarin sentence. The wh-phrase nˇalˇi (‘where’) is interpreted in the matrix SpecCP for a matrix question (shown in blue). For the embedded question (shown in red) it is interpreted in the lower SpecCP. The wh-phrase must appear in one of these positions at LF. Since the C[wh] head in Mandarin does not have the EPP property, the wh-phrase does not move overtly. Thus, it must move covertly. 8.2. CROSS-LINGUISTIC PATTERNS OF WH-MOVEMENT 247
(8.46)
[CP Míngměi gàosù-le Lˇisì [CP Zh¯angs¯an qù-le nˇalˇi ]] Mingmei tell-prfv Lisi Zhangsan go-prfv where ‘Where did Mingmei tell Lisi that Zhangsan went’ OR ‘Mingmei told Lisi where Zhangsan went.’ We are now ready to consider the full derivations for these two sentences. We repeat the two examples here for convenience.
(8.47) (a) Míngměi gàosù-le Lˇisì Zh¯angs¯an qù-le nˇalˇi? Mingmei tell-prfv Lisi Zhangsan go-prfv where ‘Where did Mingmei tell Lisi that Zhangsan went?’ (b) Míngměi gàosù-le Lˇisì Zh¯angs¯an qù-le nˇalˇi. Mingmei tell-prfv Lisi Zhangsan go-prfv where ‘Mingmei told Lisi where Zhangsan went.’
The matrix C head bears a [wh] feature but does not have the EPP property. Thus, the wh- phrase remains in situ. The derivation thus far undergoes Spell-Out. PF receive this structure and produced the linear order shown in (8.47 a). Meanwhile, at LF, the wh-phrase must be interpreted in the matrix SpecCP, so it moves covertly to the matrix SpecCP. This is shown with a dashed line, a convention we will use in the remainder of this text. Note that this covert movement is shown as taking place in one fell swoop. Whether covert movement takes place successive-cyclically or not is an advanced topic of research, which we will not consider here. 248 CHAPTER 8. WH-MOVEMENT AND RELATIVE CLAUSES
(8.48) Spell-Out and LF structures for (8.47 a)
Spell-Out Structure CP
C[wh] TP
′ DPi T
Mingmei T vP
′ ti v
v VP
′ gàosù-lej DP V tell-prfv Lisi tj CP
C TP
′ DPk T
Zhangsan T VP
VP AdvP
V tk nˇalˇi where qù go 8.2. CROSS-LINGUISTIC PATTERNS OF WH-MOVEMENT 249
LF Structure CP
AdvP C′
nˇalˇi C[wh] TP where ′ DPi T
Mingmei T vP
′ ti v
v VP
′ gàosù-lej DP V tell-prfv Lisi tj CP
C TP
′ DPk T
Zhangsan T VP
VP tl
V tk
qù go
8.2.2 Multiple wh-movement
Recall that if the specifier of CP is already filled with a wh-phrase, other wh-phrases must remain in situ in English.
(8.49) (a) Who bought what? (b) *Who what bought?
Some languages allow several wh-phrases to appear at the left edge of the clause. Consider the following data (Rudin, 1988). 250 CHAPTER 8. WH-MOVEMENT AND RELATIVE CLAUSES
(8.50) Multiple wh-movement (Rudin, 1988, ex(5))
(a) Koj kogo vižda? who whom sees ‘Who sees whom?’ Bulgarian (b) Cine cu ce merge? who with what goes ‘Who goes by what (means of transportation)?’ Romanian (c) Ko koga vidi? who whom sees ‘Who sees whom?’ Serbo-Croatian
These languages exhibit multiple wh-movement. The majority of Slavic languages as well as the languages of the Balkan Sprachbund exhibit multiple wh-movement (see p. 305 for information on Balkan languages and sprachbunds). One account of multiple wh-constructions is to assume that CP can have multiple specifiers in some multiple wh-fronting languages (Rudin, 1988; Richards, 1999, 2001; Pesetsky, 2000).
(8.51) CP
DP
wh1 DP C′
wh2 C TP Rudin (1988) identifies two types of multiple wh-fronting languages. In the first type, when more than one wh-phrase moves to the specifier of CP, the order of the wh-phrases reflects the c-command relations of their base positions. This restriction on movement is referred to as superiority. We say that wh-movement respects superiority. Bulgarian and Romanian are of this type. In the second type, superiority need not be obeyed. Serbo-Croatian is of this type.7 For the remainder of this discussion we will consider only the first type. Consider the following examples (Rudin, 1988).
(8.52) Superiority in Bulgarian (Boeckx and Grohmann, 2003, ex(6c,d))
(a) Kogo kakvo e pital Ivan? who what is asked Ivan ‘Who did Ivan ask what?’ (b) *Kakvo kogo e pital Ivan? what who is asked Ivan ‘Who did Ivan ask what?’ 7See Kramer (2006) for a discussion on the name Serbo-Croatian. 8.3. RELATIVE CLAUSES 251
Consider, now, the structure for (8.52 a). The auxiliary is a second position clitic (see Inter- chapter F), which appears in C. Bulgarian has V-to-T movement. For simplicity, we assume the subject remains in SpecvP.8 Observe that the c-command relations between the two wh-phrases remains unchanged. That is, multiple wh-movement obeys superiority.
(8.53)
CP
DPi
′ kogo DPj C who kakvo C TP what e T vP is ′ pitalk DP v asked Ivan v VP
′ tk ti V
V tj
tk To summarize this section, we have seen three types of languages with regard to wh-movement. The languages mentioned in this section are included in Table 8.1.9 It is important to note that in all cases, the wh-phrases start in their base positions. In the case of arguments, the are merged into a θ-position. By LF, all wh-phrases appear in SpecCP. The variation observed here is how many wh-phrases move overtly. In Korean, for example, none of the wh-phrases move overtly. They all move covertly. In English, one of the wh-phrases move overtly, the rest move covertly. In Bulgarian, all of the wh-phrases move overtly, none move covertly.
8.3 Relative Clauses
A relative clause is an adjunct to a noun that modifies that noun in some way. In the following sentences, the relative clause is shown in boldface and the head noun is underlined. For the current
8The astute reader will notice that if the auxiliary raises to C from T, then it is impossible for the verb to raise to T. There is evidence for a more articulated structure to the clause than is shown here (see Giorgi and Pianesi, 1997, for example). The additional structure will provide enough room to account for the surface word order in Bulgarian. 9Although it was not discussed here, French has optional wh-in-situ in matrix clauses (Rowlett, 2007). 252 CHAPTER 8. WH-MOVEMENT AND RELATIVE CLAUSES
Type Examples Wh-in-situ Korean, Mandarin, Cantonese, Thai, Japanese, Tuvaluan Single wh-movement English, (French), German, Onondaga, Chamorro, Irish, Kikuyu Multiple wh-movement Bulgarian, Romanian, Serbo-Croatian
Table 8.1: Typology of wh-movement
illustration conventions of English punctuation are ignored. Recall from earlier that English has postnominal relative clauses and that Korean has prenominal relative clauses.10
(8.54) (a) the book which Mary read (b) the boy who saw the elephant
(c) Yenghuy-ka ilk-un chayk 영희가 읽은 책 Younghui-nom read-pst book ‘the book that Younghui read’
Observe that the relative clause contains a logical gap that is identified by the noun which the relative clause modifies. Here are the same examples with the gaps identified.
(8.55) (a) the book which Mary read (b) the boy who saw the elephant
(c) Yenghuy-ka ilk-un chayk 영희가 읽은 책 Younghui-nom read-pst book ‘the book that Younghui read’
In the two English relative clauses we note the relative pronouns (which and who) that appear at the left edge of the relative clause. These pronouns have undergone wh-movement to this position. We will see evidence for this in the next section. Relative clauses modify noun phrases. As such, they adjoin to NP. Recall from earlier that this requires us to employ unary branching. Consider now the structure for the book which Mary read. The relative pronoun which is merged as the complement to the verb and receives a θ-role. It then undergoes wh-movement to SpecCP.
10I have glossed Korean -nun/-un (눈/운) as present and past. It has been argued that these morphemes indicate aspect rather than tense (Chung, 2012). These morphemes are sometimes referred to as adnominals (adn) to remain neutral as to their category. 8.3. RELATIVE CLAUSES 253
(8.56) DP
D NP
the NP CP
′ N DPi C
book which C TP
′ DPj T
Mary T vP
′ tj v
v VP
readk V ti
tk
Before continuing, let us examine the constituency properties of this construction. The structure suggests that the string of words book which Peter read is a constituent. Consider the following example.
(8.57) these books that Peter read and those ones
Here, ones refers to books that Peter read. So, the string books that Peter read is a constituent. Given the structure in (8.56) the reader can verify that this string is indeed a constituent. The relative clause modifies the noun. It does so by creating a set to compare to the set denoted by the noun which the relative clause modifies. Let’s take (8.56) as an example, repeated below.
The lower NP (labelled NP1 for convenience) refers to the set of all books relevant to the context. The relative clause refers to the set of things that Mary read. It is the relative pronoun that allows the CP to be interpreted as a set. The higher NP (labelled NP2 for convenience). We can represent these two sets with a Venn diagram as in Figure (8.2). The set on the left is
NP1, and the dots labelled ‘B’ represent members of this set. The set on the right is CP, and the dots labelled ‘RC’ represent members of this set. The intersection of these two sets is NP2 (NP1 ∩
CP = NP2). If NP1 is the set of books and CP is the set of things which Mary read, then NP2 is the set of books which Mary read. If this set contains one entity (as it does in Figure (8.2), then we can use the determiner the to head the entire DP. 254 CHAPTER 8. WH-MOVEMENT AND RELATIVE CLAUSES
B RC B
B B B/RC RC RC
B RC B
NP1 CP
Figure 8.2: Venn diagram representing a relative clause
(8.58) DP
D NP2
the NP1 CP
N which Mary read
book
Different languages have different strategies for forming relative clauses. Relative clauses in English can also be formed with the complementizer that rather than with a relative pronoun or can simply be bare, with no complementizer or relative pronoun. In these situations, we assume that there is a phonologically null operator (Op) that raises from the extraction site to the specifier of the CP of the relative clause, just as we saw for the relative pronouns above (Chomsky, 1982, footnote 11). The operator does the same job as the relative pronoun. It receives a θ-role in its base position and raises to SpecCP to allow the CP to be interpreted as a set. Consider the following examples.
(8.59) (a) the book whichi Mary read ti
(b) the book Opi that Mary read ti
(c) the book Opi Mary read ti
Here is the structure for a that-relative clause. 8.3. RELATIVE CLAUSES 255
(8.60) DP
D NP
the NP CP
′ N Opi C
book C TP
′ that DPj T
Mary T vP
′ tj v
v VP
readk V ti
tk
We now discuss a few idiosyncracies of English relative clauses. Relative clauses introduced by an overt relative pronoun can participate in pied piping or preposition stranding. Bare and that-relative clauses must use preposition stranding. Here are some examples.
(8.61) (a) the student who Mary was talking to (b) the student to whom Mary was talking (c) the student that Mary was talking to (d) *the student to that Mary was talking (e) the student Mary was talking to (f) *the student to Mary was talking
Also, in standard English, subject relative clauses cannot be bare.
(8.62) (a) I gave the book to the student who is studying in the library. (b) I gave the book to the student that is studying in the library. (c) *I gave the book to the student is studying in the library.
Note, however, that under certain (poorly understood) circumstances, some speaker can use bare subject relatives. Here are some examples from film and television. 256 CHAPTER 8. WH-MOVEMENT AND RELATIVE CLAUSES
(8.63) (a) It was beauty killed the beast. [King Kong] (b) I’m the kind of man likes to know who’s buying his drinks. [The Shining] (c) And Charlie. There’s not a day goes by I don’t think of him [Rose Nylund from The Golden Girls (s1ep16)]
Switching now to Korean, let’s consider the structure of (8.54 c), repeated here. Korean does not have overt relative pronouns. Instead Korean uses a relative operator to form relative clauses.
(8.64) Yenghuy-ka ilk-un chayk 영희가 읽은 책 Younghui-nom read-pst book ‘the book that Younghui read’
(8.65) DP
NP D
CP NP
′ Opi C N
TP C chayk
′ DPj T
Yenghuy-ka vP T
′ tj v -un
VP v
ti V ilkk
tk
Recall that one of the correlates of SVO versus SOV word order is the placement of relative clauses with respect to the head noun. Japanese, for example, is SOV and thus exhibits pre-nominal relative clauses.
(8.66) Peter-ga yon-da hon Peter-nom read-pst book ‘the book that Peter read’ 8.3. RELATIVE CLAUSES 257
Recall also that Mandarin (and Chinese languages in general) is disharmonic in that it has SVO word order but also has prenominal relative clauses. Here is an example. Note that in Mandarin the relative clause is introduced by de (的).
(8.67) shu¯o y¯ingyˇu de xuésheng speak English de student ‘the student who speaks English’
8.3.1 Accessibility Hierarchy
Languages differ in terms of what elements in the clause are available for relativization. There is a hierarchy of types of elements that can be relativized called the accessibility hierarchy (Comrie, 1989; Keenan and Comrie, 1977; Comrie and Keenan, 1979). All languages can relativize the first item on the list the subject. Most can relativize the second the object. Of those, some can relativize the third indirect object. Of those, some can relativize the fourth, and so forth. Languages, in general, start at the top of the list and move down. Thus, if a given language can relativize any given element on the hierarchy, it can relativize anything higher in the hierarchy. There are some exceptions to this generalization, however, so the accessibility hierarchy is not a true universal, but rather a strong tendency. Here is the order of the hierarchy, with some English examples provided.
(8.68)
subject the boy who saw Peter subject of see is extracted direct object the boy who Peter saw object of see is extracted indirect object of give is extracted the boy who Peter gave the book to indirect object for most speakers the DOC does %the boy Peter gave the book not support indirect object relatives oblique the fork Peter ate with object of with is extracted possessor of book is extracted genitive the boy whose book Peter stole entire possess phrase must be pied-piped object of the boy that Susan is taller than object of comparison is extracted comparative
As the data above show, English is quite flexible in terms of its ability to relativize almost anything. Malagasy, on the other hand, can relativize only subjects. Observe in the first example that Malagasy is a VOS language. The following two examples show that a subject relative clause is possible but a direct object relative clause is not.
(8.69) Relative clauses in Malagasy (Keenan and Comrie, 1977) 258 CHAPTER 8. WH-MOVEMENT AND RELATIVE CLAUSES
(a) Nahita ny vehivavy ny mpianatra saw the woman the student ‘The student saw the woman.’
(b) ny mpianatra [Opi izay nahita ny vehivavy ti ] the student [ that saw the woman ] ‘the student who saw the woman’
(c) *ny mpianatra [Opi izay nahita ti ny vehivavy ] the student [ that saw the woman ] ‘(the student who the woman saw)’
8.3.2 Internally-Headed Relative Clauses
Until now, we have been looking at externally-headed relative clauses, where the relativized noun (red in the following example) is outside of the relative clause (shown in blue).
(8.70) the book [ that Peter read]
Some languages exhibit internally-headed relative clauses, where the head noun appears inside the relative clause. Conceptually, we can think of this as shown in the following example. The relative clause is enclosed in a square. Again, the head noun is shown in red. Observe that the head noun is located inside the internally-headed relative clause. Notice also that the externally-headed relative clauses are adjoined to NP as explained above and that the internally-headed relative clauses are the complement to D (Cole, 1987; Basilico, 1996; Hanink, 2020).
(8.71)
externally-headed relative clause internally-headed relative clause DP
D NP
NP CP DP
′ N Opi C D CP
head C TP C TP
... ti...... head ... In the following examples the relative clause is enclosed in square brackets and the head noun is coloured red. As the structure in (8.71) shows, internally-headed relative clauses are headed by a determiner. When the determiner is overt in the following examples it is coloured blue for easy identification. 8.3. RELATIVE CLAUSES 259
Let’s consider first internally-headed relative clauses in Mooré, which conveniently marks the head with the morpheme ninga. This will help us understand the structure better.
(8.72) Internally-headed relative clauses in Mooré
(a) `m m´˜i˜i [ ráwã´ sèn ség biíg níngà ] wã´ I know man rel meet child ninga det ‘I know the child that the man met.’ (b) `m yãã´ [ á Màarí sèn tóol sébr nìngá kwásã´ záamé ] wã´ I see Mary rel send book ninga vendor yesterday det ‘I saw the book that Mary sent to the salesman yesterday.’
