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On Cognate Objects in Sason Arabic University of Pennsylvania Working Papers in Linguistics Volume 23 Issue 1 Proceedings of the 40th Annual Penn Article 2 Linguistics Conference 2017 On Cognate Objects in Sason Arabic Faruk Akkuş University of Pennsylvania Balkız Öztürk Boğaziçi University Follow this and additional works at: https://repository.upenn.edu/pwpl Recommended Citation Akkuş, Faruk and Öztürk, Balkız (2017) "On Cognate Objects in Sason Arabic," University of Pennsylvania Working Papers in Linguistics: Vol. 23 : Iss. 1 , Article 2. Available at: https://repository.upenn.edu/pwpl/vol23/iss1/2 This paper is posted at ScholarlyCommons. https://repository.upenn.edu/pwpl/vol23/iss1/2 For more information, please contact [email protected]. On Cognate Objects in Sason Arabic Abstract This paper investigates the patterns of cognate objects (COs) associated with unergatives and unaccusatives in Sason Arabic. We propose that COs of both unergatives and unaccusatives are not true arguments, as evinced by their highly productive and unrestricted use, but constitute rhematic complements in the sense of Ramchand (2008), therefore cannot be used as diagnostics for unergative-unaccusative distinction in the language. This working paper is available in University of Pennsylvania Working Papers in Linguistics: https://repository.upenn.edu/pwpl/vol23/iss1/2 On Cognate Objects in Sason Arabic Faruk Akkuş and Balkız Öztürk 1 Introduction This paper investigates the patterns of cognate objects (COs) associated with unergatives and unac- cusatives in Sason Arabic, an endangered Arabic dialect spoken in eastern Turkey (Jastrow 2006, Akkuş 2016). We propose that COs of both unergatives and unaccusatives are not true arguments, but consti- tute rhematic complements in the sense of Ramchand (2008), therefore cannot be used as a diagnos- tics for unergative-unaccusative distinction in the language. 2 Previous Literature on Cognate Objects (1) and (2) illustrate examples of COs from the familiar languages such as English and French. (1) a. John danced a (slow) dance. b. Mary sang a (beautiful) song. (2) a. Il a danse une grande danse. he has danced a grand dance. ‘He danced a grand dance.’ (Pereltsvaig 2002, (2)) b. Elle a chante une (belle) chanson. she has sung a beautiful song ‘She sang a beautiful song.’ As can be seen from the above examples, COs are noun phrases containing a noun which is morphologically related to the verb. In English, this noun can sometimes be the exact copy of the verb (as in the case of smile a smile, laugh a laugh, and dance a dance). Two central questions that have been the focus of the previous research on COs are (i) what can they tell us about the predicate- types? and (ii) are they arguments or adjuncts? The widely-held generalization about the occurrence of cognate objects is stated in Kuno and Takami (2004:107) as the Unergative Restriction on the Cognate Object Construction: (3) Unergative Restriction on the Cognate Object Construction Only unergative verbs can appear in the cognate object construction. No unaccusative verbs can. This generalization has been used as a diagnostics to differentiate between unergative and un- accusative verbs. It has been argued that intransitives which can take a cognate object are typically unergative verbs, i.e., verbs whose subjects are (non-)volitional initiators, but not unaccusatives with undergoer subjects. (See furthermore Keyser and Roeper 1984, Larson 1988, Massam 1992, Levin and Rappaport Hovav 1995, and Hale and Keyser 1993, among others.) (4) a. Malinda smiled her most enigmatic smile. (Levin and Rappaport Hovav, 1995:40) b. The baby slept a sound sleep. (Nakajima 2006:677) However, Kuno and Takami (2004:116, also in Nakajima 2006) observe that some unaccusative We would like to thank the audience at LAEL’15 at Boğaziçi University, Istanbul for their constructive comments on the earlier version of this paper. U. Penn Working Papers in Linguistics, Volume 23.1, 2017 2 FARUK AKKUŞ AND BALKIZ ÖZTÜRK verbs can occur with cognate objects. (5) a. The tree grew a century’s growth within only ten years. b. The stock market dropped its largest drop in three years today. c. Stanley watched as the ball bounced a funny little bounce right into the shortstop’s glove. The empirical facts raise certain questions regarding Perlmutter’s (1978) Unaccusative Hypoth- esis (UH), shown in (6). For instance, what are the implications of the possibility of unaccusative verbs allowing cognate objects for the UH? (6) The Unaccusative Hypothesis Unergative and unaccusative verbs are syntactically differentiated; while unergative verbs have nonderived subjects (i.e., surface subjects are generated as subjects at D-structure), sur- face subjects of unaccusative verbs originate as direct objects. In fact, this point is closely related to the