Where Propositional Arguments and Participial Relative Clauses Meet
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Where propositional arguments and participial relative clauses meet Éva Dékány & Ekaterina Georgieva {dekanyeva/ekaterina.georgieva}@nytud.hu Research Institute for Linguistics (Budapest) Workshop “On the nouniness of propositional arguments” (DGfS43) University of Freiburg, 23–26 Feb 2021 Dékány & Georgieva Propositional arguments & participles Nouniness (DGfS 43) 1 / 74 Introduction Dékány & Georgieva Propositional arguments & participles Nouniness (DGfS 43) 2 / 74 Aims We aim at explaining why it is crosslinguistically common that participial relative clauses (pRCs) and deverbal nominalizations (DVNs) share the same suffix. (1) [Ali-nin pişir-diğ-i] yemek Ali-gen cook-dik-poss:3sg food ‘the food Ali cooked’ [MST, pRC] (2) Ali-nin kitab-I oku-duğ-un-u Ali-gen book-acc read-dik-poss:3sg-acc ‘(that) Ali read the book’ (as a direct obj) [MST, DVN] (Kornfilt 2003) Dékány & Georgieva Propositional arguments & participles Nouniness (DGfS 43) 3 / 74 Aims This is called the participle-nominalizer polysemy. It is observed in Uralic, Altaic, Quechua and Tibeto-Burman languages (Koptjevskaja-Tamm 1993: 2.2.5; Serdobolskaya & Paperno 2006; Shagal 2018; Noonan 1997). " Given that this is a wide-spread phenomenon, it requires a principled, structure-based account, where the exponents for the participle and the DVN are connected. We investigate this phenomenon in Udmurt and Khanty (Uralic) as well as Modern Standard Turkish and Uyghur, with some reference to Kazakh (Turkic). We argue that no real polysemy is involved, but we use it as a descriptive term. Dékány & Georgieva Propositional arguments & participles Nouniness (DGfS 43) 4 / 74 Claims The participle-nominalizer polysemy arises when the structure of DVNs properly contains the structure of pRCs. The containment involves a null nouny element present in DVNs and absent in pRCs. This containment can arise in three different configurations. " the participle–nominalizer polysemy corresponds to different underlying structures; no one size fits all analysis Dékány & Georgieva Propositional arguments & participles Nouniness (DGfS 43) 5 / 74 The discussion of the participle-nominalizer polysemy will be framed in the analyses dealing with nominalizations and mixed extended projections (see Borer 1997; Borsley & Kornfilt 2000; Alexiadou 2001; Alexiadou et al. 2011, a.o.) The participle-nominalizer polysemy is somewhat reminiscent of another highly debated topic: noun complement clauses (NCC) and (finite) relative clauses (Arsenijević 2009; Haegeman 2012; de Cuba 2017, a.o.) Even though our main goal is not to approach our data from the perspective of the phenomena found in the case of finite embedded clauses, we will discuss (non-finite) NCCs Dékány & Georgieva Propositional arguments & participles Nouniness (DGfS 43) 6 / 74 Roadmap 1 Introduction 2 Unifying participles and nominalizations 3 Case study 1: Udmurt pRC: bare, DVN: mixed projection 4 Case study 2: Modern Standard Turkish pRC: nominalized, DVN: mixed projection 5 Case study 3: Uyghur DVN: AspP modifies a covert N 6 Conclusion 7 Appendix Dékány & Georgieva Propositional arguments & participles Nouniness (DGfS 43) 7 / 74 Unifying participles and nominalizations Dékány & Georgieva Propositional arguments & participles Nouniness (DGfS 43) 8 / 74 Assumptions about the shared suffix Null hypothesis: the shared suffix spells out ¶ a functional head in the extended VP (with or without a nominalizer) · a nominalizing head which requires an extended VP as its complement. " Thus, the suffix is either "verby" or "nouny". Dékány & Georgieva Propositional arguments & participles Nouniness (DGfS 43) 9 / 74 Assumptions about the shared suffix We claim that the suffix is a verbal head in the languages under consideration The suffix has an aspectual meaning (thus, we label it Asp, see also Embick 2004) In Udmurt, Khanty and Uyghur, the perfect past/evidential marker is diachronically related to the ptcp suffix Dékány & Georgieva Propositional arguments & participles Nouniness (DGfS 43) 10 / 74 Against a nominalizer analysis of the shared suffix pRCs in Udmurt have no discernible nominal properties the shared suffix occurs in other, clearly verbal contexts, e.g., in passives or as perfect tense forms in Udmurt, Kazakh and Uyghur (Ótott-Kovács 2016; Asarina 2011) pRCs and DVNs in Modern Standard Turkish do have nominal properties, but DVNs are not pluralizable (Kornfilt 2003); the presence of n is said to correlate with Num marking (Alexiadou et al. 2011) Dékány & Georgieva Propositional arguments & participles Nouniness (DGfS 43) 11 / 74 Background assumption about pRCs similar to finite RCs (but have no relativizer and may lack a left periphery) compose with the head N via an FP (3) DP FP D v+P F0 vP v+ F NP verb noun Dékány & Georgieva Propositional arguments & participles Nouniness (DGfS 43) 12 / 74 Proposal We claim that there are two parameters that may vary across languages: (i) pRCs: extended VPs with or without nominalization (4) DP (5) DP FP D FP D AspP F0 DP F0 vP Asp F NP