Mooré (mos) also known as Mossi, is a Niger-Congo language spoken in Burkina Faso.
Next, consider the following Lakota example (see p. 207 for more information on Lakota). Note that both a demonstrative and a determiner introduce the relative clause (Williamson, 1984; Ingham, 2003).
(8.73) Internally-headed relative clausese in Lakota
(a) Mary owi˛žą wa kaˇge ki he ophewathu Mary quilt a make the dem I buy ‘I bought the quilt that Mary made.’
(b) tona t’ewic’ahila-pi .sni ki hena wis’aha-pi the ones love them-pl neg the dem bury them-pl ‘Those they did not love, they buried.’ [Lakota]
A construction similar to internally-headed relative clauses are also found in Korean and Japanese (Shimoyama, 1999; Kim, 2007). Consider the following Korean example (Kim, 1999, ex.(5)).
(8.74) 존은 사과가 쟁반의에 있는 것을 먹었다 John-un [ sakwa-ka cayngpanuy-ey iss-nun kes ] -ul mek-ess-ta. John-top apple-nom plate-on be-prs nlzr -acc eat-pst-decl ‘John ate the apple that was on the plate.’
In Korean, such constructions are introduced by the nominalizer kes (grammaticalized from the lexical noun ‘thing’). Korean does not have an overt D head, so there is no overt determiner as we saw in the examples above. The properties of these constructions in Korean and Japanese differ in several ways from the internally-headed discussed above. See the references above for discussion. 260 CHAPTER 8. WH-MOVEMENT AND RELATIVE CLAUSES
8.4 Restrictions on wh-movement
Recall that wh-movement is unbounded.
(8.75) Which hat did John say Susan thought Mary should persuade Peter to buy?
Wh-movement, however, is not a free-for-all. There are constraints on movement. Recall, for instance, that the successive cyclic nature of wh-movement requires it to target the specifier of every CP on its way to surface position. Thus, if there is another wh-phrase in the way, movement is blocked. In the early influential work, Ross (1967) deduced several independent conditions on movement. We examine these conditions as they apply to wh-movement. In each case, the relevant structure is in italics.
8.4.1 Complex DP Constraint
This constraint states that extraction cannot take place from inside a complex DP. A complex DP is one that contains an embedded clause or a definite determiner, but not an indefinite determiner. Consider the following examples.
(8.76) (a) *Whati do you believe [DP the claim that Mary stole ti]?
(b) Whoi did you see [DP a picture of ti]?
(c) *Whati did you make [DP the claim that Mary stole ti]?
(d) *Whoi did you see [DP the picture of ti]?
(e) Whati did you claim [CP that Mary stole ti]?
As these data show, extraction from a complement clause (8.76 e) or from an indefinite DP (8.76 b) is grammatical. Extraction from a relative clause inside a DP (8.76 a), a clausal complement to a noun (8.76 c), or from a definite DP (8.76 d) is ungrammatical.
8.4.2 Subject Constraint
This constraint states that extraction out of a subject is not possible (Huang, 1982). The following data show several examples where extraction out of a subject is barred. The first example again shows that extraction out of a DP object is fine. Note, however, that if the subject is extraposed as in (8.77 d), then extraction is once again acceptable.
(8.77) (a) (i) John put a picture of Dracula on the wall.
(ii) Whoi did John put a picture of ti on the wall? (b) (i) A picture of Dracula frightened the children. 8.4. RESTRICTIONS ON WH-MOVEMENT 261
(ii) *Whoi did [a picture of ti] frighten the children? (c) (i) For Alex to move to Buenos Aires would be exciting. (ii) *Where would for Alex to move to be exciting? (d) (i) It would be exciting for Alex to move to Buenos Aires. (ii) Where would it be exciting for Alex to move to?
8.4.3 Wh-Island Constraint
A wh-phrase cannot cross another wh-phrase. Consider the following examples.
(8.78) (a) John wonders where Mary bought the apple. (b) *What does John wonder where Mary bought?
In the first example the wh-phrase where occupies the embedded SpecCP. In the second example, the object of buy attempts to undergo wh-movement to the matrix clause, but is stopped by the intervening wh-phrase where.
(8.79)
[CP John wonders [CP where Mary bought what ]]
8.4.4 Resumptive Pronouns
In speech, many English speakers often insert a resumptive pronoun to rescue island violations (Ross, 1967). Consider the following examples. In each case the path between the wh-phrase and the co-indexed resumptive pronoun crosses an island: a complex DP island, a subject island, and a wh-island, respectively.
(8.80) (a) Where are those files Op1 that I never remember where I put them1? (b) Which car1 did the police say the driver of it1 caused an accident? (c) Which patient1 do you wonder whether the doctor will release them1?
Observe that the same examples are ungrammatical without the resumptive pronoun.
(8.81) (a) *Where are those files Op1 that I never remember where I put t1? (b) *Which car1 did the police say the driver of t1 caused an accident? (c) *Which patient1 do you wonder whether the doctor will release t1? 262 CHAPTER 8. WH-MOVEMENT AND RELATIVE CLAUSES
We can generalize these facts as shown here, where RP represents ‘resumptive pronoun’.
(8.82) (a) *Wh-XPi ... [island ... ti ... ]
(b) Wh-XPi ... [island ... RPi ... ]
We will not consider the derivation of resumptive pronoun constructions here (Zaenen et al., 1981; Sells, 1984). Resumptive pronouns in English are rather unstable, and speakers’ intuitions on them are quite variable. As such, it has been argued that in English they arise as a result of processing (McKee and McDaniel, 2001). Note, however, than in some languages resumptive pronouns are not marginal but are active and integral properties of the grammar. Consider the following data from Lebanese Arabic (Aoun and Li, 2003, p.1). Local wh-movement in Lebanese Arabic leaves an optional resumptive pronoun, which surfaces as a clitic. (See Interchapter G on pronominal clitics in Romance.)
(8.83) (a) Payya mmasil š@ft [email protected] which actor saw.2ms in-the-restaurant ‘Which actor did you see in the restaurant?’
(b) Payya mmasil š@ft-uu [email protected] which actor saw.2m.sg-him in-the-restaurant ‘Which actor did you see in the restaurant?’ [Lebanese Arabic]
The following data shows that resumptive pronouns are obligatory in relative clauses in Pales- tinian Arabic (Shlonsky, 1992, p.445).
(8.84) (a) l-blint ?illi šufti-ha the-girl that saw.2f.sg-her ‘the girl that you saw’ (b) *l-blint ?illi šufti the-girl that saw.2f.sg ‘(the girl that you saw)’ [Palestinian Arabic]
This section has introduced several constraints on wh-movement. In the next section we explain how capture the constraints discussed above.
8.5 Phases and Constraining Wh-Movement
The previous sections provides a shortened list of all the constraints that Ross originally discussed. Since Ross’ seminal discussion on the constraints of movement, linguists have been trying to formu- late a unified explanation for the various constraints. Since this is still a matter of ongoing research, 8.5. PHASES AND CONSTRAINING WH-MOVEMENT 263 we will only consider the issues in brief detail and leave some points unresolved. One influential proposal to capture island effects is to postulate a set of phase heads, C, D. Once a phase head is reached, any element that wishes to escape the phase must move the edge of the phase the specifier of CP or DP (in the case of head movement, C and D). Once movement is complete, the sister to the phase head undergoes Spell-Out and is sent to PF and LF, respectively.
(8.85)
CP
′ XPi C
C TP
DP T′
T ...ti The CP at the top of the derivation continues to participate in further operations. For instance, it can merge with another verb that takes a clausal complement and the XP can continue to raise to the next CP. If there are no more operations and the derivation is finished, then the portion in blue simply undergoes Spell-Out and is sent to PF and LF. For now, we will consider only the C phase head.
(8.86) Who do you think that Peter saw? 264 CHAPTER 8. WH-MOVEMENT AND RELATIVE CLAUSES
CP
′ DPi C 5. With no more operations, the remain- der of the tree (in black) is Spelled-Out. who C TP
′ doj Dk T
you T vP 1. The wh-phrase moves to the embedded SpecCP–the edge of the ′ tj tk v lower C phase head. 2. The lower TP is Spelled-Out v VP and sent to PF and LF.
thinkl V CP
′ tl ti C
C TP
3. The wh-phrase moves to the ′ that DPm T matrix SpecCP–the edge of the matrix C phase head. Peter T vP 4. The matrix TP is Spelled-Out ′ and is transferred to PF and LF. tm v
v VP
sawn V ti
tn
Phase theory gives us a way of understanding how successive-cyclic movement is ensured. It gives an explanation for wh-islands. Consider again the following wh-island violation.
(8.87) *What does John wonder where Mary bought?
Consider the derivation starting from the embedded TP. 8.5. PHASES AND CONSTRAINING WH-MOVEMENT 265
[TP Mary bought what where ]
The C head merges with TP, and the wh-adjunct where raises to SpecCP.
[CP wherei [TP Mary bought what ti ]] Now, the sister to the C phase head, the TP, undergoes Spell-Out and is transferred to PF and LF. The tranferred portion is shown in grey and is no longer accessible to the derivation.
[CP wherei [TP Mary bought what ti ] ] When the matrix CP is constructed, the [wh] feature on C cannot find a wh-phrase to agree with. The only wh-phrase, what, is trapped in the lower phase. Note that the matrix C cannot agree with where as this wh-phrase is interpreted in the lower phase.
[CP C[wh] John does wonder [CP wherei [TP Mary bought what ti ] ]]
Let’s consider now DP islands. This will require us to consider the D phase head. Recall that extraction out of a definite DP is ungrammatical. Consider the following example.
(8.88) *Whoi did John see the picture of ti .
Since D is a phase head, the sister to D undergoes Spell-Out and is tranferred to the interfaces. When wh-movement crosses several clauses, it travels through each SpecCP on its way to it surface position. We say that the intermediate SpecCP positions act as an escape hatch. One possibility is that SpecDP is not available as an escape hatch for some reason.
(8.89)
CP CP
′ XPi C C TP
...... C Subj
v VP v VP
V CP V DP → ′ no escape hatch escape hatch→ti C D NP
... ti...... XP ... If SpecDP is not available to movement, then the DP island in (8.88) has an explanation. Consider the structure for this sentence. 266 CHAPTER 8. WH-MOVEMENT AND RELATIVE CLAUSES
(8.90)
CP
C TP
′ didi DPj T
John T vP
′ ti tj v
v VP
seek V DP
tk D NP
the N PP
picture P DP
of who
The wh-phrase who is trapped in the DP phase (shown in red). We have hypothesized that SpecDP cannot be used as an escape hatch, thus the wh-phrase cannot raise to SpecCP. Not all DPs are islands, of course. Recall that extraction from an indefinite nominal is gram- matical in English. Consider the following example.
(8.91) Who did John see a picture of?
We could argue that indefinite DPs allow subextraction. That is, we would have to say that SpecDP is an escape hatch in indefinite DPs only. One piece of evidence for this is DP-internal wh-movement. Consider the following contrast.
(8.92) (a) a very big house (b) how big a house (c) the very big house (d) how big the house
The wh-phrase how big can move to the left edge of an indefinite DP only. This explanation would work for the data considered so far, but we have one more island to account for–namely 8.5. PHASES AND CONSTRAINING WH-MOVEMENT 267 subject islands. Recall that subjects are islands for extraction regardless of the definiteness of the subject DP.
(8.93) (a) *Who did [a picture of t ] frighten the children? (b) *Who did [the picture of t ] frighten the children?
Another possible solution lies in the difference between definite and indefinite DPs (Davies and Dubinsky, 2003). In particular, we will consider the identity of the indefinite determiner a. Note that in many languages, the indefinite determiner is identical to the number one. Historically, English a/an derived from the numeral one. In both German and French the words for ‘one’ and ‘a’ are the same. In Uzbek, if the numeral one appears with a classifier, then it has the cardinal reading (note the /r/→[t] assimilation). If the numeral one appears without a classifier, then it has an indefinite reading.
(8.94) (a) ein Buch a/one book [German] ‘a/one book’
(b) un livre a/one book [French] ‘a/one book’
(c) bit-ta olma one-cl apple [Uzbek] ‘one apple’ (d) bir olma one apple [Uzbek] ‘an apple’
Ritter (1991, 1992) proposed that a number phrase (NumP) appears between DP and NP. We won’t go through her arguments here, but we will accept her proposal for now.
(8.95) DP
D NumP
NumP NP
... N ... 268 CHAPTER 8. WH-MOVEMENT AND RELATIVE CLAUSES
Let us propose, following Davies and Dubinsky (2003), that an indefinite nominal phrase can be a bare NumP. The structure of (8.91), then, is as follows.
(8.96)
CP
′ DPi C
who C TP
′ didj DPk T
John T vP
′ tj tk v
v VP
seel V NumP
tl Num NP
a N PP
picture P ti
of
Since the object contains no DP there is no phase boundary between the verb and the object. The DP who is free to move to SpecCP. After who moves to SpecCP, then the sister to the C head undergoes Spell-Out. We now come back to subject islands. Recall that in English T has the EPP property. ? has suggested that the EPP property on T is due to a [D] feature on T that can be satisfied only by a DP. In other words, the subject must be a DP, even if it is indefinite. Let’s consider again the following subject island violation.
(8.97) *Who did a picture of frighten the children?
The subject a picture of who, while indefinite, must be a full DP to satisfy EPP on T. Consider the following structure. 8.5. PHASES AND CONSTRAINING WH-MOVEMENT 269
(8.98)
CP
C TP
′ didi DPj T
D NumP T vP
′ Num NP ti tj v
a N PP v VP
picture P DP frightenk V DP
of who tk D NumP
the Num N
children
Phase Heads C - escape hatch available D - no escape hatch available
8.5.1 Relative Clauses and Islands
We can now return to some evidence that relative clauses involve wh-movement of a relative pronoun or an operator. Let’s start by looking at some relative clauses.
(8.99) (a) the book which Mary read (b) the book that Mary read (c) the book Mary read (d) Yenghuy-ka ilk-un chayk 영희가 읽은 책 Younghui-nom read-pst book ‘the book that Younghui read’
Ross (1967) noticed that wh-movement and relative clauses are both subject to the same kinds of constraints. Consider the following data.
(8.100) wh-Islands 270 CHAPTER 8. WH-MOVEMENT AND RELATIVE CLAUSES
(a) Mary knows when Susan ate the apple.
(b) *Whati does Mary know [when Susan ate ti]? (c) *the apple that Mary knows when Susan ate
(8.101) Coordinate Structure Constraint
(a) Pat ate an apple and an orange. (b) *What did Pat eat an apple and? (c) *the orange that Pat ate an apple and
(8.102) Complex NP Constraint
(a) Pat read the book that Mary wrote on her sabbatical.
(b) *Wheni did Pat read [the book that Mary wrote ti]? (c) *the sabbatical that Pat read the book that Mary wrote on
(8.103) Subject Island Constraint
(a) That Bill ate the last piece of cake angered John. (b) *What did that Bill ate anger John? (c) *the cake [that [that Bill ate t] angered John]
The facts above led Ross to propose that both wh-questions and relative clauses have the same kind of movement. Such a proposal simplifies the grammar. Semantic similarities between wh- questions and relative clauses also suggest that they have the same analysis.
8.5.2 Cross-Over Effects (advanced)
We will now look at some interactions between wh-phrases and bound pronouns. A bound pronoun is one that co-refers to a DP that c-commands it. We can define binding more formally as follows.
(8.104) A binds B iff:
1 A c-commands B, and 2 A and B are coreferential.
We indicate co-reference by use of superscripts. We use numbers here to keep them distinct from the subscripted indices that show movement. Consider first the following example.
(8.105) (a) John1 thinks that he1/2 is a genius. 8.5. PHASES AND CONSTRAINING WH-MOVEMENT 271
(b) John1 saw himself1 in the mirror.
In (8.105 a), he refers either to John (indicated by the superscript 1) or to any other human male (indicated by the superscript 2). In (8.105 b), himself must refer to John again as indicated by the superscript. Pronouns can also be coreferential with a wh-expression. (In this case, the pronouns are referred to as bound variables, which we saw in Chapter 4 in the discussion on ditransitive constructions. See also page 16 for a discussion on singular they, which is found in the following examples.)
1 1 (8.106) (a) Who i ti loves their mother? 1 1 (b) Who i ti loves themself ?