property of cognates, that is whether they are argu- mental or adverbial (Pereltsvaig 1999, 2002). Crucially, if the COs occupy the object position, rather than the adjunct position, this would contradict the UH, since the object position of unaccusatives would be underlyingly occupied by the surface subject. The literature on COs is not unanimous, and the previous studies on the nature of COs can be divided into two camps: i. Some claim that COs are thematic and/or underlying arguments of their predicates (cf. Hale & Keyser (1993) for English, Macfarland (1995) for English and French, Massam (1990) for English, Matsumoto (1996) for English and Japanese) ii. Others maintain that COs are adjuncts (cf. Jones (1988) for English, Moltmann (1989) for English and German, Zubizarreta (1987) for English). There are also studies like Pereltsvaig (1999, 2002), Nakajima (2006) which argue for both types. For instance, Nakajima makes a distinction between argumental and adverbial COs and points out that argumental COs are only possible with unergatives, whereas the COs certain unaccusatives take are adverbial, still arguing for the role of COs in the unaccusative-unergative split. 3 Cognate Objects in Sason Arabic The first striking fact about COs in Sason Arabic is that they can occur with a wide range of predi- cates. In Sason, COs can occur not only with unergative verbs, as in (7), but also with transitive verbs that have an overt direct object (italicized in (8)).1 (7) a. zake-ma kotti zak. laugh-a bad laughed.3m He laughed a bad laugh. b. sabi bayu ibki boy crying cry.3m The boy is crying a cry. (8) a. ali ams kitab qaru qara. ali yesterday book reading read.3m ‘Ali read book(s) yesterday.’ b. axpeys akıl ayale. bread eating ate.3f ‘She ate bread.’ 1Cognate objects and predicates they are associated with are boldfaced throughout. COGNATE OBJECTS IN SASON ARABIC 3 Moreover, in Sason Arabic unaccusative verbs can also productively take COs, as illustrated in (9). (9) a. badıncanad pat-ma gıze kotti patto. tomatoes rottening-a such bad rottened.3pl ‘The tomatoes rottened such a bad rottening.’ b. çiçak ubs-ma boş kotti ubes. flower fading-a very bad faded.3m ‘The flower faded a bad fading.’ c. nahar talu-ma koys tala ala sari sun appearing-a beautiful appeared.3m this morning ‘The sun appeared a beautiful appearance this morning.’ Likewise, COs can appear with predicates from all aspectual classes: activities (10a), accom- plishments (10b) and achievements (10c): (10) a. faqəz le sari faqaze. running of morning ran.3f ‘She ran a morning run.’ b. ene addil-ma imbala diqqat adlu-a. room building-a without care made.3pl-it ‘They built the room carelessly.’ c. mot-ma xəfef mat. death-a quick died.3m ‘He died a quick death.’ The fact that COs can occur with almost any type of predicate is problematic for the hypothesis that all COs are arguments of a verb. Thus, it seems like at least some COs in Sason are not selected, and there is no restriction on the occurrence of COs in terms of the argument structures of the pred- icates. With respect to the aspectual properties of predicates, Kuno and Takami (2004) argue that COs are acceptable if they denote a resultant object/product of an activity/process that the predicate de- notes. If the predicate denotes only the result without involving a process, as in the case of break, occur, appear, or only the manner of the process, then COs are not possible. However, in Sason there is no such restriction, as not only the predicates denoting processes, but also the ones denoting only results (11) or manner (12) are compatible with COs: (11) a. şuşa qarf ınqaraf. glass breaking broke.3m ‘The glass broke a breaking.’ b. nahar talu-ma koys tala ala sari. sun appearing-a beautiful appeared.3m this morning ‘The sun appeared a beautiful appearance this morning.’ c. dave say sare, hama boş nes ma-ca. wedding occurring occurred.3f but many person neg.3m ‘The wedding occurred an occuring, but not many people came.’ (12) a. babe fadu-ma hedi ınfada. door opening-a slow opened.3m ‘The door opened a slow opening.’ b. John maju-ma xıfef ca. John coming-a quick came.3m ‘John came a quick coming.’ c. şelç zabu-ma hedi zab. snow melting-a slow melt ‘The snow melted a slow melting.’ 4 FARUK AKKUŞ AND BALKIZ ÖZTÜRK This section has shown that COs in Sason can freely occur with a range of predicates, including unaccusatives, thus pose a problem for the hypothesis that all COs are arguments of a verb. The next section investigates the nature of COs in terms of their argumenthood vs. adjuncthood status and concludes that they are adverbial.2 4 Are Sason Cognate Objects Arguments or Adverbials? In order to address the question of whether COs are arguments or adverbials in SA, we need to define the criteria that distinguish between the two kinds of phrases (see Pereltsvaig (2002).
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