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Perfective by Default: Aspect-Shifting Affixes in Turkish Benjamin S

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Perfective by Default: Aspect-Shifting Affixes in Turkish Benjamin S Perfective by Default: Aspect-Shifting Affixes in Turkish Benjamin S. Meriçli Rethinking the Turkish Verbal Projection ■ Broader Goal: A more intuitive approach to Turkish verbal morphology – A project at the intersection of morphology, syntax, and semantics – Reexamining the tradition of Kornfilt (1996), Erguvanlı-Taylan (2001), Göksel & Kerslake (2005), Hankamer (2013), and many more ■ A First Step: Address the potentially theory-external questions. – A preliminary matter when mapping out the combinatorics of Turkish suffixes: Which suffixes contribute which varieties of meaning? ■ Why ConCALL: How does one such problem appear through the areal lens? 2 The Meaning at Hand: Viewpoint Aspect ■ Aspect (Comrie 1976, Johanson 2000, Bhatt & Pancheva 2005, etc.) – Aktionsart – Viewpoint Aspect > hereafter, aspect ■ Narrow Goal: Why do the Turkish past tense (-DI) and indirect evidential (-mIş) morphemes convey perfective aspect after a bare verb root, but imperfective aspect when preceded by the so-called copula (-Ø- / -y-) ? T [ V ___ ] T [ COP ___ ] -mIş (EVID) aspect PERF aspect IMPF -DI (PAST) 3 Briefly: PERF vs. IMPF ■ PERF: an event is viewed “from the outside” Ali made yogurt. Event Time Reference Time or Event Time Reference Time – Göksel & Kerslake (2005): Perfective aspect presents an event as a completed whole, with an identifiable beginning and end point. ■ IMPF: an event is viewed “from the inside” Ali was making yogurt. Event Time Reference Time 4 The Turkish Verbal Spine The tip of the morphosyntactic iceberg: Hankamer (2013) 5 Basic Data: Finite -DI & -mIş ■ Indirect Evidential: -mIş Finite Post-Verbal Finite Post-Copular (1) Hande anla-(*y)-mış. (2) Hande Kars-’ta-*(y)-mış. Hande understand-(*COP)-EVID Hande Kars-LOC-*(COP)-EVID ‘Hande apparently understood.’ ‘Hande was apparently in Kars.’ ■ Past Tense: -DI Finite Post-Verbal Finite Post-Copular (3) Ali dinle-(*y)-di. (4) Ali dinle-meli-*(y)-di. Ali listen-(*COP)-PAST Ali listen-NEC-*(COP)-PAST ‘Ali listened.’ ‘Ali should have listened.’ Post-Verbal: Copula Unacceptable Elsewhere (Post-Copular): Copula Obligatory 6 Non-Finite -DI & -mIş ■ Non-Finite Post-Verbal Relative Tense Nominal Expressions (5) Hande anla-mış-Ø-tı. (6) Nasreddin Hoca-’yı iyi anla-mış biri Hande understand-PERF-COP-PAST Nasreddin Hoca-ACC well understand-PERF one ‘Hande had understood.’ ‘one who understands Nasreddin Hoca well’ (7) Hande anla-dı-y-dı. (8) *Nasreddin Hoca-’yı iyi anla-dı biri Hande understand-PERF-COP-PAST Nasreddin Hoca-ACC well understand-PERF one ‘Hande had understood.’ ■ Non-Finite Post-Copular Unacceptable (9) *Hande Kars-’ta-y-mış-tı. (10) *Kars-’ta-y-mış biri Hande Kars-LOC-COP-EVID Kars-LOC-COP-EVID one 7 ∴ Exclude Non-Finite -DI & -mIş ■ They have different interpretations than their finite counterparts. – Non-finite -mIş does not convey the core meaning of finite -mIş: EVID. – Non-finite -DI does not convey the core meaning of finite -DI: PAST. ■ They are licensed in distinct morphosyntactic environments. – Non-finite -DI and -mIş subcategorize for bare verbs to create relative tenses (e.g., past perfect). – Non-finite -mIş subcategorizes for bare verbs to create nominal expressions (e.g., APs and DPs). – In neither case can the suffixes be said to occupy T. Finite -DI and -mIş are distinct from their non-finite counterparts. In other words, a suffix and its non-finite counterpart are distinct lexical items. 