These sentences can be schematized as follows: Who is the ‘x’ such that x loves x’s mother? and Who is the ‘x’ such that x loves x? If you think of x as a variable (as in algebra), then we see why the pronouns here are called bound variables. A possible answer for the first question is: John loves his mother, Mary loves her mother, and Susan loves her mother. Now consider the following data.
1 1 (8.107) (a) * Who i do they love ti ? 1 1 (b) ? Who i does their mother love ti ?
In contrast to the previous examples, (8.107 a) is sharply ungrammatical and (8.107 b) is mildly ungrammatical. In (8.107 a), the wh-phrase has raised past a coreferential pronoun (i.e., a bound variable) that c-commands the trace, and in (8.107 a), the wh-phrase has raised past a coreferential pronoun that does not c-command the trace. This is shown in the following trees. The first sentence is an example of Strong Cross Over (SCO) and is so called because the ungrammaticality is felt strongly by most speakers. The second sentence is an example of Weak Cross Over (WCO) and is so called because the ungrammaticality is felt more weakly. 272 CHAPTER 8. WH-MOVEMENT AND RELATIVE CLAUSES
CP
1 ′ DP i C
who C TP
1 ′ doj D k T
they T vP
′ tj tk v
v VP
lovel V ti
t CP l
1 ′ DP i C
who C TP
′ doesj DPk T
D1 N T vP
′ their mother tj tk v
v VP
lovel V ti
tl
The notions of SCO and WCO have been used to adduce support for LF movement of wh- phrases in wh-in-situ languages (Huang, 1982).11 Consider the following Mandarin data (see p 90 for more information on Mandarin).
11Although see Aoun and Li (1993) for an alternative proposal. 8.5. PHASES AND CONSTRAINING WH-MOVEMENT 273
(8.108) *Xihuan ta1 de ren kandao shei1? likes him de person see who ‘(Who1 did the person who likes him1 see?)’
Consider the structure for the sentence above. For convenience, the morpheme de has been analyzed as a right-headed C that introduces a relative clause.12 CP
C TP
′ DPi T
D NP T vP
′ CP NP ti v
′ Opi C N v VP
1 TP C ren kandaol V DP
′ tj T de tl shei
T vP
′ tj v
v VP
1 xihuank tk D
ta
Observe that the wh-phrase shei (‘who’) is in-situ. Following Huang (1982) the wh-phrase raises to SpecCP at LF. In the example here, the wh-phrase raises past a co-referential pronoun and gives rise to a WCO violation, thereby giving additional evidence for the LF raising analysis of in-situ wh-phrases.
12For more discussion on Mandarin de see Cheng and Sybesma (2014) and Rubin (2003). 274 CHAPTER 8. WH-MOVEMENT AND RELATIVE CLAUSES
Key Concepts
• wh-in-situ - a phenomenon in which wh-phrases do not raise to SpecCP in the overt syntax
• multiple wh-movement - a phenomenon in which all wh-phrases move to the left edge of the clause
• island - a syntactic phrase out of which movement cannot take place
• phase head - The phase heads are C and D. The sister of a phase head undergoes Spell-Out and is not longer accessible to the derivation.
• Strong Cross Over - a phenomenon in which wh-movement over a c-commanding corefer- ential pronoun results in ungrammaticality
• Weak Cross Over - a phenomenon in which wh-movement over a non-c-commanding coref- erential pronoun results in mild ungrammaticality 8.5. PHASES AND CONSTRAINING WH-MOVEMENT 275
Exercises
(8.1) Draw trees for the following sentences.
1 Who did you visit? 2 Which sword did Stephen give to George? 3 What does John think that Susan bought? 4 Which book was given to John? 5 Who was given a new car? 6 Who was John told that Susan likes? 7 Which car do you think was stolen from their driveway? 8 The book which Mary read was purchased in Chicago. 9 Did you eat the pear that I bought? 10 I like the hat that John thinks Mary bought. 11 The teacher recommended the student who wrote a report on unaccusative verbs. 12 Who knows who ate the apple that Mary bought? 13 Which book about physics that Hawking wrote was borrowed from the library? 14 Which car that was stolen from that house was found behind the mall?
(8.2) The following sentences are ambiguous. What are the meanings? Draw the tree structure for each meaning. For the second sentence, draw the two LF trees that correspond to the two different meanings.
1 When did Mary decide that John should visit Montreal? 2 Who wonders who bought what?
(8.3) Draw trees for the following French sentences. Recall that they hyphenation in the first and third sentences is merely an orthographic convention of French. Treat as, penses and tu as separate words.
1 Quel livre as-tu lu? which book have-you read ‘Which book did you read?’ 2 Marie sait dans quelle maison Pierre habite. Mary knows in which house Peter lives ‘Mary knows which house Peter lives in.’ 276 CHAPTER 8. WH-MOVEMENT AND RELATIVE CLAUSES
3 Quel livre penses-tu que Alain a mangé? which book think-you that Alan has read ‘Which book do you think Alan read?’
(8.4) Draw Spell-Out and LF trees for the following Korean sentences. If any sentence is ambiguous, draw the relevant disambiguating trees for both sentences.
1 민수가 무엇을 먹었니? Minswu-ka mwues-ul mek-ess-ni Minsoo-nom what-acc eat-pst-inter ‘What did Minsoo eat?’ 2 철수는 영희는 무엇을 먹었는지 궁금하다. Minswu-nun Yenghuy-ka mwues-ul mek-ess-nunci kungkum-ha-ta Minsoo-top Younghui-nom what-acc eat-pst-inter wonder-lv-decl ‘Minsoo wonders what Youngui ate.’
(8.5) Why are the following sentences ungrammatical? Make sure you explain as clearly as possible what principle(s) of grammar they violate.
1 *What does John wonder why Mary bought?
2 *Who did you see the picture of?
3 *Which car did the driver of cause an accident?
(8.6) Consider the following data from Tok Pisin. Tok Pisin is an SVO language. Characterize the wh-movement that is taking place here (use terms such as ‘wh-raising’, ‘wh-in situ,’ and ‘multiple wh-raising’). Does the type of wh-movement vary? If so, how? Briefly state your evidence.
1 yutupela sutim husat tru? 2du shot who really ‘Who did you two really shoot?’
2 yu lukim wanem? 2sg see what ‘What do you see?’
3 * wanem yu lukim? what 2sg see ‘(What do you see?)’
4 wanem samting yu lukim? what thing 2sg see ‘What (thing) did you see?’ 8.5. PHASES AND CONSTRAINING WH-MOVEMENT 277
5 wanem banana yu lukim? what banana 2sg see ‘What banana did you see?’
Now consider the following additional data in addition to the data above (husat can be translated as ‘who’ or ‘which’ in English).
6 * Husat yu givim banana long? who 2sg give banana to ‘(Who did you give a banana to?)’
7 * Husat meri yu givim banana long? who woman 2sg give banana to ‘(Which woman did you give the banana to?)’
8 * Husat yu givim banana long em? who 2sg give banana to 3sg ‘(Who did you give the banana to?)’
9 Husat meri yu givim banana long em? who woman 2sg give banana to 3sg ‘Which woman did you give the banana to?’
10 yu givim banana long husat? 2sg give banana to who ‘Who did you give the banana to?’
11 yu givim banana long husat meri? 2sg give banana to who woman ‘Which woman did you give the banana to?’
Are there any other conditions on wh-movement that you can determine from all the data in this question?
(8.7) Consider the following Tagalog data (see page 162 for more information on Tagalog). The grammatical subject in Tagalog is marked with ang, and the verb agrees with the Case associated with the logical role of the grammatical subject. The aspect marker on the verb plays no role in this question. Note that the English translations are only approximate. In the first sentence the grammatical subject is also the logical subject, so there is nominative agreement on the verb. In the second sentence the grammatical subject is the logical object, so there is accusative agreement on the verb. Thus, the second sentence cannot be considered a passive in the usual sense. 278 CHAPTER 8. WH-MOVEMENT AND RELATIVE CLAUSES
1 B
2 B
Now consider the following data. These data suggest that wh-movement is restricted to gram- matical subjects. Explain.
3 sino b
4 *sino n-agbigay ang lalaki ng bulaklak? who nom.asp-give sub man det flower ‘Who did the man give the flower to?’ 8.5. PHASES AND CONSTRAINING WH-MOVEMENT 279
Further Reading
• Chomsky and Lasnik (1977) - This paper lays the groundwork for our current under- standing of wh-movement.
• Davies and Dubinsky (2003) - This paper is the foundation for our understanding of definite DP islands in this textbook.
• Cheng (1991) - This dissertation attempts to provide a universal explanation of the diversity of wh-constructions.
• Huang (1982) - This dissertation is the original proposal for LF movement of wh-in-situ.
• McDaniel (1989) - This paper contains an in depth discussion on various aspects of German and Romani wh-questions, including partial movement briefly discussed here. Although the analysis is quite technical, the empirical facts are clearly laid out and the discussion should be accessible once the concepts in this chapter are mastered.
• Rizzi (1990) - This is an in depth monograph dealing with constraints both on wh-movement and other kinds of movement. Many of the issues discussed here still form the foundation of current syntactic theory.
• Ross (1967) - This dissertation is the source of many of constraints on movement that are still discussed today.
• Rudin (1988) - This article discusses the syntax of multiple wh-movement languages. 280 CHAPTER 8. WH-MOVEMENT AND RELATIVE CLAUSES Interchapter G: Romance Clitics
Recall that clitics were introduced in Interchapter F. Here we discuss clitics in Romance languages and introduce some more properties of clitics in general. Recall that clitics cannot appear on their own. They have to “lean” on another word or phrase in the sentence. Unlike affixes, however, they are not attached to a specific base. (Review Interchapter F for more details). Another property of clitics is that they cannot be conjoined. We will see both of these properties in the data below. In Romance languages, object pronouns typically appear as clitics, which we call pronominal clitics. Let’s consider some examples that illustrate these properties. Note that the hyphens in the following examples follow the orthographic conventions of the respective languages and are not intended to show morphological breakdowns.
(8.1) (a) Pietro la mangia Pietro 3sg.f eat.3sg.prs ‘Pietro is eating it.’ [Italian]
(b) A Maria comeu-a the Mary ate.3sg.pst-3sg.m ‘Mary ate it.’ [European Portuguese]
(c) a peul da-je tort he can give.inf-3sg.m.dat fault ‘He can blame him.’ [Piedmontese, ]
The bold-faced entities in (8.1) are clitics. Recall that we mentioned that clitics cannot stand alone. Regular DPs can form an utterance by themselves, while clitics need a host of some kind. The host acts like a phonological anchor for the clitic to latch on to. Consider the following example. In (8.2 b(i)) me is a clitic similar to those in (8.1). If someone asks the question, Qui est-ce que Pierre a vue? (‘Who did Pierre see?’) A full DP such as Marie is an appropriate answer, but me on its own is ungrammatical. One must answer moi, which is the non-clitic form of me in French.
281 282
(8.2) (a) Qui est-ce que Pierre voit? who q Pierre sees ‘Who does Pierre see?’ (b) (i) Il me voit He me sees ‘He sees me.’ (ii) *me me ‘(me)’ (iii) moi me ‘me’
Clitics are classified by the direction in which they attach to their host. Clitics that attach to the right are called enclitics and clitics that attach to the left are called proclitics. Additionally, mesoclitics appear word-internally (between a stem and other affixes). The term endoclitic refers to a clitic that appears directly inside the root, thus splitting it into two. Endoclitics are not found in Romance languages. Consider the following examples. (Note that the clitic is in boldface and the host is underlined.)
(8.3) Clitics in European Portuguese
(a) A Maria viu-me the Maria see.3sg.pst-me ‘Maria saw me.’ (b) A Maria não me viu the Maria neg me see.3sg.pst ‘Maria didn’t see me.’ (c) A Maria ver-me-á the Maria see.inf-me-3sg.fut ‘Maria will see me.’
Another property of clitics is that they cannot be conjoined. This is shown in the following example. 283
Further Reading 284 Chapter 9
The Syntax of Infinitives
' $ By the end of this chapter you should be able to:
• understand the basic properties of wh-movement
• be able to draw trees for various kinds of wh-questions
• understand and account for the differences between pied-piping and preposition stranding
• understand the difference between matrix and embedded questions
&• understand the notion of Attract Closest and how it relates to multiple wh-questions %
9.1 Introduction
In the complex sentences examined so far there is no obligatory co-reference between the matrix subject and the embedded subject. Consider the following examples. Recall that for pro-drop languages the null argument is represented as pro.
(9.1) (a) John1 thinks that he1 should enter the race. (b) John thinks that Mary should enter the race. (c) 영희는1 pro1 통사론을 공부해야 되는지 궁긍하다. Yenghuy-nun1 pro1 thongsalon-ul kongbwu-ha-y-ya doy-nunci kwunkum-ha-ta Younghui-top pro syntax-acc study-do-inf-must become-q wonder-do-decl ‘Younghui wonders if she should study syntax.’
285 286 CHAPTER 9. THE SYNTAX OF INFINITIVES
(d) 영희는 민수가 통사론을 공부해야 되는지 Yenghuy-nun Minswu-ka thongsalon-ul kongbwu-ha-y-ya doy-nunci Younghui-top Minsoo-nom syntax-acc study-do-inf-must become-q 궁긍하다. kwunkum-ha-ta wonder-do-decl ‘Younghui wonders if Minsoo should study syntax.’
Observe that while the embedded subject may be coreferential with the matrix subject, it does not have to be. Consider, now, the following English examples.
(9.2) (a) Mary decided to enter the race. (b) Fred seems to like chocolate.
In both of these examples we understand the matrix subject also to be the thematic or under- stood subject of the infinitive. In the first sentence Mary is the one making the decision, and Mary is also the one who is entering the race. In the second sentence, Fred is the subject of seem. Fred is also the one who likes chocolate. We will come up with more precise definitions of raising and control below, but we can think of them as situations in which the matrix and embedded subjects must be coreferential. In English, virtually all raising and control constructions involve the use of non-finite verbs. Non-finite clauses require us to revise our understanding of clause structure. Let’s review some properties of non-finite clauses first. Observe that tense and agreement are both absent in non- finite clauses.
(9.3) (a) Petra managed to fix the toaster. (b) Travis tried to cook an omelette. (c) Gerry told Alice to wait for five minutes.
(9.4) (a) Petra fixed the toaster. (b) Travis cooked an omelette. (c) Gerry expected that Alice would wait for five minutes.
Looking just at the first example, we see that the verb manage appears with past tense mor- phology. The embedded verb appears with what we call an infinitival marker, to. We observe that infinitives cannot appear with tense morphology.
(9.5) *Petra managed to fixed the toaster. 9.1. INTRODUCTION 287
Furthermore, agreement morphology cannot appear on the infinitive, either. Although English exhibits extremely impoverished verbal agreement, the third person singular form appears with the agreement marker s, as shown on the matrix verb in the following example, but cannot appear on the embedded infinitive.
(9.6) *Petra manages to fixes five toasters a day.
What we observe is that tense and agreement features are in complementary distribution with the infinitive marker to. We suggest, then, that since to marks the lack of tense and agreement, it is the head of T and has the feature [-tense]. Recall also that Case assignment in non-finite clauses differs from Case assignment in finite clauses. The differences are morphologically visible.
(9.7) (a) She fixed the toaster. (b) I expect her to fix the toaster.
Let us consider some constituency tests to sharpen this idea further. Consider the following data.
(9.8) (a) John decided to [eat some spaghetti] and [drink some wine]. (b) Eat anchovies, John never would , even though Ashleigh tried to .
The first example shows that eat some spaghetti and drink some wine are constituents, and in fact look like run-of-the-mill vP constituents. The second example confirms this. This is an example of vP fronting, which strands the auxiliary at the end of the sentence. In a non-finite clause, it strands the infinitival marker to. These facts fall into place under the assumption that to is a tenseless T head. Thus, we have the following partial structure so far. The subject position (specifier of vP) is left empty as it is the topic of the next discussion.
(9.9) TP
T vP
to Spec v′
v VP
eati V DP
ti some spagetti 288 CHAPTER 9. THE SYNTAX OF INFINITIVES
We will now consider the structure of infinitivals in detail. If we examine the following two pairs of sentences, we may initially suspect that (9.10 a) and (9.10 b) are structurally isomorphic, as are (9.47 a) and (9.10 d). That is, we suspect that each pair has the same structure and that the only difference between them is the matrix verb in each case.
