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Island Constraints and Extraction of Lexical Case-Marked Dps in Finnish and Turkish

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Island Constraints and Extraction of Lexical Case-Marked Dps in Finnish and Turkish ISLAND CONSTRAINTS AND EXTRACTION OF LEXICAL CASE-MARKED DPS IN FINNISH AND TURKISH REBECCA TOLLAN University of York Abstract This paper investigates the acceptability of types of wh-question formation which involve extraction out of strong syntactic islands in languages with rich lexical case marking systems. By considering these types of extraction, I aim to test Cinque’s (1990) diagnostic regarding the distinction between different island- hood strengths, namely that so-called ‘strong’ islands, whilst sometimes allowing DP extraction, do not allow extraction of a PP due to unavailability of PP resumption at the extraction site. I will claim, based upon evidence from extraction of DPs in Finnish and Turkish, that this hypothesis is certainly on the right track, but suggest an potential alternative explanation for the PP-DP extraction asymmetry observed in other languages. 1. Introduction Cinque (1990) proposes that the distinction between strong and weak islands lies in the acceptability of PP extraction, whereby an island from which PP extraction is licensed must also allow DP extraction (a so-called weak island, involving genuine movement), whereas an island allowing only DP extraction is considered as ‘strong’. According to Cinque, extraction from strong islands involves a resumption strategy, whereby the site from which a DP has been extracted is occupied by a null resumptive pronoun; since PPs cannot be resumed, PP movement is not licensed. Extraction from an adjunct island in English, for example, may take place only when any preposition selecting the extracted DP is stranded, and hence only the DP is moved, as in (1); the preposition cannot be pied-piped, as in (2). (1) Who did you leave [without talking to_]? (2) *To whom did you leave [without talking_]? The aforementioned hypothesis, however, is based only upon data from English and Italian, both of which have relatively few types of case marking. Cinque does not consider languages in which arguments expressed as a PP in English and/or Italian would be expressed as a lexically case-marked DP. This paper addresses behaviour of extraction in two such languages: Turkish and Finnish, as well as concurrently considering analyses of Finnish by Nikanne (1993) which claim that all lexically case-marked DPs are in fact PPs. Based upon data collected by means of two questionnaires, I will suggest that Cinque’s hypothesis is, on York Papers in Linguistics Series 2 ISSN 1758-0315 Issue 12a © The Author, 2012 103 Island Constraints and Extraction of Lexical Case-marked DPs in Finnish and Turkish the whole, correct; that DPs with lexical case cannot be analysed as PPs under the Cinquean diagnostic; and that the structure of certain spatial DPs impacts upon their extraction properties. 1.1. Structural and lexical case Throughout this paper, a distinction is made between ‘structural’ and ‘lexical’ case marking. I define structural case here as (according to Davison (2004)) case which is theta independent and assigned as a function of structural position. Lexical case is defined as that which is theta-related and assigned due to lexical selection. 2. Background: weak and strong islands in English A distinction is typically made in syntactic literature between strong and weak island types. Strong islands (also referred to as ‘absolute’ (Szabolcsi 2002) or ‘locked’ (Postal 1997/8)) are those which do not generally allow extraction, unless, in occasional circumstances, with an appropriate resumptive pronoun. Weak (also known as ‘selective’ (Szabolcsi 2002) or ‘unlocked’ (Postal 1997/8)) islands allow more extraction than strong islands, although certain selectional requirements can restrict what types of phrases may be extracted (this is usually based upon argument referentality and specificity). The types of islands listed by Cinque (1990:7) as strong and weak are given below in (3) and (4), with relevant examples. (3) Strong islands a. Subject island *Which books did [talking about _] become difficult? *Which conference did [that Anne attended _] surprise you? b. Complex DP island *To whom have you found [someone who would speak_]? *Who did you read [a book that Peter gave to_]? c. Adjunct island *To whom did you leave [without speaking_]? *Which shop did you go to the farm [after buying groceries from _]? (4) Weak islands a. Wh-island ? To whom didn’t they know [when to give their present_]? *How did they ask [who behaved_]? b. Inner negative island To whom [didn’t you speak_]? *How [didn’t you behave_]? c. Factive island To whom do you regret [that you could not speak_]? *How do you regret [that you behaved_]? d. Extraposition island To whom [is it time to speak_]? *How [is it time to behave_]? This study focuses specifically on extraction from strong islands. Cinque observes that some islands of this type can sometimes allow extraction of a DP, but never