8 Finite -DI & -mIş: Post-Verbal ■ Post-verbal -DI and -mIş incompatible with stative predicates. (11) #Türkçe iyi bil-di. (12) #Elma çok sev-miş. Turkish well know-PAST apple much love-EVID Intended: ‘She knew Turkish well.’ Intended: ‘He apparently really loved apples.’ ■ Post-verbal -DI and -mIş can coerce non-stative readings (de Swart 1998, Homer 2011). (13) Doktor ol-du. (14) Lezzetli ol-muş. doctor be-PAST tasty be-EVID ‘She became a doctor.’ ‘It (apparently) turned out to be tasty.’ #‘She was a doctor.’ #‘It was (apparently) tasty.’ Post-verbal -DI and -mIş convey perfective aspect. 9 Finite -DI & -mIş: Post-Copular ■ Post-copular -DI and -mIş compatible with stative predicates. (15) Hande Kars-’ta-y-mış. (16) Ali öğrenci-y-di. Hande Kars-LOC-COP-EVID Ali student-COP-PAST ‘Hande was apparently in Kars.’ ‘Ali was a student.’ ■ We can also construct a stative predicate from other TAM markers. (17) Türkçe iyi öğren- { iyor / ir / ecek / meli / mek-te / miş } -{ y / Ø } -DI. Turkish well learn-{ PROG / AOR / FUT / NEC / INF-LOC / PERF } -COP -PAST ‘She { was learning / would have learned / was going to learn / should have learned / was in the process of learning / had learned } Turkish well.’ Post-copular -DI and -mIş convey imperfective aspect. 10 Finite -DI & -mIş: A Final Diagnostic ■ With particular predicates, completive adverbials are known to differentiate perfective from imperfective aspect (Bhatt & Pancheva 2005). Post-Verbal Post-Copular (18) Beş sene-de hemşire ol-du-m. (19) ??Beş sene-de hemşire-y-di-m. five year-LOC nurse be-PAST-1s five year-LOC nurse-COP-PAST-1s ‘I became a nurse in five years.’ Intended: ‘I became a nurse in five years.’ ∴ Post-verbal and post-copular -DI and -mIş indeed have distinct aspectual readings. T [ V ___ ] T [ COP ___ ] -mIş (EVID) aspect PERF aspect IMPF -DI (PAST) 11 Summary and Way Forward ■ Non-finite -DI and -mIş are rightly excluded from an analysis of finite -DI and -mIş. ■ Finite post-verbal and post-copular -DI and -mIş have distinct aspectual readings. – Should a theory of morphosyntax treat a post-verbal suffix as the same lexical item as its post-copular counterpart? – Challenge: It should, and it can. ■ In theory-independent terms, this approach argues that a parsimonious account… – will treat a suffix’s non-finite and finite versions as distinct LIs. – will treat a suffix’s post-verbal and post-copular (finite) versions as the same LI. – will treat a suffix’s finite version as unspecified for aspect. 12 Finite -DI & -mIş Unspecified for Aspect ■ A parsimonious model for Turkish verbal morphology: -DI contributes only PAST whether post-verbal or post-copular (20) Lexical Item for -DI: T (PAST) ; [ { V / COP } ___ ] -mIş contributes only EVID whether post-verbal or post-copular (21) Lexical Item for -mIş: T (EVID) ; [ { V / COP } ___ ] ■ If -DI and -mIş are unspecified for aspect, then how do the different aspectual specifications (PERF vs. IMPF) arise? ■ Aspect is contributed from elsewhere in the verbal projection. 