(9.10) (a) Mary wants John to enter the race. (b) Mary told John to enter the race. (c) Sally appears to live in a small apartment. (d) Sally decided to live in a small apartment.
9.2 Diagnostics for Raising and Control
One important similarity in each pair is that the understood subject of the infinitive is the same. In (9.10 a) and (9.10 b), we understand John to be the one entering the race. In (9.47 a) and (9.10 d), we understand Sally to be the one living in the small apartment. There are, however, several structural differences between these two pairs of sentences. Let’s examine these first, then try to derive the different properties structurally. The following diagnostics are rooted in research in the early 1970s (Perlmutter, 1978, 1970).
9.2.1 Idiom Tests
Idioms are a useful diagnostic for many syntactic tests. It is important to note that idioms must appear as a unit upon initial merge. So, although they may be separated by a movement operation, they are still initially merged as a constituent to obtain an idiomatic reading. For our purposes, we require an idiom with a subject - these are not too common, but there are a few. The idiom test must be executed with care. What we are trying to see is how the understood subject is related to the infinitival clause, hence the need for idioms with subjects. Here are the steps to formulating a test sentence.
1 Identify the DP that is coreferential with the subject of the infinitival clause.
Mary wants John to enter the race. (John is the one potentially entering the race.)
2 Identify the infinitival clause and the corresponding portion of an idiom. That is, the TP without the subject.
Mary wants John to enter the race. All hell broke loose. 9.2. DIAGNOSTICS FOR RAISING AND CONTROL 289
3 Change the verb of the idiom to an infinitive.
Mary wants John to enter the race. ...to break loose.
4 Replace the infinitival clause of the test sentence with the infinitival form of the idiom.
Mary wants John to enter the race.
Mary wants John to break loose.
5 Replace the understood subject of the embedded infinitival clause with the subject of the idiom.
Mary wants John to break loose.
Mary wants all hell to break loose.
To interpret the results of the test we see if the idiomatic reading is retained. Consider the following results. In (9.11), both the idiomatic and literal meanings are available. The first sentence, for example, could mean that Mary wants some secret to become known. In (??), however, the idiomatic meanings are not available.
(9.11) (a) Mary wants the cat to be out of the bag. (b) Mary wants the shit to hit the fan. (c) Mary wants all hell to break loose. (d) Mary wants tabs to be kept on John’s spending habits.
(9.12) (a) *Mary told the cat to be out of the bag. (b) *Mary told the shit to hit the fan. (c) *Mary told all hell to break loose. (d) *Mary told tabs to be kept on John’s spending habits.
In order for the idiomatic reading to hold, the idiom must be merged as a constituent. This suggests that the cat is part of the embedded clause in (9.11 a), but part of the matrix clause in (9.12 a). More specifically, we propose that the DP that appears immediately after the verb want is merged as the subject of the infinitive, while the DP that appears immediately after the verb tell is merged in the matrix clause. This can be represented schematically as follows. (10)a. ... want [DP to-infinitive] b. ... told [DP] [to-infinitive] Before moving on to the next test, let’s test the other pair of sentences in (9.10). In these sentences, Sally is interpreted as the understood subject of the infinitive, so we replace Sally with 290 CHAPTER 9. THE SYNTAX OF INFINITIVES the subject of the idiom. Here are the results. Note that a verb like appear usually requires an embedded state, so the infinitive has been changed to the perfect by the addition of have. Making changes in the aspect of the embedded clause does not affect the interpretation of the results.
(9.13) (a) The cat appears to be out of the bag. (b) The shit appears to have hit the fan. (c) All hell appears to have broken loose. (d) Tabs appear to have been kept on John’s spending habits.
(9.14) (a) *The cat decided to be out of the bag. (b) *The shit decided to hit the fan. (c) *All hell decided to break loose. (d) *Tabs decided to be kept on John’s spending habits.
These results are similar to the ones above. Thus, the subject of appear originates in the embedded infinitival clause to ensure that the idiom is merged as a constituent, while the subject of decide is not. The following examples show the linear order of the elements in the appear-clause and the decide-clause.
(9.15) (a) appear [ DP to-infinitive] (b) DP decide [to-infinitive]
9.2.2 Expletive Subjects
Before you read this section, you may wish to review the discussion on expletives on page 130. Recall crucially that expletives do not receive a θ-role. Consider, now, the following contrast. With want, the embedded subject can be an expletive, while with tell, it cannot.
(9.16) (a) John wants it to rain. (b) John wants there to be chocolate available during the break.
(9.17) (a) *John told it to rain. (b) *John told there to be chocolate available during the break.
Notice that an expletive is available as a subject in the infinitival clauses in the sentences in example (9.16), but not in (9.17), as long as the embedded predicate is consistent with an expletive subject. Thus, in the sentences in (9.16) it cannot be the case that the subject of the infinitive receives a θ-role from want, or the expletive would not be able to appear in this location. In (9.17), 9.2. DIAGNOSTICS FOR RAISING AND CONTROL 291 however, the fact that expletives are excluded from this position can be explained if we assume that the subject of the infinitive gets a θ-role from the matrix verb tell. Thus, we propose the following θ-role assignment relations for these two verbs.
...want DP to-infinitive
θ-role (from v)
...told DP to-infinitive
θ-role Again, we get similar results with appear and decide.
(9.18) (a) It appears to have rained. (b) There appears to be chocolate available during the break.
(9.19) (a) *It decided to rain. (b) *There decided to be chocolate available during the break.
9.2.3 Voice Transparency
This final test is based on the fact that active and passive sentences have the same set of truth conditions. Thus, the two sentences Mary ate the orange and The orange was eaten by Mary must either both be true or both be false. It is impossible that one is true while the other is false. With this background in mind, let us consider the following data.
(9.20) (a) The doctor examined the patient. = The patient was examined by the doctor. (b) Mary wants the doctor to examine the patient. = Mary wants the patient to be examined by the doctor. (c) Mary told the doctor to examine the patient. ≠ Mary told the patient to be examined by the doctor.
Example (9.20 a) is the test sentence that shows us that the active and passive sentences are synonymous. Under want in (9.20 b), the truth conditions do not change between the active and the passive versions; however, under tell in (9.20 c), the two sentences are not synonymous. This is also shown by the following data. The sentence in (9.21 a) is contradictory and the sentence in (9.21 b) means that Mary wants a contradictory situation to hold. The sentence in (9.21 c), however, is perfectly logical.
(9.21) (a) #The doctor examined the patient, but the patient wasn’t examined by the doctor. 292 CHAPTER 9. THE SYNTAX OF INFINITIVES
(b) #Mary wants the doctor to examine the patient, but Mary doesn’t want the patient to be examined by the doctor. (c) Mary told the doctor to examine the patient, but Mary didn’t tell the patient to be examined by the doctor.
Again, we similar results for appear and decide. There is a slight difference in meaning with appear; however, this contrasts with the stark difference in meaning with decide.
(9.22) (a) The doctor examined the patient. = The patient was examined by the doctor. (b) The doctor appears to have examined the patient. = The patient appears to have been examined by the doctor. (c) The doctor decided to examine the patient. ≠ The patient decided to be examined by the doctor.
We can make sense of these facts if the embedded subject under want is part of the embedded clause, but the embedded subject under tell is part of the matrix clause. In the next section, we will bring these facts together to understand the structure of non-finite clauses. For reasons that will become clear shortly, verbs such as decide and tell are called control predicates, and verbs such as want (as shown here) and appear are called ECM and raising predicates, respectively. The name ECM stands for Exceptional Case Marking, which is explained below.
Control Raising/ECM idiomatic readings not retained idiomatic meanings retained expletives not permitted expletives permitted meaning changes under passivization meaning does not change under passivization
9.3 Deriving the Structure of Control and Raising/ECM
Before we attempt to derive the structural properties of these two kinds of predicates, let’s review their thematic properties in more detail.
(9.23) Mary wants the doctor to examine the patient.
In this example, examine assigns
(9.24) Mary told the doctor to examine the patient. 9.3. DERIVING THE STRUCTURE OF CONTROL AND RAISING/ECM 293
Again, examine assigns
(9.25) Mary wants [the doctor to examine the patient].
Here, the doctor receives a θ-role from the embedded v but not from the matrix verb. This also allows for the possibility for an expletive subject. If there is no embedded v (as with seem) or if the embedded predicate is a weather verb, then an expletive subject is available. This is because the θ-role of the embedded subject depends entirely on the embedded predicate. Note also that idiomatic readings are retained since the entire idiom is merged as a constituent.
(9.26) John wants [the cat to be out of the bag]
Additionally, the embedded clause can be passivized without affecting the core meaning because both arguments in the embedded clause are θ-marked the same was in both the active and passive sentences. We will show these effects in more detail shortly. Conversely, we assume for predicates such as tell that the argument in question is merged in the matrix clause as an argument of the matrix verb that is coreferential with a phonologically empty subject, which we call PRO (Chomsky and Lasnik, 1977; Chomsky, 1981). We call this type of construction a control construction because the matrix object (in the case of the verb tell) or matrix subject (in the case of the verb decide as we shall see shortly) controls the identity of PRO, the embedded subject.
(9.27) Mary told John1 [ PRO1 to win the race].
Here, John receives a θ-role from the matrix predicate and the empty category PRO receives a θ-role from the embedded verb. In this construction, there is no possibility for an expletive subject, since this argument obligatorily receives a θ-role from the matrix verb. Recall that expletives cannot bear a θ-role as they are not referential. Also, idiomatic readings are not possible since the idiom cannot be merged as a constituent. Also, DPs in the idiom cannot receive θ-roles since they are not referential. In the idiom the cat’s out of the bag there is no actual cat, thus it cannot receive a θ-role. The lack of referentiality on pieces of idioms is shown by the following examples.
(9.28) (a) The cat’s out of the bag ... #It’s meowing really loudly. 294 CHAPTER 9. THE SYNTAX OF INFINITIVES
(b) The shit hit the fan ... #We’d better clean it up. (c) John tried to keep tabs on Bill’s spending habits, (#but they kept falling off).
Thus, the sentences #John told the cat to be out of the bag is ungrammatical under the idiomatic reading because the idiom chunk the cat bears a θ-role from the verb tell, thereby conferring referentiality onto it. Thus, the only way we can understand this sentence is if there’s a real cat. Finally, passivization affects meaning, since the θ-roles are assigned differently. Consider the following examples. In (9.29), tell assigns an
(9.29)
Mary told the doctor1 [PRO1 to examine the patient]. θ-role
(9.30)
Mary told the patient1 [PRO1 to be examined by the doctor]. θ-role
Contrast this again with the results of passivization under want. Here, want does not assign a θ-role to either the doctor or to the patient. Rather, it takes the infinitival clause as a propositional argument. In the embedded clause, v assigns an
(9.31) (a) Mary wants [the doctor to examine the patient]. (b) Mary wants [the patient to be examined by the doctor].
If you compare the results in (9.29 - 9.30) to the results in (9.31), you will notice that the θ-roles are assigned to different DPs in the two sentences in (9.29 - 9.30), while the θ-roles are assigned to the same DPs in the sentences in (9.31). Thus the synonymy under want and the lack of it under tell is accounted for. We will now discuss Case assignment in these two types of constructions. First, recall that nominative Case is assigned by finite T. The subject of an infinitive cannot obtain nominative Case 9.3. DERIVING THE STRUCTURE OF CONTROL AND RAISING/ECM 295 from T and so requires something else to assign Case to it. In the following example, the matrix v associated with the verb want, assigns accusative Case to the embedded subject, again because the embedded T is non-finite and cannot assign nominative Case.
(9.32) John wants Mary to win the race.
This type of case assignment is called Exceptional Case Marking (ECM), so we call verbs like want in this construction ECM verbs. Let’s now consider the structure of control and raising/ECM constructions. Many control verbs allow a wh-phrase in the embedded infinitival clause, while raising and ECM verbs do not. Consider the following data.
(9.33) (a) John told Mary [when to wash the dishes]. (b) John decided [when to wash the dishes]. (c) *John wants [when (for) Mary to wash the dishes]. (d) *John appears [when to have won the race].
These examples suggest that control verbs select a full CP complement since they require a SpecCP position to host the wh-phrase. The raising/ECM verbs cannot host a wh-phrase, suggest- ing that a CP projection is absent in the infinitival clause. The next line of evidence depends on distinguishing between two kinds of movement. One kind of movement takes place to satisfy EPP. In English, we saw that the subject DP moves to the specifier of TP the subject position to satisfy EPP. In passives, the object moves to this position. This kind of movement happens in all clauses in English and in many other languages. The specifier of TP is the canonical position for the subject, one of the primary kinds of grammatical arguments of the clause. We call this movement A-movement, where A stands for ‘argument’. A-movement is thought to be restricted to the clause. That is, A-movement cannot raise a DP from one clause up to a higher clause. Consider the following data. Note that in the grammatical examples, the DP John remains within the same CP.
(9.34) (a) [CP [TP Johni [vP ti likes chocolate]].
(b) [CP It seems [CP that [TP Johni [vP ti likes chocolate]]].
(c) *[CP Johni seems [CP [TP ti that [vP ti likes chocolate]]].
(d) *[CP Johni seems [CP [TP ti that it is likely to [vP ti like chocolate]]].
This situation contrasts with wh-movement. Recall that a wh-phrase can move up several clauses. Movement to a non-argument position (such as wh-movement) is called A-Bar Move- ment. 296 CHAPTER 9. THE SYNTAX OF INFINITIVES
(9.35) [CP Whati does John think [CP ti that Alice said [CP ti that Mary bought ti ]]]?
A’-movement is not clause-bounded. The specifier of CP is not an argument position. It is a position for wh-phrases. These two kinds of movement have very different properties; however, the only one we discuss here is clause-boundedness. Specifically, A-movement is clause-bounded and A’-movement is not. One way this has been captured is to say that movement cannot target an A’- position (such as the specifier of CP) and then move up to a higher A-position (such as the specifier of TP). Notice that it is exactly this kind of movement that takes place in the ungrammatical examples in (9.34). In other words, A-movement cannot escape the CP. With this in mind, let us consider an example of a raising verb.
(9.36) John appears to like spinach.
Recall that the diagnostics above showed that the subject John originates in the embedded infinitival clause. Since the subject raises to an A-position, the specifier of TP, this is an example of A-movement. Recall the notion of phases from before. To move to a higher clause a phrase must pass through a SpecCP escape hatch. As we just stated, however, if the DP moves to an A-Bar position, it cannot then move back to an A-position. However if we assume there is no CP projection in the infinitival clause of a raising or ECM verb, then the DP can move to the higher SpecTP without having to stop in an A-Bar position.
Verb Type Non-Finite Complement control CP raising/ECM TP
Now we will turn our attention to the actual trees for these sentences. Let us first look at the structure of an ECM sentence. Note that John receives a θ-role from the embedded v (dotted line) and is assigned Case by the matrix v (dashed line). Note further that there is no CP projection in the infinitival clause, as discussed. The ECM verb selects a bare TP complement. 9.3. DERIVING THE STRUCTURE OF CONTROL AND RAISING/ECM 297
(9.37)
CP
C TP
′ DPi T
Mary T vP
′ ti v
v VP
wantsj V TP
′ tj DPk T
John T vP
′ to tk v
v VP
winl V DP
tl D N
the race Turning now to control constructions, we see that the control verb takes a full CP as a com- plement. The subject of the embedded clause is PRO, which receives a θ-role from the embedded v. PRO requires an antecedent and is coreferential with the indirect object of the matrix clause, John. 298 CHAPTER 9. THE SYNTAX OF INFINITIVES
(9.38)
CP
C TP
′ DPi T
Mary T vP
′ ti v
v VP
′ toldj DP V
John V CP
tj C TP
1 ′ PRO k T
T vP
′ to tk v
v VP
winl V DP
tl D N
the race Let us now turn to the other constructions we discussed above. Consider the following pair of sentences.
(9.39) (a) John appears to like spinach. (b) John decided to eat some spinach.