AspP D F NP -sfx verb noun vP Asp noun -sfx verb How to tell if a pRC is nominalized: genitive subject, poss morphology, D-like morphology Dékány & Georgieva Propositional arguments & participles Nouniness (DGfS 43) 13 / 74 Proposal (ii) DVNs: the extended VP of the participle is turned into a mixed extended projection or it modifies a covert noun (6) DP (7) FP AspP D AspP F0 vP Asp vP Asp F NP -sfx -sfx verb verb covert noun How to tell if there is a covert N: it alternates with an overt N with the same properties (On mixed extended projections see Borer 1997; Borsley & Kornfilt 2000; Alexiadou 2001, a.o.) Dékány & Georgieva Propositional arguments & participles Nouniness (DGfS 43) 14 / 74 Case study 1: Udmurt pRC: bare, DVN: mixed projection Dékány & Georgieva Propositional arguments & participles Nouniness (DGfS 43) 15 / 74 pRCs and DVNs in Udmurt the suffix -m is employed in both pRCs and DVNs (8) [kil’em ar-in pukt-em] korka ˘ ˘ last year-ine build-asp house ‘the house that was built last year’ [pRC] (9) [Kol’a-len tolon kik pispu mertt-em-ez] ˘ Kolya-gen yesterday two tree.acc plant-asp-poss:3sg šońer evel. ˘ ˘ true neg.cop ‘Kolya’s planting two trees yesterday was wrong/(a) bad (idea).’ [DVN] Dékány & Georgieva Propositional arguments & participles Nouniness (DGfS 43) 16 / 74 A closer look at Udmurt pRCs Udmurt pRCs are eventive (3-way division: eventive, resultative, stative participles, cf. Kratzer 2000; Embick 2004); they contain an extended verbal projection: 1 manner/duration adverb 3 2 causative and frequentative morphology 3 3 Acc object 3 (10) [pići dirjaz tros pol kńiga ˘ young time.during.poss:3sg many times book.acc liddź-it-il-em] murt ˘ ˘ ˘ read-caus-freq-asp person ‘a/the person who was made to read a book several times as a child’ They have no nominal properties: overt subjects are not Gen marked; there is no Poss suffix on the participle; no D-like morphology. Dékány & Georgieva Propositional arguments & participles Nouniness (DGfS 43) 17 / 74 Udmurt pRCs: analysis Relative clauses in Udmurt have the structure in (11): (11) DP FP D AspP F0 vP Asp F NP -m verb noun pRCs are truncated clauses, AspPs no nominal layer on top of AspP (accounts for the lack of nominal properties) Dékány & Georgieva Propositional arguments & participles Nouniness (DGfS 43) 18 / 74 The subject of Udmurt pRCs The subject is either PRO or, if overt, is instrumental-marked: (12) [PRO/Ivan-en liddź-il-em] kńiga ˘ ˘ Ivan-ins read-freq-asp book ‘the book read by someone/Ivan’ Nominative subjects are ruled out (in the present-day language): (13)* [mi mertt-em] pispu-os 1pl.nom plant-asp tree-pl ‘the trees planted by us’ (Georgieva & Ótott-Kovács 2016) It has been argued that Udmurt pRCs can also have Gen subjects, but we show that they are possessors (see the Appendix) (see Brykina & Aralova 2012; Serdobolskaya et al. 2012; Georgieva & Ótott-Kovács 2016; Georgieva 2018; Dékány & Georgieva 2020) Dékány & Georgieva Propositional arguments & participles Nouniness (DGfS 43) 19 / 74 The subject of Udmurt pRCs (cont.) We suggest that internal to the non-finite AspP, no structural case is available for the subject (Dékány & Georgieva 2020) ! the subject is a PRO or is expressed in a PP (14) (14) FP AspP F0 vP Asp NP F -m PP vP noun subject-Ins verb NB: the agent of passives is also Ins marked (F. Gulyás & Speshilova 2014) Dékány & Georgieva Propositional arguments & participles Nouniness (DGfS 43) 20 / 74 Udmurt pRCs: implications Our analysis is in line with several proposals for Turkic languages according to which (certain) pRCs are reduced (Krause 2001; Hale 2002; Aygen 2011) We have also adopted a structural approach to case in order to explain the Ins-subjects of pRCs The reduced vs full CP analysis of pRCs in Turkic also often involves a structural approach to case (e.g., Krause 2001) Recent studies: pRCs are (bare) vPs + configurational approach to case (e.g., Satık 2020; “nominative as caselessness”, cf. Kornfilt & Preminger 2015) " Problematic, given that Nom-subjects are ungrammatical in Udmurt pRCs Dékány & Georgieva Propositional arguments & participles Nouniness (DGfS 43) 21 / 74 DVNs in Udmurt Udmurt DVNs contain an extended verbal projection (cf. frequentative morphology, Acc object, adverbial modification) Nominal properties: Gen subject, Poss morphology on the verb (15) [Kol’a-len tolon kik pispu mertt-em-ez] ˘ Kolya-gen yesterday two tree.acc plant-asp-poss:3sg šońer evel. ˘ ˘ true neg.cop ‘That Kolya planted two trees yesterday was wrong/(a) bad (idea).’ (see Brykina & Aralova 2012; Serdobolskaya et al. 2012; Georgieva & Ótott-Kovács 2016; Georgieva 2018; Dékány & Georgieva 2020) Dékány & Georgieva Propositional arguments & participles Nouniness (DGfS 43) 22 / 74 DVNs in Udmurt Proposal: DVNs in Udmurt are mixed extended projections the extended verbal projection is embedded directly under D the subject becomes a derived possessor (16): (16) DVNs in Udmurt DP 0 subject-geni D AspP D -poss vP Asp -m ti verb Dékány & Georgieva Propositional arguments & participles Nouniness (DGfS 43) 23 / 74 Support for the structure of DVNs possessors are Gen marked (17) [Pet’a-len puni-jez] ute.