13 Imperfective by Copula ■ As we saw above, post-copular -DI and -mIş are compatible with stative predicates and degraded with completive adverbials. – We took this as evidence that post-copular -DI and -mIş are IMPF. ■ However, say we attribute IMPF aspect to the copula itself. – Then post-copular -DI and -mIş can remain unspecified for aspect. ■ Historical Support: The copula in question -y-/-Ø- descends historically from the now seldom used bound copula i- (see Bybee & Dahl 1989, Göksel & Kerslake 2005). (22) Hande Kars-’ta i-miş. (23) Ali öğrenci i-di. Hande Kars-LOC be-EVID Ali student be-PAST ‘Hande was apparently in Kars.’ ‘Ali was a student.’ 14 Perfective by Default ■ Similarly, post-verbal -DI and -mIş are infelicitous with stative predicates but fine with completive adverbials. – We took this as evidence that post-verbal -DI and -mIş are PERF. T ■ However, say we propose PERF as the aspectual elsewhere case. (COP) – Then post-verbal -DI and -mIş can remain unspecified for aspect. V (ASP) ■ For clauses otherwise unmarked for aspect, the clause defaults to PERF. – i.e., bare verbs ({ ASP / COP } = Ø) are perfective ■ Evidence from Imperatives: Imperatives, which often take the form of a bare verb, bear perfective aspect as a cross-linguistic default (Kaufmann 2012). 15 PERF & IMPF: Composition ■ What results is a fundamental morphosyntactic/semantic opposition. – Unmarked aspect: PERF – Marked aspect: IMPF T (COP) ■ We assume that the verbal domain denotes an event predicate. V (ASP) (24) [[ V ]] = λe.P(e) ■ COP now becomes the domain of viewpoint aspect (PERF vs. IMPF), with ASP reserved for other TAM information. (25) [T -DI / -mIş [COP Viewpoint Aspect [ASP Other TAM Content [V Event Predicate ]]]] ■ Recall that EVID, though not a tense marker, is also hosted in T. 16 PERF & IMPF: Working Denotations ■ If COP is empty, the clause defaults to [[ PERF ]]. When the copula is present, COP contributes [[ IMPF ]]. ■ Adapted from Bhatt & Pancheva (2005): (26) [[ PERF ]] = λP . λt . ∃e [ τ(e) ⊆ τ(r) ∧ P(e) ] T (27) [[ IMPF ]] = λP . λt . ∃e [ τ(r) ⊂ τ(e) ∧ P(e) ] (COP) e : an event V (ASP) τ(e) : event time; the runtime of the event τ(r) : reference time; time during which proposition at issue is taken to be true P(e) : a predicate P 17 Summary of Proposal ■ Theoretical Parsimony: Even before assembling a formal account, we can aim for simplicity by minimizing its moving parts. ■ This account does so by – distinguishing elements by their syntax & semantics, not their phonology, and – uniting post-verbal and post-copular -DI and -mIş. ■ While the account generally follows in the tradition of Kornfilt (1996) through Hankamer (2013)… – it presents a generic roadmap for any theory aiming to tackle the problem. – In other words: we are one step up from a descriptive grammar. 18 Looking Forward ■ Historical Projects: Semantic & Syntactic Change – Model the development of -y-/-Ø- from the bound copula i-. – Investigate development of non-finite -mIş. ■ Areal Projects: Variation & Areal Diffusion – Examine similar phenomena in other Turkic languages. – Compare to genetically unrelated but co-located languages. ■ Regarding Default Perfective Aspect: – Show whether this default aspect can be entailed or implicated in the sense of Bohnemeyer & Swift (2004) -- i.e., a proper formal explanation. – Conduct a thorough study of the aspectual properties of imperatives and other “bare” verb forms -- e.g., bil, bil-se, bil-sin.
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