Recall that appear is not associated with an external θ-role. In the sentence It appears that John likes spinach the expletive it does not refer to anything in the real world. Thus, the θ-role of the subject of appear in (9.39 a) comes from the embedded verb. Since the subject position of 9.3. DERIVING THE STRUCTURE OF CONTROL AND RAISING/ECM 299 appear is not a θ-position, we can expect to find expletives and idiom chunks here, since these are both elements that cannot appear with θ-roles. The verb decide on the other hand, is associated with an external θ-role, thus expletives and idiom chunks are not available as the subject of decide. The first sentence is an example of a raising construction because the matrix John originates in the embedded clause and raises to the subject position of the matrix clause. The DP John is first merged as the external argument in the specifier of the lower vP, where it receives an external θ-role. This DP then moves to the specifier of the embedded TP to satisfy EPP. It cannot receive Case here, however, since non-finite T is not a Case assigner and there is no vP in the matrix clause to assign Case via ECM. The DP John must raise to the specifier of the matrix TP, where it is assigned nominative Case. The tree for this sentence is shown below.
(9.40)
CP Finally, John raises to the specifier of
C TP matrix TP for Case.
′ DPi T
John T VP Second, John raises to the specifier of
V TP the embedded TP for EPP. First, John is merged in the specifier of appears t T′ i the embedded vP where it receives an
T vP external θ-role.
′ to ti v
v VP
likej V DP
tj D N
spinach
The second sentence is another example of control. The matrix subject is coreferential with the embedded PRO. PRO receives a θ-role in the embedded clause, but bears no Case. The matrix subject obtains a θ-role and Case in the matrix clause. The tree for this sentence is shown in below. 300 CHAPTER 9. THE SYNTAX OF INFINITIVES
(9.41)
Finally, John raises to the specifier of CP the matrix TP to be assigned Nomina- tive Case. C TP Next, John is merged in the specifier DP1 T′ i of the matrix vP where is receives an
John T vP external θ-role.
′ ti v
v VP
decidedj V CP Then, PRO raises to the specifier of the embedded TP to satisfy the EPP. tj C TP First, PRO is merged in the specifier of PRO1 T′ k the embedded vP where it receives an
T vP external θ-role.
′ to tk v
v VP
eatl V DP
tl D N
some spinach
So far we have proposed that verbs that take non-finite complements come in two varieties: control and raising/ECM. We have also looked at examples where want is an ECM verb. Consider, however, the following data.
(9.42) (a) John wants to win the game. (b) John wants Mary to win the game.
Note that the understood subject of the infinitive in the first sentence is John and the understood subject of the infinitive in the second sentence is Mary. Let’s run our diagnostics to see the results.
(9.43) (a) John wants to win the game. 9.4. TYPES OF CONTROL AND RAISING 301
(b) *It wants to rain. (c) *The cat wants to be out of the bag. (d) The doctor wants to examine the patient. ≠ The patient wants to be examined by the doctor.
(9.44) (a) John wants Mary to win the game. (b) John wants it to rain. (c) John wants the cat to be out of the bag (d) John wants the doctor to examine the patient. = John wants the patient to be examined by the doctor.
We conclude that want is a control verb in John wants to win the game but an ECM verb in John wants Mary to win the game. Although most verbs pattern neatly into one of the two types, want and expect pattern as both.1
9.4 Types of Control and Raising
In this section we discuss different sub-types of raising/ECM and control. Consider the following examples.
(9.45) (a) John1 persuaded Mary2 [PRO*1/2 to go to the opera]. (b) John1 decided [PRO1 to go to the opera]. (c) John1 promised Mary2 [PRO1/*2 to go to the opera].
Control is classified according the the grammatical role of the overt DP that identifies PRO. Example (9.45 a) is an example of object control because PRO is coreferential with the indirect object of persuade. For ditransitive control constructions, this is by far the most common type of control. Example (9.45 b) shows subject control as PRO is coreferential with the subject of decide. Since transitive control constructions have only one DP argument they are all necessarily of this type. Example (9.45 c) shows subject control with a ditransitive control construction. We will not concern ourselves with the choice of controller. For the most part, we will assume it is lexically determined by the verb (persuade is an object control verb, promise is a subject control verb, and so forth). Note, though, that there is inter-speaker variation with some control verbs. Arbitrary control refers to control in which the identity of PRO is vague or open. Consider the following example. There is no specific person that PRO refers to. Arbitrary PRO can often be replaced by one in similar constructions with no significant change in meaning.
1Note that the Korean translations of want differ depending on if want is a control verb (싶다) or an ECM verb (원하다). 302 CHAPTER 9. THE SYNTAX OF INFINITIVES
(9.46) (a) The sign says where PROarb to park. = The sign says where one should park.
(b) It’s a good idea PROarb to park in the garage. = It’s a good idea if one parks in the garage.
Finally, there are two types of raising verbs as mentioned above. Consider the following exam- ples.
(9.47) (a) Johni appears ti to have won the race. (b) John believes Mary to have won the race.
Example (9.47 a) contains a raising verb (also called more specifically ‘raising to subject’ because the DP that moves raises to a subject position). Example (9.47 b) contains an exceptional Case marking (ECM) verb. (Note that ECM verbs are also called ‘raising to object’ verbs; hence the cover term raising verb for these two types (Postal, 1974).) Review the structures above for these two types of raising verbs. So far, we haven’t said much about how the choice of controller is determined, other than the subject/object distinction that seems to be partially lexically determined. Consider the following sentences.
(9.48) (a) [John1’s father]2 tried PRO*1/2 to win the race. (b) John1 said that Mary2 decided PRO*1/2 to wash the dishes.
In (9.48 a), we see that the controller must c-command PRO. In (9.48 b), we see that the controller must be sufficiently local specifically, the controller must be in the clause immediately above the clause that contains PRO. These properties of control are mediated by a module of grammar known as Control Theory (Chomsky and Lasnik, 1977, et seq.). This is also one of the most contentious areas of syntax. Some researchers have tried to reduce control to either binding principles or to movement, based on c-command, but there are problems with that approach (Hornstein, 1999; Landau, 2001; Lebeaux, 1984). Consider the following example. In this sentence, Mary clearly does not c-command PRO. This is just one example of the challenges that Control Theory has to face.
(9.49) PRO1 to perjure herself in court would damage Mary1’s case.
9.4.1 Further Types of Control
Aside from the types of control we have been discussing so far, there is another type of control known as partial control (Wilkinson, 1971; Williams, 1980; Landau, 2000). Partial control holds when the controller is a proper subset of the understood subject of the infinitive. Before continuing we take a brief digression on collective predicates. Many verbs must take a plural subject, at least when used in an intransitive sentence. Consider the following examples. 9.4. TYPES OF CONTROL AND RAISING 303
(9.50) (a) Pat and Alex met in the lobby. (b) Pat met Alex in the lobby. (c) *Pat met in the lobby.
(9.51) (a) Pat and Alex kissed. (b) Pat kissed Alex. (c) *Pat kissed.
(9.52) (a) The children gathered outside. (b) *The child gathered outside.
Also, the adverb together, can appear only with plural subjects and not with singular subjects.
(9.53) (a) John and Mary went to the opera together. (b) *John went to the opera together.
Now consider the following pairs of control sentences and their non-control counterparts.
(9.54) (a) (i) John wants to win the race. (ii) John won the race. (b) (i) Mary wants to go to Montreal. (ii) Mary went to Montreal. (c) (i) Susan wants to meet in the lobby. (ii) *Susan met in the lobby. (d) (i) Alice prefers to go to the opera together. (ii) *Alice went to the opera together. (e) (i) Pat wants to gather in the courtyard. (ii) *Pat gathered in the courtyard
In the first pair of examples we observe typical subject control as we’ve seen all along. The the following three pairs, however, we observe partial control. We represent this phenomenon as follows, where PRO1+ means “Susan and others”.
(9.55) Susan1 wants PRO1+ to meet in the lobby.
A rough paraphrase of (9.55), then, is “Susan wants herself and the others to meet in the lobby.” Not all control verbs are capable of expressing partial control. Consider the following examples, where partial control is ungrammatical. The exact characterization and analysis of partial control is a matter of ongoing research (Landau, 2001; Rodrigues, 2007; Pearson, 2016). 304 CHAPTER 9. THE SYNTAX OF INFINITIVES
(9.56) (a) *Patricia tried to meet in the lobby (b) *Sean managed to go to the opera together.
Finally, we illustrate split control (Landau, 2000). This is similar to partial control, except the antecedent of PRO is split between two members in the sentence. This is represented by the superscript 1+2 on PRO, indicating that PRO refers to both antecedents labelled 1 and 2.
(9.57) (a) Mary1 persuaded Peter1 PRO1+2 to kiss in the library. (b) Susan1 told Alice2 that it would be better PRO1+2 to arrive at the party together.
Arbitrary Control: Identity of controller is vague, undetermined or determined by context Partial Control: Syntactic controller is a subset of the actual controller Split Control: Referent of PRO is split between two antecedents
9.4.2 Wanna-Contraction
When want is used as a control verb, English allows the sequence want to to be undergo contraction to wanna (Chomsky and Lasnik, 1977).
(9.58) (a) What do you want to eat? (b) What do you wanna eat?
Consider, however, the following contrast (Lightfoot, 1976).
(9.59) (a) Who do you want to win the election? (b) *Who do you wanna win the election?
Many English speakers find wanna contraction either ungrammatical or significantly degraded in (9.59 b). Let’s consider the structures for these sentences.
1 1 (9.60) (a) Whati do you want [CP PRO to eat ti ]?
(b) Whoi do you want [TP ti to win the election]? 9.5. CONTROL IN OTHER LANGUAGES 305
9.5 Control in Other Languages
9.5.1 Balkan Languages
The Balkan languages constitute a Sprachbund - a set of geographically related, but genetically unrelated languages that share enough properties to be considered a unit. Balkan languages include Romanian, Greek, Albanian, Bulgarian and other languages and dialects. One defining property of Balkan languages is the lack of infinitives. Balkan languages generally employ subjunctive verb forms where English uses infinitives for control constructions (Landau, 2001, 2004; Alboiu, 2007; Polinsky and Potsdam, 2002). The embedded clauses are often introduced by a subjunctive mood marker. Consider the following examples.
(9.61) (a) Thelo na figho want.1sg subj go.1sg ‘I want to go.’ [Modern Greek, (Alexiadou et al., 1999, p.9)]
(b) Victor încearcă să cînte Victor try.prs.3sg subj sing.3sg ‘Victor is trying to sing.’ [Romanian (Alboiu, 2007, p.191)]
(c) Jani do të hajë Jani want.3sg subj eat.3sg ‘John wants to eat.’ [Albanian (Terzi, 1992)]
Much current research into control and raising in Balkan languages is concerned with whether the embedded subject position contains PRO, pro, or a DP-trace (Roussou, 2001; Terzi, 1992; Polinsky, 2013).
9.5.2 Portuguese Inflected Infinitives
Recall that infinitives in English are devoid both of tense and agreement.
(9.62) to fix *to fixes *to fixed
Portuguese has inflected infinitives (also called personal infinitives in descriptive Portuguese grammars), however, that bear agreement marking, but no tense marking. Here is the paradigm for the verb comer (‘eat’) (Raposo, 1987). These forms roughly mean, “for me to eat, for you to eat, etc.”. 306 CHAPTER 9. THE SYNTAX OF INFINITIVES
(9.63)
eu comer nós comermos tu comeres vós comerdes ele comer eles comerem
Portuguese has both inflected infinitives and bare, uninflected infinitives. The two kinds of in- finitives are largely in complementary distribution. In object complement clauses, we find standard control constructions with uninflected infinitives. As in the English control constructions above, the controller is an argument of the matrix verb. The infinitive cannot be inflected in this environment.
(9.64) Control Clauses in Portuguese
(a) Os meninos decidiram comer a sopa. the children decided.3pl eat.inf the soup ‘The children decided to eat the soup.’ (b) *Os meninos decidiram comer-em a sopa. the children decided.3pl eat.inf-3pl the soup ‘(The children decided to eat the soup.)’
Inflected infinitives are found when the subject of the embedded proposition is not an argument of the matrix clause. Thus, these inflected infinitival constructions correspond roughly to the class of raising/ECM constructions. Here, inflected infinitives are obligatory, and the uninflected form cannot be used.
(9.65) Inflected Infinitives in Portuguese
(a) Eu lamento [os deputados ter-em trabalhado pouco]. I lament the deputies have.inf-3pl worked little ‘I lament the deputies having worked little.’ (b) *Eu lamento [os deputados ter trabalhado pouco]. I lament the deputies have.inf worked little ‘(I lament the deputies having worked little.)’
Finally, inflected and uninflected infinitives can both be found in subject non-finite construc- tions. Consider the following examples. Note that the subject of inflected infinitives takes nomina- tive Case. An in depth study of these constructions would have to account for the appearance of nominative subjects here and the lack of them in English.
(9.66) Alternation between control and inflected infinitives in Portuguese
(a) Será dificil [eles aprovar-em a proposta]. will.be difficult they.nom approve.inf-3pl the proposal ‘It will be difficult for them to approve the proposal.’ 9.5. CONTROL IN OTHER LANGUAGES 307
(b) *Será dificil [eles aprovar a proposta]. will.be difficult they.nom approve.inf the proposal ‘(It will be difficult for them to approve the proposal.)’ (c) Será dificil [PRO aprovar a proposta]. will.be difficult PRO approve.inf the proposal ‘It will be difficult to approve the proposal.’
9.5.3 Serial Verb Constructions
A serial verb construction consists of a string of verbs without any (or with very little) connective morphology. They have a common subject and usually share aspect and tense features. They are common in the languages of West Africa, but are found in some Asian languages as well as in some Oceanic languages. Unlike control constructions in which each verb has its own subject, serial verb constructions consist of a concatenated string of verbs which predicate a single subject. Recall a typical control construction, in which the subject of want and wash are John and PRO, respectively.
(9.67) John wants [PRO to wash the dishes]
In a serial verb construction, all the verbs typically share one common subject. To start, let’s look at an example from Thai.
(9.68) kháw rîip wîng khâam pay he hurry run cross go ‘He hurriedly ran across.’ [Thai (Smyth, 2002, p.82)]
All the words in the example above (except the subject pronoun) can be used as independent verbs. They are strung together here to give the meaning shown. In this example, the events described by the verbs are interpreted simultaneously. The following examples are from Degema, a Niger-Congo language spoken in Nigeria (Kari, 2003). Here the events depicted by the verbs are interpreted sequentially. Thus, serial verb con- structions generally have two options in the internal organization of the events. They can be interpreted either simultaneously or sequentially.
(9.69) (a) Ivioso ó=kotu me (¯o)=kperi inum. Ivioso 3sg.sub.neg=call me (3sg.sub)=tell something ‘Ivioso did not call me and tell (me) something.’ (b) Ivioso ó=kotu óyi ¯o=kpérí ínúm. Ivioso 3sg.sub.neg=call him 3sg.sub=tell something ‘Ivioso did not call him and tell him something.’ [Degema (Kari, 2003)] 308 CHAPTER 9. THE SYNTAX OF INFINITIVES
Notice that the subject agreement on the embedded verb is optional in (9.69 a), but obligatory in (9.69 b). 9.5. CONTROL IN OTHER LANGUAGES 309
Key Concepts
• infinitive - The form of a verb with no tense or agreement morphology. Infinitives lack the ability to assign Nominative Case.
• control - a non-finite clause in which the identity of the null subject is identified by another overt DP, usually in a higher clause
• PRO - the empty subject in a control construction
• ECM - Exceptional Case Marking: construction in which the subject of an infinitive is assigned Accusative Case by the v in the superordinate clause
• raising (to subject) - a construction in which the subject of an infinitive raises to the subject position of a tensed verb in a higher clause
• subject control - a control construction in which the identity of PRO is determined by the subject in the higher clause
• object control - a control construction in which the identity of PRO is determined by the object in the higher clause
• partial control - a control construction in which PRO is coreferential to a group which contains an argument in the higher clause
• arbitrary control - a control construction in which the identity of PRO is arbitrary or determined by context
• split control - a control construction in which the identity of PRO is determined by two arguments in the higher clause
• SVC - Serial Verb Construction: A construction which consists of a sequence of verbs with the same subject and tense properties. SVCs may contain additional internal arguments within the string of verbs, but no tense or complementizer morphology is found. 310 CHAPTER 9. THE SYNTAX OF INFINITIVES
Exercises
(9.1) Draw trees for the following sentences. Make sure to run the diagnostics discussed at the beginning of this chapter.