a PP (as was illustrated in the examples in (1) and (2)). He therefore makes the claim in (5) regarding the strong/weak distinction. Rebecca Tollan 104 (5) Cinque’s strong/weak diagnostic (as worded by Szabolcsi 2002:4) Among those domains that do not allow all standard extractions, those that allow a PP-gap are weak islands, and those that can at best contain a DP-gap are strong islands (and their DP-gap is an empty pronoun). On this account, a strong island with PP extraction such as in (2) is ungrammatical because a PP cannot be resumed. If Cinque’s diagnostic is taken to be true, then languages which convey the semantics of prepositions with lexical case marking (i.e. thereby expressing a would-be English PP such as ‘to whom’ as a DP with a case affix) should allow more extraction from strong (i.e. subject, complex DP and adjunct) islands than does English. In particular, constructions of the type in (2) ought to be acceptable, since unavailability of (PP) resumption should not be a factor in a language which expresses a PP argument of this type as DP. An investigation into DP extraction in such a language ought therefore to serve as a true test of Cinque’s claim in (5). 3. Case marking systems in Turkish and Finnish Of those languages whose case marking systems allow for certain would-be English PPs to be expressed as DPs, Turkish and Finnish were chosen as test-languages for this study. Reasons for this choice were based upon three conditions: firstly, availability of native speakers who were able to give grammaticality judgements; secondly, licensing of certain types of extraction from islands in general (Polish and German, for example, were considered as test- languages for the study but were ruled out due to general dislike of speakers for extraction of any type, even where no lexical case marking is involved); thirdly, the specific types of case- marking found in Turkish and Finnish will, when studied together, allow for testing of a wide variety of different PP-equivalents. In particular, Finnish has a rich locative case system, thereby allowing for investigation into extraction of different locative DPs. Finnish does not, however, have an equivalent to the Indo-European dative case (which would be typically used to express the PP ‘to whom’ from example (2)). Turkish on the other hand, has only two types of locative case but also has a dative case marker, allowing for more effective testing of sentences of types (1) and (2). A background to the basic word order and case systems in these two languages follows in sections 3.1–2. 3.1 Case marking in Turkish Turkish belongs to the Altaic language family. Basic word order is SOV. It is generally regarded as a wh-in situ language, although Akar (1990) proposes that Turkish wh-phrases undergo raising to [spec, CP] at LF. Turkish has a six-case system, as outlined in (6). The former three (nominative, accusative and genitive) are structural cases and the latter two (locative and ablative) are lexical. Dative case can have either structural or lexical use (von Heusinger & Kornfilt 2005). Turkish also has a number of postpositions. (6) Turkish case system Nominative: (zero inflection) expresses grammatical subject Accusative: (-i) expresses grammatical object Genitive: (-in) expresses ownership/possession Dative: (-e) expresses movement towards, as conveyed by the English preposition ‘to’ Locative: (-de) expresses static position Ablative: (-den) expresses movement away 105 Island Constraints and Extraction of Lexical Case-marked DPs in Finnish and Turkish I aim in particular to collect acceptability judgements for extraction of dative- and locative- marked DPs from strong islands (ablative case is addressed as part of the discussion of Finnish locative case in section 6). 3.2 Case marking in Finnish Finnish is a member of the Uralic language family. Basic word order is SVO, although many types of scrambling are permitted. The Finnish case system comprises some sixteen different cases, as listed in (7). In addition, Finnish also has a small number of postpositions. (7) Finnish case system (from Holmberg & Nikanne 1993) Structural cases: Nominative: (zero inflection) expresses grammatical subject Genitive: (-n) expresses ownership Partitive: (-ä) expresses specific grammatical object Accusative: (-n/-Ø) expresses less-specific grammatical object General locative cases: Translative: (-kse) expresses change of state Essive: (-nä) expresses English ‘as’ Internal locative cases: Inessive: (-ssä) ‘in’ (stative) Illative: (-on) ‘into’ Elative: (-stä) ‘from (within)’ External locative cases: Adessive: (-llä) ‘on’ (stative) Allative: (-lle) ‘onto’ Ablative: (-ltä) ‘from (on)’ Marginal cases: Abessive: (-ttä) ‘without’ Comitative: (-ne) ‘together with’ Instructive: (-n) expresses instrument/method Prolative: (-tse) ‘via’ Due to the small scale of this study, my collection of acceptability judgments for Finnish island conditions focuses on extraction of DPs marked for internal locative case. The external locative cases are, however, an important part of the analysis in section 6.
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