1 John told Mary to buy some apples.
2 Sally expects Marjorie to buy a new computer
3 Ferdinand expects to pass the exam.
4 Susan forgot to wash the car yesterday.
5 Shelly wants the bus to stop in front of her house.
6 Which car does John expect Susan to buy?
7 Which car does John want Susan to buy?
8 Who was told to wash the dishes?
9 Susan expects the floor to be mopped after the pigs leave the house.
10 The patient was persuaded to be examined.
11 John was told to wash the dishes.
12 I expected the dishes to be washed.
13 The dishes were expected to be washed.
Assume the following structure for infinitives with an auxiliary. TP
T AuxP
to Aux vP
be
(9.2) Consider the following sentence from Krio (an English-based Creole, spoken in Sierra Leone).
Olu fes di buk gi mi. Olu fetch the book give me ‘Olu brought the book to me.’ 9.5. CONTROL IN OTHER LANGUAGES 311
No clausal morphology (such as complementizers, mood markers, etc.) can intervene between di buk and gi. What kind of structure is this? Draw a plausible tree structure for this sentence.
(9.3) Consider the following German data.
1 weil der Lastwagen und der Traktor zu reparieren versucht since the.nom truck and the.nom tractor to repair try.partwere.3pl wurden
‘since somebody tried to repair the truck and the tractor.’
2 *weil der Lastwagen und der Traktor zu reparieren geplannt wurden since the.nom truck and the.nom tractor to repair plan.part were.3pl ‘(since somebody planned to repair the truck and the tractor.)’
The first sentence is called a long passive and can be translated more literally as the truck and the tractor were tried to be repaired which is, of course, ungrammatical in English, but ok in German. Consider also the following contrast in West Flemish.
3 da Marie ee proberen van hem een brief te schrijven that Mary has try.inf comp him a letter.acc to write ‘that Mary tried to write him a letter.’
4 da Marie ee proberen hem een brief te schrijven that Mary has try.inf him a letter.acc to write ‘that Mary tried to write him a letter.’
5 *da Marie hemi ee proberen van tieen brief te schrijven that Mary him has try.inf comp a letter.acc to write ‘(that Mary tried to write him a letter.)’
6 da Marie hemi ee proberen ti een brief te schrijven that Mary him has try.inf a letter.acc to write ‘that Mary tried to write him a letter.’
In the last two sentences, the DP [hem] moved by scrambling up to the higher clause (see Interchapter H). Assume that scrambling cannot cross a CP, and do not worry about the landing site of scrambled elements. It is not important in order to solve this question. How can you account for the German and West Flemish data? To answer this question, consider the following additional questions. Does try in West Flemish select a CP or TP complement? How does Case get assigned to the embedded direct objects? What structures do you think are involved in the German and West Flemish infinitival complements? (Note, see also Interchapter E.) 312 CHAPTER 9. THE SYNTAX OF INFINITIVES
(9.4) Consider the following French data. Recall that French has V-to-T movement as diagnosed by adverb placement.
1 Pierre mange souvent des pommes. Pierre eats often of.the apples ‘Pierre often eats apples.’
2 Pierre veut manger des pommes. Pierre wants eat.inf of.the apples ‘Pierre wants to eat some apples.’
3 Pierre veut souvent manger des pommes Pierre wants often eat.inf of.the apples ‘Pierre wants to eat apples often.’
Assume that veut (‘want’) is a control verb in French. Note crucially that the adverb souvent (‘often’) modifies the verb manger (‘to eat’), as suggested by the English translation. How would you account for the last sentence? Draw a tree for it. 9.5. CONTROL IN OTHER LANGUAGES 313
Further Reading
• Boeckx et al. (2010) - This book summarizes the most current research on analyzing control as movement - a novel theory of control
• Davies and Dubinsky (2004) - This volume is a definitive source for the history of the analysis of raising and control. Much of the material in the earlier chapters of this volume can be tackled once this chapter is mastered.
• Landau (2001) - This is a minimalist analysis of control that assumes that PRO exists. The reader is cautioned that Landau presents a highly technical analysis. It might be worthwhile to work through some more foundations of Minimalism before attempting this work.
• Landau (2013) - This monograph is an extended review of current research on control
• Perlmutter and Soames (1978) - This is the original source of many of the diagnostics between raising and control that are still used to this day.
• Postal (1974) - This is an early monograph that discusses raising in detail.
• Roussou (2001) - This article is a comprehensive discussion on control into subjunctive clauses in Balkan languages.
• Sebba (1987) - This monograph discusses serial verb constructions in various African lan- guages. 314 CHAPTER 9. THE SYNTAX OF INFINITIVES Interchapter H: Scrambling
Scrambling is attested across a wide variety of languages and language families. German, Dutch, Persian, Hindi, Russian, Korean, Tongan, just to name a few. It is not associated with a small group of geographically or genetically related languages. The following example from Dutch illustrates scrambling (Ruys, 2001, p.39).
(9.1) (a) ...dat Jan gisteren dat boek las ...that Jan yesterday that book read ‘...that Jan read that book yesterday’ (b) ...dat Jan dat boek gisteren las ...that Jan that book yesterday read ‘...that Jan read that book yesterday’ [Dutch] In embedded clauses the underlying order in Dutch is SOV with the object adjacent to the verb. Observe in the second sentence that the adverb can intervene between the verb and the object. Scrambling is the movement of a constituent from its usual position to another position in the sentence. Here is another example from Korean.
(9.2) (a) Kyumin-i sakwa-lul mek-ess-ta 규민이 사과를 먹었다. Kyumin-nom apple-acc eat-pst-decl ‘Kyumin ate an apple.’ (b) sakwa-lul Kyumin-i mek-ess-ta 사과를 규민이 먹었다. apple-acc Kyumin-nom eat-pst-decl ‘Kyumin ate an apple.’ [Korean] The term ‘scrambling’ originates from Ross (1967) and can be defined as a variation in the basic word order of the clause. In the Korean example, the usual SOV order is changed to OSV. We distinguish between short scrambling, where a constituent moves to another place within the clause, and long scrambbling, where a constituent moves to a higher clause. Consider the following Hindi data (Mahajan, 1990, p.19,20,38). Hindi is an SOV language.
(9.3) (a) Raam-ne kelaa khaayaa Ram-erg banana ate ‘Ram ate a banana.’
315 316
(b) kelaa Ramm-ne khaayaa banana Ram-erg ate ‘Ram ate a banana.’
(c) Mohan-koi Raam-ne socaa ki Siitaa-ne ti dekhaa thaa Mohan-obj Ram-erg thought that Sita-erg seen be.pst ‘Ram thought that Sita had seen Mohan.’ [Hindi] Example (9.3 b) shows an example of short scrambling within the clause, as we saw above for Korean and Dutch. Example (9.3 c) shows and example of of long scrambling. Observe that the object of the embedded clause appears in the matrix clause.
Hindi-Urdu (hin) or (urd) is an Indo-European language spoken principally in India and Pakistan, as well as numerous expatriate communities in Canada, USA, Great Britain and Hong Kong. Hindi and Urdu are two mutually intelligible dialects. Urdu is spoken in Pakistan and parts of neighbouring India, while Hindi is spoken in India. Hindi-Urdu was originally believed to be unrelated to the European languages; however, in 1786 Sir William Jones delivered a paper in which he showed that Sanskrit, the precursor to modern Hindi-Urdu was indeed related to Greek and Latin. He also suggested that Persian was also related to this group of languages, a prediction that turned out to be correct. It was because of Sir William Jones’ discovery that the name Indo- European is used today. See Masica (1991) for more information on Hindu-Urdu and other related languages. Note that the names Hindi, Urdu, Hindustani, and Hindu-Urdu are controversial. See Brass (1974) for details. In this text I use the term found in the source where the relevant data was taken.
The trigger for scrambling are thought to be related to information structure and definiteness. However, not all languages make use of scrambling for the same reasons. Note also languages differ in the kinds of scrambling available to them. English does not make use of scrambling (although topicalization is possible in English). German and Dutch have short scrambling only. Korean and Hindi have both short and long scrambling. 317
Further Reading
• Kidwai (2000) - This is an in-depth study of scrambling in Hindi-Urdu. The author argues that all scrambling can be analyzed as XP-adjunction. The arguments use various diagnostics discussed in this book and also involves some more advanced argumentation.
• Kornfilt (2003) - This volume is a collection of several papers dealing with scrambling from a wide variety of languages and families.
• Miyagawa (2017) - This is an advanced monograph that attempts to explain scrambling type movement in Japanese, Korean, and Chinese, all of which lack ϕ-agreement.
• Ko (2007) - This is an advanced theoretical discussion of scrambling in Korean. 318 Chapter 10
Reflexivity
' $ By the end of this chapter you should be able to:
• understand principles A, B and C of the Binding Theory
• explain the distribution of anaphors and pronouns in English
• have a basic understanding of long-distance anaphora
• have a basic understanding of how Romance pronouns and anaphors differ from En- glish pronouns and anaphors
• have a basic understanding of how reflexives and reciprocals can vary across language
• have a basic understanding of obviation
• know what levels of representation the principles of BT apply at
• be able to construct arguments for the above
• understand the basic concepts of Reflexivity
• know the difference between a SE anaphor and a SELF anaphor.
&• have an idea of the different uses of the Romance se morpheme %
10.1 Binding Theory
In this chapter, we will discuss how reflexive sentences are constructed. A sentence is reflexive if two of its arguments are co-referential. That is, if they refer to the same entity. As an initial illustration, consider the following examples of reflexive sentences. Note carefully how co-reference is shown in the English examples. Specifically in the first example him cannot be coreferential to
319 320 CHAPTER 10. REFLEXIVITY
John, and in the second example himself must be coreferential to John. See page 223 for more information on Onondaga.
(10.1) (a) (i) John1 saw him*1/2. (ii) John1 saw himself1/*2. (b) (i) Minswu-ka Inho-lul pw-ass-ta 민수가 인호를 봤다. Minsoo-nom Inho-acc see-acc-decl ‘Minsoo saw Inho.’ (ii) Minswu-ka caki-lul pw-ass-ta 민수가 자기를 봤다. Minsoo-nom self-acc see-acc-decl ‘Minsoo saw himself.’ [Korean]
(c) (i) Marie la voit. Marie her sees ‘Marie sees her.’ (ii) Marie se voit. Marie self sees ‘Marie sees herself.’ [French]
(d) (i) wa’shagó:gę’ waP-shako-kę-P fact-3m.sg.ag:3.pat-see-punc ‘He saw her/them.’ (ii) wa’hadátgę’ tsha’ ohné:go’ waP-h-atat-kę-P tshaP o-hnek-o-P fact-3m.sg.ag-refl-see-punc comp 3nt.sg.pat-liquid-be.immersed-stat ‘He saw his reflection (himself) in the water.’ [Onondaga (Woodbury, 2018, p.243)]
Early discussions on reflexivity were concerned with the distribution of reflexive pronouns (anaphors) and and regular pronouns. Table 10.1 shows the anaphors and pronouns of English. It’s a bit of an unfortunate terminological accident that anaphors and pronouns together are usu- ally referred to also as pronouns. We will use the term ‘pronominal D(eterminer)’ for the set of anaphors and pronouns in this textbook. Anaphors come in two varieties. There are reflexives and reciprocals. Reflexives appear with both singular and plural antecedents; however, reciprocals appear with only plural antecedents. 10.2. CLASSICAL BINDING THEORY 321
Anaphors Pronouns Reflexive Reciprocal myself, yourself, himself, each other I, me, you, he, him, herself, itself, ourselves, one another she, her, it, we, our themself, themselves they, them
Table 10.1: English Pronouns
10.2 Classical Binding Theory
Classical Binding Theory (Chomsky, 1980, 1981), as mentioned above, attempts to explain the distribution anaphors and pronouns.1 This early approach was based on the perceived complemen- tary distribution of pronouns and anaphors in English. We saw an example of this above. Now we consider a fuller paradigm.
(10.2) Binding in English
(a) John1 saw him*1/2. (b) John1 saw himself1/*2. (c) John1 thinks that Mary saw him1/2. (d) *John1 thinks that Mary saw himself1/2. (e) John1’s sister saw him1/2. (f) *John1’s sister saw himself1/2.
In all the cases shown so far the anaphor and the pronoun are in complementary distribution. Let’s try to pin down the rules to capture the data so far. Compare the first two sentences with the last two sentences. Observe that the antecedent c-commands the pronoun.
1For a good pedagogical introduction to Binding Theory under the framework of Government and Binding Theory, see Haegeman (1991). 322 CHAPTER 10. REFLEXIVITY
(10.3) (a) CP
C TP
′ DPi T
John T vP
′ ti v
v VP
sawj V D
tj himself (b) CP
C TP
′ DPi T
DP D′ T vP
′ John D N ti v
’s sister v VP
sawj V D
tj himself
We say that the antecedent binds the anaphor. We were introduced to the concept of binding in Chapter 4. Here is the precise definition of binding.
(10.4) α binds β iff α c-commands β, and α and β are coreferential.
Going back to the set of data above, we see that the antecedent and the anaphor cannot be too far apart. Specifically, they must be in the same clause. We identify the binding domain as the space in which the anaphor is bound. Specifically, the binding domain is the clause that contains the anaphor or pronoun under consideration. We can now start to formulate Principles of Binding Theory. Note that these definitions will change as we introduce more data.
(10.5) Principles of Binding Theory (to be revised) 10.2. CLASSICAL BINDING THEORY 323
(a) Principle A - An anaphor is bound in its binding domain. (b) Principle B - A pronoun is free in its binding domain. (c) Binding Domain - The domain of X is the smallest CP that contains X.
Let’s consider the first two sentences again. The binding domain for the pronoun in (10.2 a) is the entire CP. The pronoun must be free in this domain, that is, it cannot be bound by anything. Thus, the pronoun cannot refer to John, as indicated. The following trees show the binding domains for the anaphors and pronouns for some of the data above. For clarity, the antecedent is shown in red.
(10.6) *John1 saw him1.
CP
C TP
′ DPi T
John T vP
′ ti v
v VP
sawj V D
tj him
In the tree above the binding domain for the pronoun is the smallest CP containing the pronoun. A square is drawn around the binding domain to make it easier to see. The antecedent John, shown in red, is inside the binding domain and c-commands the pronoun. Thus, the pronoun is bound within its binding domain in violation of Principle B.
(10.7) *John1 saw himself1. 324 CHAPTER 10. REFLEXIVITY
CP
C TP
′ DPi T
John T vP
′ ti v
v VP
sawj V D
tj himself
In the tree above, the binding domain for the anaphor is shown in the square. The antecedent, John c-commands the anaphor and is coreferential with it. Thus, the antecedent binds the anaphor, so Principle A is respected.
(10.8) John1 thinks that Mary saw him1. 10.2. CLASSICAL BINDING THEORY 325
CP
C TP
′ DPi T
John T vP
′ ti v
v VP
thinksj V CP
tj C TP
′ that DPk T
Mary T vP
′ tk v
v VP
sawl V D
tl him
In the tree above, the binding domain for the pronoun is shown in the square. The pronoun must be free in this domain. The antecedent John binds the pronoun, but does so from outside the binding domain (from outside the square). Thus, Principle B is satisfied and the sentence is grammatical.
(10.9) *John1 thinks that Mary saw himself1. 326 CHAPTER 10. REFLEXIVITY
CP
C TP
′ DPi T
John T vP
′ ti v
v VP
thinksj V CP
tj C TP
′ that DPk T
Mary T vP
′ tk v
v VP
sawl V D
tl himself
In this tree, again the binding domain for the anaphor is shown by the square. The antecedent for the anaphor, John, is outside the binding domain, in violation of Principle A. Thus, the sentence is ungrammatical.
(10.10) John1’s sister saw him1. 10.2. CLASSICAL BINDING THEORY 327
CP
C TP
′ DPi T
DP D′ T vP
′ John D N ti v
’s sister v VP
sawj V D
tj him
In the tree above, the binding domain for the pronoun is shown in the large square. Although the antecedent is located within the binding domain, it does not c-command the pronoun, so there is no violation of Principle B. Thus, the sentence is grammatical.
(10.11) *John1’s sister saw himself1.
CP
C TP
′ DPi T
DP D′ T vP
′ John D N ti v
’s sister v VP
sawj V D
tj himself
Finally, in the tree above the binding domain for the anaphor is shown in the square. Although the antecedent for the anaphor is located inside the binding domain, it does not c-command the anaphor. Thus, the antecedent does not bind the anaphor in violation of Principle A. The two principles we have formed thus far will remain the same. What will change is our understanding of the binding domain. Consider the following additional data. 328 CHAPTER 10. REFLEXIVITY
(10.12) (a) Mary1 gave Susan2 a picture of herself1/2. (b) Pat1 told Alex2 a story about themself1/2. (c) John1 looked at a picture of himself1. (d) *John1 looked at Mary2’s picture of himself1. (e) Mary1 looked at Pat2’s picture of themself*1/2.
The first two examples show that the anaphor can be bound by and noun in the binding domain that c-commands it. In the first sentence herself can refer either to Mary or to Susan. The third sentence seems to follow the pattern observed so far. The last two sentences, however, will force us to redefine the binding domain. An anaphor inside a DP with a possessor must be bound by the possessor. Thus, the DP is a binding domain if it has a possessor. Now, recall that DPs and CPs are both phases. Recall also that the possessor in a DP is comparable to a subject in a clause. We say that the possessor is the subject of the DP. With this in mind, we can redefine the binding domain as follows.
(10.13) The binding domain of X is the smallest phase that contains both X and a subject.
Let’s consider one of the examples above. The smallest phase that contains the anaphor and a subject is the DP in the square. The antecedent (shown in red) is clearly outside the binding domain, so the sentence violates Principle A.
(10.14) *John1 looked at Mary2’s picture of himself1. 10.2. CLASSICAL BINDING THEORY 329
CP
C TP
′ DPi T
John T vP
′ ti v
v VP
lookedj V PP
tj P DP
at DP D′
Mary D NP
’s N PP
picture P D
of himself
We end this section with a discussion on the distribution of R-expressions. An R-expression (short for “referring expression”) is a DP that refers to an entity in the world (including imaginary worlds). This includes names (such as Mary, Pat, or John) and definite DPs (such as that person, the student I spoke to, the dog in the park). Indefinite DPs present an additional complication that we will not worry about here. Consider the following data.
(10.15) (a) *He1 saw John1. (b) *He1 thinks that Mary saw John1. (c) *He thinks that Mary said that Pat saw John1.
These data show that an R-expression cannot be bound, no matter how far away the antecedent it. We say that an R-expression is free everywhere. We now present the final formulation for Classical Binding Theory.
(10.16) Principles of Binding Theory (final version)
(a) Principle A - An anaphor is bound in its binding domain. 330 CHAPTER 10. REFLEXIVITY
(b) Principle B - A pronoun is free in its binding domain. (c) Principle C - An R-expression is free everywhere (d) The binding domain of X is the smallest phase that contains both X and a subject.
Classical Binding Theory is not without its problems. Recall that the theory developed above was premised on the complementary distribution of anaphors and pronouns. It turns out that there is some free variation in the distribution of pronouns and anaphors. Consider the following example. Observe that coreference is possible with either a pronoun or an anaphor.
(10.17) John1 saw a snake near him1/himself1.
Another issue with Classical Binding Theory is found in Romance Burzio (1991). We illustrate the problem with French data.
(10.18) (a) Pierre me voit. Pierre me sees ‘Pierre sees me.’ (b) Je me vois. I me see ‘I see myself.’ (c) Pierre1 le*1/2 voit. Pierre him sees ‘Pierre sess him.’ (d) Pierre1 se1/*2 voit. Pierre himself sees ‘Pierre sees himself.’ [French] Observe that the first person object me can take a local antecdent or not. That is, there is no distinction between ‘me’ and ‘myself’ in French (or in Romance in general). In the third person, however, le is a pronoun subject to Principle B and se is an anaphor subject to Principle A. The binding principles don’t seem to have anything to say about pronominals forms such as French me. Because of these problems, alternative proposal have been put forth, one of which is introduced at the end of this chapter.
10.3 Wh-Movement, Raising and LF
Here, we look at the interaction between Binding Theory and movement, both wh-movement and raising. Consider the following sentences, the first one of which you may recall from Chapter 8.
(10.19) (a) Which picture of himself does John like? 10.4. CROSS-LINGUISTIC PATTERNS OF ANAPHORA 331
(b) John seems to himself to have won the race.
Recall that we claimed that the condition on anaphor binding could be met at any point in the derivation. Let’s look at the tree for the first sentence to how this works.
(10.20) CP
′ DPi C
D NP C TP
1 ′ which N PP doesj DP k T
picture P D1 John; T vP
′ of himself tj tk v
v VP
likel V ti
tl When the DP which picture of himself is in its trace position, it is bound by its antecedent John. As the tree shows, the anaphor is bound by its antecedent before wh-movement takes place. Consider, now, the raising example
(10.21)
1 1 John i seems to himself ti to have won the race.
In the subject raising construction, however, the anaphor is not bound until after John raises to its surface position. Note that the experiencer PP to himself involves a construction that we have not dealt with so far, so we will not concern ourselves with the precise structure here. Thus, it seem that Principle A must be satisfied before wh-movement takes place, but after raising takes place.
10.4 Cross-linguistic Patterns of Anaphora
The Binding Theory developed above has been quite successful at capturing many cross-linguistic generalizations; however, these theories as they stand are problematic in the face of data from other languages (as we have already seen for French). In this section, we discuss some problematic data 332 CHAPTER 10. REFLEXIVITY for the Binding Theory to see what consequences it has on the theory developed so far. In some cases, adjustments to the theory are possible in order to account for the additional data. In other cases, the data will force us to reconsider seriously the theory we’ve developed here.
10.4.1 Long-Distance Anaphora
Many languages exhibit anaphors that can bind at a longer distance than English anaphors. Con- sider the following data from Mandarin (Cole et al., 1990) and Cantonese (Matthews and Yip, 1994). See p. 90 for more information on Cantonese and Mandarin.
(10.22) (a) Zhangsan1 renwei Lisi2 zhidao Wangwu3 xihuan ziji1/2/3 Zhangsan thinks Lisi knows Wangwu likes self ‘Zhangsan1 thinks that Lisi2 knows that Wangwu3 likes him2/3/himself1.’ [Mandarin]
(b) Aa-soe1 waa di hoksaang2 deoi zigei1/2 mou seonsam a-sir say cl students toward self not.have confidence [Cantonese] ‘The teacher1 thinks the students2 don’t have any confidence in themselves2/him1.’ The forms ziji and zigei can refer to any of the DPs higher in the sentence. Thus, ziji and zigei are known as a long-distance anaphors. Long-distance anaphors have a number of interesting properties. The long-distance property is blocked by an intervening 1st or 2nd person pronoun. Consider the following example.
(10.23) Zhangsan1 renwei wo zhidao Wangwu2 xihuan ziji*1/2. Zhangsan thinks I know Wangwu likes self ‘Zhangsan thinks that Lisi knows that Wangwu likes himself.’
Finally, consider the following example. The long-distance anaphor can refer to either the embedded or matrix subject, but not to the matrix object. Long-distance anaphors are subject- oriented.
(10.24) Zhangsan1 gaosu Lisi2 Wangwu3 xihuan ziji1/*2/3 Zhangsan told Lisi Wangwu likes self ‘Zhangsan1 told Lisi2 that Wangwu3 likes him1/*2/himself3.’
Long-Distance Anaphors
• monomorphemic
• subject-oriented
• exhibit blocking effects with 1st and 2nd person pronouns 10.4. CROSS-LINGUISTIC PATTERNS OF ANAPHORA 333
In addition, Mandarin and Cantonese also make use of the following anaphors. The first column contains the Mandarin anaphors. The second column contains the Cantonese anaphors. The third column is the English equivalents of these.
Mandarin Cantonese English Mandarin Cantonese English wo ziji ngo zigei myself women ziji ngodei zigei ourselves 1 self 1 self 1pl self 1pl self ni ziji lei zigei yourself nimen ziji leidei zigei yourselves 2 self 2 self 2pl self 2pl self ta ziji keoi zigei him/her/themself tamen ziji keoidei zigei themselves 3 self 3 self 3pl self 3pl self
These anaphors are morphemically complex and manifest different properties. Consider the following example.
(10.25) Zhangsan1 renwei Lisi2 zhidao Wangwu3 xihuan ta-ziji*1/*2/3 Zhangsan thinks Lisi knows Wangwu likes 3sg-self ‘Zhangsan thinks that Lisi knows that Wangwu likes himself.’ [Mandarin] When the morphemically complex anaphor is used, it can function only as a local anaphor, subject to Principle A of the Binding Theory discussed above. Korean exhibits a complex array of reflexive forms. Some of these forms have long-distance properties as described above. First, consider the forms below.
(10.26) (a) caki 자기 - self (usually only with 3rd person) (b) casin 자신 - self (c) caki-casin 자기자신 - self (usually only with 3rd person) (d) nay-casin 내자신 - myself (e) ney-casin 네자신/니자신 - yourself (f) ku-casin 그자신 - him/her/themself
Consider the following example (Kim and Yoon, 2009). Here, all four forms are available in this context.
(10.27) 존은 자기/자신/자기자신/그자신의 약점을 잘 John-un (caki/casin/caki-casin/ku-casin)-uy yakcem-ul cal John-top (caki/casin/caki-casin/3-casin)-gen weakness-acc well 모른다 molu-n-ta not.know-prs-decl ‘John doesn’t know his own weaknesses well.’ 334 CHAPTER 10. REFLEXIVITY
As mentioned in the list above, caki and caki-casin prefer third person antecedents, although it is not completely ungrammatical, and some speakers accept all four forms below in at least some contexts. This property of Korean reflexives is still a matter of ongoing research.
(10.28) 나는 (*?자기/자신/*?자기자신/내 자신)의 수학 실력을 잘 Na-nun (caki/casin/caki-casin/nay-casin)-uy swuhak sillyek-ul cal I-top (caki/casin/caki-casin/1poss-casin)-gen math ability-acc well 알고 있다. al-ko-iss-ta know-comp-prog-decl ‘I am well aware of my own ability in math.’
Both caki and casin allow local and long-distance antecedents. Consider the following example (Cole et al., 1990; Cole and Sung, 1994).
(10.29) 철수는 인호가 자신을/자기를 사랑한다고 Chelswu-nun inho-ka casin-ul/caki-lul salang-ha-n-ta-ko Cheolsoo-top Inho-nom casin-acc/caki-acc love-lv-prs-decl-comp 생각한다. sayngkak-ha-n-ta think-lv-prs-decl ‘Cheolsoo thinks Inho loves him/himself.’
The anaphors caki and casin strongly prefer subjects as antecedents; however, recent research shows that caki at least can take non-subjects as antecedents (Han et al., 2010). See Madigan (2015) for an up-to-date review of anaphora in Korean.
10.4.2 Romance Pronominal Forms
Consider the following paradigm of accusative pronominal forms from various Romance languages.
French Portuguese Spanish pronoun anaphor pronoun anaphor pronoun anaphor 1st me me me singular 2nd te te te 3rd le se o se lo se 1st nous nos nos plural 2nd vous vos vos 3rd les se os se los se
One challenge to understanding anaphora in Romance languages comes from the fact that the first and second person forms are used both as pronouns and as anaphors Burzio (1991). 10.4. CROSS-LINGUISTIC PATTERNS OF ANAPHORA 335
Consider the following examples. Observe that the first person form can appear with a local, c- commanding antecdent (10.30 b), or not (10.30 a). In the third person, however, distinct pronominal and anaphoric forms are found.
(10.30) Pronouns and Anaphors in French
(a) Marie me voit Marie me sees ‘Marie sees me.’ (b) Je me vois I me see ‘I see myself.’ (c) Marie1 la*1/2 voit Marie her sees ‘Marie1 sees her*1/2.’ (d) Marie1 se1/*2 voit Marie her sees ‘Marie1 sees herself1/*2.’
We will not pursue an analysis of Romance reflexives here, but we will point out the fact that Romance requires a different way to think about the distinction between pronouns and anaphors. Next, we discuss various environments in which we find the morpheme se in Romance languages (Rizzi, 1986; Sportiche, 1988; Rosen, 1990; Labelle, 2008; D’Alessandro, 2001; Reinhart and Siloni, 2004; Alboiu et al., 2004; Barrie and Sung, 2021). This is by no means a complete discussion of this morpheme. Se is a highly underspecified morpheme found in virtually all Romance languages. It is often claimed that its only feature is [3rd person] since it otherwise does not inflect for gender or number (although in Romanian it inflects for Case). Se appears to be able to mark a predicate as reflexive, as shown in the following Portuguese example.
(10.31) A Maria viu-se the.f Mary see.pst.3sg-se ‘Mary saw herself.’ [Portuguese] In addition to its use as an anaphor, se has a number of other functions. Many languages exhibit causative/inchoative pairs such as John melted the butter (the causative alternant) versus The butter melted (inchoative alternant). The inchoative alternants are unaccusative (see Alexiadou et al., 2015, for an extended discussion). Consider the following Italian data.
(10.32) (a) Giovanni rompe il vetro Giovanni breaks the glass ‘Giovanni breaks the glass.’ 336 CHAPTER 10. REFLEXIVITY
(b) Il vetro si rompe the glass se breaks ‘The glass breaks.’ [Italian] Observe that the internal argument il vetro (‘the glass’) fulfils the same function in both sen- tences. Example (10.32 a) illustrates the causative alternant, where Giovanni causes the breaking of the glass. Example (10.32 b) illustrates the inchoative alternant, where the glass became broken. The se morpheme appears in the inchoative alternant. Recall from Chapter 6 that Romance languages exhibit a form called the impersonal passive, which is usually translated into a traditional passive in English. It is a valency reducing phenomenon that demotes the subject and promotes the object. These are discussed in more detail in Chapter 6, so we just mention them here. Here is an example from Portuguese.
(10.33) As toranjas comem-se aquí the.f.pl grapefruit.pl eat.3pg.prs-se here ‘Grapefruit is eaten here.’ [European Portuguese] Many languages exhibit a class of verbs that are lexically reflexive. You can read more about lexically reflexive verbs in the advanced section below on Reflexivity. Briefly, these verbs can only be understood as having self-direction action. The following examples give two prototypical inherent reflexive predicates.
(10.34) (a) Gianni si vergogna Gianni se shame.3sg.prs ‘Gianni is ashamed.’ [Italian]
(b) O estudante enganou-se the student mistake.3sg.pst-se ‘The student was mistaken.’ [European Portuguese] Many of these verbs in Romance must appear with a reflexive pronoun.
Some functions of the Romance se morpheme
• as a true anaphor marking an argument on a verb
• on inchoatives
• on impersonal passives
• on lexically reflexive verbs 10.4. CROSS-LINGUISTIC PATTERNS OF ANAPHORA 337
10.4.3 Obviation
Obviation is obligatory disjoint reference in two 3rd person forms. The following French example illustrates obviation.
(10.35) Obviation in French
(a) Jean1 pense qu’il1/2 part John dit that he leave.indic ‘John says that he1/2 is leaving.’ (b) Jean1 veut qu’il*1/2 parte John wants that he leave.subj ‘John wants him*1/2 to leave.’
Both of these sentences contain a finite embedded clause. In (10.35 a) the embedded clause is indicative. As expected from the Binding Theory presented so far the embedded subject pronoun can refer to the matrix subject or to another individual. In (10.35 b), however, the embedded clause is subjunctive, and the embedded subject pronoun cannot refer to the matrix subject. It must refer to another individual. This is unexpected under the Binding Theory presented so far. Note that although the English translation involves an infinitival clause the French embedded clause is finite.2 A more literal English translation would be John wants that he leave. One way to handle these obviation effects is to assume that subjunctive clauses and indicative clauses behave differently with respect to the Binding Theory (Farkas, 1992; Manzini, 2000). We will not pursue the matter further here, however. We turn our attention to the Algonquian family of North America. There is a constraint in this language family that there can be only one 3rd person referent in a given stretch of discourse. If another 3rd person entity is introduced, it must be marked obviative. (In some sources, this is called 4th person.) Consider the following examples from Cree (adapted from Ahenakew, 1987).
Cree (cre) is an Algonquian language of the Algic family. It is spoken from Alberta to Newfoundland and is part of large dialect continuum. Word order in Cree is determined by discourse factors and information structure (Wolfart, 1973; Junker, 2004), but does have some configura- tional properties (Russell and Reinholtz, 1996). In addition to obviation, Cree also exhibits a clusivity distinction and has noun classes based on animacy (Ahenakew, 1987; Dahlstrom, 1991). Wh-questions are formed by clefts (Blain, 1997). (image from Wikipedia: image license)
2See Costantini (2005) for similar properties in Italian. 338 CHAPTER 10. REFLEXIVITY
(10.36) Obviation in Cree
(a) ni-kî-wâpam-âw ayîkis 1-pst-see-3sg frog ‘I saw a frog.’ (b) ana awâsis kî-wâpam-êw ayîkis-a that child pst-see-3sg.obv frog-obv ‘That child saw a frog/some frogs.’
In (10.36 a), we see the form ayîkis, which means ‘frog’. In (10.36 b), however, the subject is 3rd person. Thus, the object cannot also be 3rd person and is marked obviative. An obviative marker -a appears on the noun and in the agreement marker on the verb. The choice as to which DP is proximate and which is obviative depends on pragmatic and discourse factors such as topic or focus. In the following examples the verbal morphology indicates which argument is the subject and which is the object. When there is a third person proximate DP and an obviative DP the direct marker (dir) means that the proximate DP is the subject, and the inverse marker (inv) means that the obviative DP is the subject.
(10.37) (a) ê-wâpam-â-t nâpêw iskwêw-a conj-see-dir-3 man woman-obv ‘The man saw the woman.’ (b) ê-wâpam-ikw-t iskwêw nâpêw-a conj-see-inv-3 woman man-obv ‘The man saw the woman.’ [Cree]
10.5 Reflexivity (advanced)
Classical Binding Theory has been quite successful at capturing the distribution of anaphors and pronouns in many languages. Binding Theory as presented thus far, however, is problematic in some areas. First, Principles A and B predict that anaphors and pronouns should be in strict complementary distribution. This is now always the case, however. Consider the following example. It appears that either a pronoun or an anaphor can appear in this environment.
(10.38) Max1 saw a snake near him1/himself1.
As an alternative to Binding Theory, Reinhart and Reuland (1993), developed a new theory of binding called Reflexivity. According to this theory, there are three kinds of anaphoric expressions, shown in the following table. There are two types of anaphors: SELF anaphors and SE anaphors, 10.5. REFLEXIVITY (ADVANCED) 339 in addition to pronouns. Furthermore, these pronominal forms are encoded with the features [±Reflexivizing] and [±R]. SELF anaphors SE anaphors pronouns + - - Reflexivizing - - + R - referential independence
A [+Reflexivizing] pronominal element marks a predicate as reflexive. That is, it indicates that two arguments of the predicate are coreferential. A [+R] pronominal element can take reference independently of an antecedent. Thus, only SELF anaphors can license reflexivity - in other words, a SELF anaphor is needed for reflexive sentences.
(10.39) Susan saw herself in the mirror.
SE anaphors and pronouns do not license reflexivity. A SE anaphor, furthermore, cannot take independent reference. English does not have SE anaphors, so we will wait to see an example. In order to understand how Reflexivity works, we will need the following definitions. A syn- tactic predicate is an expression that contains all its syntactic arguments (that is, arguments assigned a θ-role by the predicate) including an external argument (subject). A semantic pred- icate is an expression that contains all its internal arguments at the relevant semantic level. (We will come back to this notion of the relevant semantic level later.) Thus, it is unimportant whether a semantic predicate contains a subject or not, although it may contain one. A predicate is reflexive if and only if two of its arguments are co-indexed. A predicate (formed of P) is reflexive-marked if and only if either P is lexically reflexive or one of P’s arguments is a SELF anaphor. English does not have any lexically reflexive predicates, so the only way for a predicate to be reflexive marked in English is for a SELF anaphor to be present. We will see some examples of lexically reflexive predicates later. The distribution of these three types of anaphoric expressions is determined by the following conditions.
Condition A - A reflexive-marked syntactic predicate is reflexive. Condition B - A reflexive semantic predicate is reflexive-marked.
Let’s see how these conditions on reflexivity work. Consider the following example.
(10.40) *Max1 criticized him1.
The verb in example (10.40) is reflexive because two of its arguments are co-indexed. Condition B states that a reflexive semantic predicate must be reflexive-marked. Criticize is not lexically reflexive, and there is no SELF anaphor present to mark the predicate as reflexive. Condition B is violated. 340 CHAPTER 10. REFLEXIVITY
Now, let’s consider (10.38) from above, which was problematic for Classical Binding Theory. Note that the PP near him/himself is an adjunct - not an argument of the verb. As such, the predicate see is not reflexive, since it does not contain two co-indexed arguments. The only two arguments of see are John and a snake. Furthermore, this predicate is not reflexive marked because it does not contain a SELF anaphor (the SELF anaphor is contained in an adjunct and not in the predicate itself.) Therefore, conditions A and B have nothing to say about the predicate see in this example. Let’s turn now to the adjunct PP near him/himself. The preposition defines a predicate since it assigns its complement Case and a θ-role of
(10.41) Mary1 speaks with *her1/herself1.
In this sentence the pronoun is ungrammatical under co-reference. Rather, an anaphor must be used. Note that with the verb speak the with-PP is not an adjunct, but is rather an argument of the verb. The preposition does not form its own predicate, and the anaphor is an argument of the predicate speak. In this example, speak is a reflexive predicate since it contains two arguments that are co-indexed. As such, it must satisfy Condition B, which it can do only if one of the arguments is a SELF anaphor. This brief introduction serves to show how alternative theories of the distribution of anaphors can account for certain facts that Classical Binding Theory fails to account for. Let us now turn to SE anaphors and the notion of lexically-reflexive predicates. Consider the following data from Dutch (Reinhart and Reuland, 1993).
(10.42) Reflexives in Dutch
(a) Max1 haat zichzelf1. Max hates SELF ‘Max hates himself.’ (b) * Max1 haat zich1. Max hates SE ‘(Max hates himself.)’ 10.5. REFLEXIVITY (ADVANCED) 341
(c) Max1 schaamt zich1 Max shames SE ‘Max is ashamed.’
The verb haaten (‘to hate’), as in English, is not lexically-reflexive. In (10.42 a) the predicate is reflexive because two of its arguments are coreferential. Following Condition B, the predicate must be reflexive marked. Since it is not lexically reflexive a SELF anaphor is required. Dutch has both SELF anaphors (such as zichzelf ) and SE anaphors (such as zich). Observe that the SE anaphor is not licit, as shown in (10.42 b). Schaamen in Dutch is a lexically reflexive predicate, which means that it is an inherent property of the predicate that the subject and object are co-referential. As a lexically reflexive predicate, no SELF anaphor is needed to reflexively mark the verb schaamen in (10.42 c). The SE anaphor suffices in this example. Finally, consider the following English data.
(10.43) (a) *The Queen invited myself for tea. (b) The Queen invited both Max and myself/me for tea. (c) The Queen1 invited both Max and herself1 to our party. (d) *The Queen1 invited both Max and her1 to our party.
It’s clear why (10.43 a) is ungrammatical. It consists of a reflexive-marked syntactic predicate, but it is not reflexive. Now, turning to (10.43 b), either the anaphor or the pronoun can appear. First, let’s consider Condition A when the anaphor is present. Condition A makes reference to reflexive-marked predicates only. This predicate has two arguments: The Queen and Max and myself. Neither of these is a SELF anaphor. The object Max and myself contains a SELF anaphor, but it is not a SELF anaphor, itself. Thus, this syntactic predicate is not reflexive marked. Condi- tion B makes reference to reflexive semantic predicates. This predicate is not reflexive since it does not contain two coreferential arguments. Therefore Conditions A and B have nothing to say about (10.43 b). Turning now to (10.43 c-10.43 d), we see that only the anaphor is permitted in this envi- ronment. We must consider the meaning of a semantic predicate in more detail here. Semantically, (10.43 c) has the following meaning.
(10.44) (The Queen invited Max) and (The Queen invited herself)
Condition A again has nothing to say, since the syntactic argument in question is Max and herself, in the first of the two examples, and Max and her, in the second. Neither of these is a SELF anaphor. Again, Max and herself contains a SELF anaphor, but it is not a SELF anaphor. Condition B is a condition on reflexive semantic predicates, which is found in the second conjunct of (10.44). This semtantic predicate is reflexive, since two of its arguments are coreferential. Con- sequently, it must be reflexive-marked. Thus, the anaphor must be present, as it is in (10.43 c), but not in (10.43 d). 342 CHAPTER 10. REFLEXIVITY
Key Concepts
• anaphor - a pronominal element that must take its reference from a linguistic antecedent - Typically, the antecedent must bind the anaphor locally.
• pronoun - a pronominal element that need not take its reference from a linguistic antecedent - Typically, if an antecedent is present, it cannot bind the anaphor locally.
• R-Expression - an expression that can refer to a real world entity on its own
• binding domain - the smallest domain in which an anaphor must be bound
• long-distance anaphor - an anaphor that requires a linguistic antecedent that does not need to be local - They are often found in East Asian languages among others.
• obviation - obligatory disjoint reference between two 3rd person nominals
• reconstruction - a phenomenon in which a wh-phrase moves to a lower trace position at LF. 10.5. REFLEXIVITY (ADVANCED) 343
Exercises
(10.1) For each of the following sentences, determine the binding domain of the anaphor. Then determine whether Principle A is satisfied. If Principle A is violated, explain exactly what is wrong.
1 John1 is talking to himself1.
2 Mary1 found a picture of herself1.
3 *Jeff1 lost Susan’s picture of himself1.
4 *Harold1 expects Alice to visit himself1.
5 *John1’s sister hit himself1.
(10.2) Explain fully why the following sentences are ungrammatical.
1 *Jeff lost Susan1’s picture of her1.
2 *He1 expects Alice to visit Harold1.
3 *John1’s sister thinks Mary hit himself1.
4 *John’s sister1 seems to like her1.
(10.3) Consider the long distance reflexives in Chinese languages in light of Reflexivity. Do you think the long-distance anaphor is a SELF anaphor or a SE anaphor? How is it different from SELF and SE anaphors discussed here? 344 CHAPTER 10. REFLEXIVITY
Further Reading
• Ahenakew (1987) - This is a very reader-friendly pedagogical grammar of Cree, which explains more details about the obviative construction.
• Chomsky (1981) - This monograph laid the foundation for Government and Binding Theory, including an in depth discussion on classical Binding Theory as described here. As with most of Chomsky’s writings, the reader is cautioned to have a strong foundation before attempting this work.
• Cole et al. (1990) - This is one of the earliest generative analyses of long-distance anaphora in Mandarin.
• Cole et al. (2000) - This is an overview article about long-distance reflexives from a cross- linguistic perspective.
• Lidz (2001) - This paper extends the theory of Reflexivity to include additional facts from Kannada, a Dravidian language.
• Reinhart and Reuland (1993) - This paper is the original source on the theory of Reflex- ivity presented at the end of this chapter. Calligraphy of Tree Drawing
Syntactic trees convey a great deal of information to the reader; however, they can only do so effec- tively if they are drawn clearly. Consider the examples below that contain several common errors made by introductory students of syntax. The two branches dropping down from a node should connect at the top, and the point where the two branches connect should be centred underneath the dominating node. The bottom of each branch should be centred above the daughter nodes. VP
V DP Avoid the following pitfalls made by novice tree-drawers. I - Disconnected Branches CP tops of lines do not connect/
C TP
345 346 Abbreviations
• abs - absolutive • fv - final vowel (in Bantu) • pat - patient
• acc - accusative • imp - imperfective • pl - plural
• ag - agent • inan - inanimate • prs - present indic • apass - antipassive • - indicative • prfv - perfective • instr - instrumental • appl - applicative • q - question asp • int - interrogative • - aspect • rel - relative marker de • intr - intransitive • - 的 a multifunctional • sfp - sentence-final parti- morpheme in Mandarin • lv - light verb cle decl • - declarative • m - masculine • sg - singular • dem - demonstrative • ninga - head noun • srfl - semireflexive, a marker in Mooré • det - determiner kind of middle voice marker in Iroquoian • nom - nominative • epen - epenthetic sub • obj - object • - subject • erg - ergative • obv - obviative • subj - subjunctive • fact - factual (a gram- matical mood) • part - participle • tns - tense
• f - feminine • pass - passive • tr - transitive
347 348 Alphabetical Index
wanna-contraction, 304 Chomsky, Noam, 13, 17, 22, 38, 77, 245 Chukchi, 213 Abaza, 203 clefting, 54, 55 affix hopping, 96, 140 clitic, 193, 217, 281 agent-patient marking, 35, 75, 207 cognate object, 192 Albanian, 305 coordination, 52, 65 anaphor, 19, 62 Cree, 88, 91, 337 antipassive, 205 Arabic, 262 Danish, 186 Attract Closest, 232 depictive, 196 ditransitive, 104 ba-construction, 177 do-support, 143, 175 Balkan Sprachbund, 305 dummy reflexive, 197 Bantu, 80, 81, 92 Dutch, 315, 340 final vowel, 81 Dyirbal, 203, 205 Bare Phrase Structure, 63, 64, 73, 77, 92 Blackfoot, 15, 37 embedded questions, 228 Bloomfield, Leonard, 13 endocentricity, 64 Bulgarian, 249 EPP, 136 ergativity, 87, 202 c-selection, 24 escape hatch, 265 Cantonese, 48, 89, 91, 192, 241, 332 Exceptional Case Marking, 292 causative, 335 expletive, 130, 136 Central Alaska Yup’ik, 87 external argument, 106, 114 Central Alaskan Yup’ik, 87 Chaga, 81 floated quantifier, 110 Chamorro, 223 French, 88, 102, 128, 136, 226, 267, 320, 330, Chichewa, 91, 92, 96 335 Chinese, see also Mandarin, Cantonese, etc. obviation in, 337
349 350 ALPHABETICAL INDEX
written, 143 relative clauses, 252, 256 Romanization of, 24 Georgian, 213 scrambling, 315 German, 15, 89, 150, 151, 174, 176, 185, 222, topic marking, 100 236, 267 verb second, 187 label, 64 get-passive, 174 Lahu, 39 Greek, 305 Lakota, 146, 207, 259 lexical entry, 201 Halkomelem, 206 Luiseño, 218 Headedness Parameter, 148 Lushootseed, 162 Hindi-Urdu, 28, 114, 316 hortative, 99 M¯aori,42 Malagasy, 257 Icelandic, 28 Mandarin, 89, 93, 114, 149, 177, 221, 241, idioms, 48, 288 243, 247, 257, 332 illocutionary force, 98 Merge, 64, 131 impersonal passive, 176, 336 Mohawk, 48, 125 inchoative, 335 Mooré, 259 infinitive, 286 multiple wh-question, 231 Inuktitut, 125, 205 Irish, 136, 144, 161, 237 Nahuatl, 125 Italian, 128, 177, 281, 335 Ndendeule, 80 unaccusativity in, 193 Niuean, 41, 93, 93, 162 Northern Pomo, 210 Japanese, 36, 100, 146, 147, 242, 256 noun incorporation, 194 Khanty, 203 obviation, 88, 337 Kikuyu, 239, 240 Oneida, 35, 40, 75, 208 Korean, 28, 79, 128, 165, 202, 242, 320 Onondaga, 223, 320 wh-in-situ, 243 anaphora, 333 P¯an. ini, 13, 45, 46, 165 c-selection, 24 partial wh-movement, 240 cognate objects, 192 passive illocutionary force, 98 impersonal, 177 light verb, 114 passivization, 58, 128 passive, 172 patient marking, see agent-patient marking pro-forms, 51 Persian, 48, 129 pseudoclefting, 57 pied-piping, 255 ALPHABETICAL INDEX 351
Pohnpeian, 40 Tagalog, 162, 166, 277 Portuguese, 14, 48, 102, 177, 305, 335, 336 Tauya, 213 Poverty of Stimulus, 17 Thai, 242, 307 preposition stranding, 16, 229, 255 Theta Criterion, 32, 293 pro-form, 50, 69 Tibetan, 211 pseudo noun incorporation, 41 Tiwa, 146 pseudoclefting, 57 Tuvaluan, 242 reciprocal, 48 Universal Grammar, 17, 128 reflexive, 19 Uzbek, 267 resultative, 75, 196 resumptive pronoun, 262 Vata, 153 Romance, 334 Verb Second, 185 Romanian, 249, 305 Walpiri, 124 Sardianian, 281 Warlpiri, 125 secondary predicate, 196 Weak Cross Over, 271 Serbo-Croatian, 218, 249 Welsh, 161 singular they, 16, 271 wh-copy construction, 236 Slavey, 194 split CP, 101 X-Bar Theory, 64, 77 Strong Cross Over, 271 subject-object asymmetries, 47, 92 Yagua, 81 Swahili, 79 Yucatec Mayan, 39 352 ALPHABETICAL INDEX Bibliography
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