INVERSION IN COPULAR CLAUSES AND ITS CONSEQUENCES by NAGARAJAN SELVANATHAN A dissertation submitted to the Graduate School—New Brunswick Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey In partial fulfillment of the requirements For the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Graduate Program in Linguistics Written under the direction of Mark Baker And approved by New Brunswick, New Jersey October, 2016 ABSTRACT OF THE DISSERTATION Inversion in copular clauses and its consequences by NAGARAJAN SELVANATHAN Dissertation Director: Professor Mark Baker In this dissertation, I investigate specificational copular clauses (Higgins 1973). My aim is to not only propose an analysis for how such specificational copular clauses are derived but also to use such constructions as a testing ground for evaluating and/ or revising different aspects of linguistic theory. The language I primarily use towards these ends is Tamil (Dravidian) although English (among others) plays a significant role. With respect to the analysis of specificational copular clauses, I use subject-verb agreement data from Tamil specificational copular clauses in order to support the claim that specificational copular clauses are inverted predications (Moro 1997, Mikkelsen 2004, den Dikken 2006). However, this is not to negate the claim that specificational copular clauses are equations (Jacobson 1994, Heycock & Kroch 1999, Sharvit 1999, Heller 2004). I propose that syntactic predication can be unified with semantic equation using somewhat standard notions of type-shifting (Partee 1987). I also exploit the fact that specificational copular clauses have a fixed Topic-Focus order (Heycock & Kroch 2002). In this respect, the general idea is similar to Mikkelsen (2004) but differs from her as I propose a semantic account of the facts that is compatible with her syntactic approach. I also investigate the behavior of (relatively neglected) specificational copular ii clauses with indefinite subjects and propose an analysis which is uniform with the analysis proposed for specificational copular clauses with definite and possessive subjects. In this dissertation, I also investigate what inverted constructions such as specificational copular clauses tell us about the way languages syntactically combine nodes. A recent theoretical advance with respect to this question is the Labeling Algorithm (Chomsky 2013, 2014) and I argue that inversion structures such as specificational copular clauses, and OVS reversals (like that found in Kirundi and Russian). In order to support this, I reanalyze Kirundi OVS reversal (Ura 1996, Ndayiragije 1999) where the richest evidence is found. Perhaps one of the most famous/ important properties of specificational copular clauses is that they exhibit connectivity. Here, I illustrate two different types of Tamil specificational copular clauses. Interestingly, one specificational copular clause exhibits only a proper subset of the connectivity effects exhibited by the other. I propose that this can be attributed to their different syntactic derivations which is independently motivated. I use these facts to investigate reflexive binding and propose that a comparison of English and Tamil reflexive connectivity suggests that the types of interpretations that reflexive pronouns have in English and Tamil differs. iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Graduate school, in general, and dissertation writing, in particular, is difficult business. It is especially difficult because the day-to-day business of Life does not take a break while a dissertation is being written and defended. Thankfully, I have been very fortunate to have so many people in my corner cheering me on, motivating me, and providing support (in various guises) when I needed it the most. Mark Baker was the chair of my second qualifying paper, which is why I was surprised that he agreed to be my dissertation chair with very little hesitation. I am thankful that he did because I have learnt so much from him about how to approach a research project of this magnitude. He has also sat through so many meetings with me where he would patiently indulge my wild ideas before letting me know (gently) that they were indeed too wild and why they were too wild. He was also instrumental in raising my spirits many times when my motivation to finish was starting to flag. I will always be thankful to him and it goes without saying that this dissertation would be in an immensely poorer state without his direct involvement. I have to thank Ken Safir for several reasons. His ability to ignore the padding and get to the crux of what is important/ interesting is a skill I can only hope to have learnt in at least a little amount in the time I have studied under him. Ken has also provided a lot of financial support by hiring me as his graduate assistant for two years. Those two years have been instrumental in my growth as an academic. iv Veneeta Dayal's guidance in this dissertation cannot be understated. While one can always count on her to be a great cheerleader, she is not just a friendly face as she can be sharp and to-the-point with her astute criticisms. I know that I am only one in a long line of people who would have never thought to do serious semantics but now have changed their minds after having Veneeta in our committees. Marcel den Dikken's ability to return manuscripts with detailed comments in very short time is nothing short of awe-inspiring. His keen observations, insights and suggestions can be found in every chapter of this dissertation. I would also like to thank all the other faculty members that I have had the pleasure of taking classes/ interacting with throughout my time here at Rutgers. Alan Prince, Jane Grimshaw, Paul de Lacy, Bruce Tesar, Maria Bittner have all contributed to the completion of this dissertation in one way or another. I would also like to thank my colleagues and friends; Vandana Bajaj, Liu Mingming, Xu Beibei, Hope McManus, Umit Atlamaz, Nick Danis, Diti Badhra, Matt Barros, and Jeremy Perkins for their companionship and intellectual stimulation. Without the support and love of my parents, Selvanathan and Kamaladevi, not a single word in this dissertation would have been written. Even though they would have rather I stayed in Singapore, they were always supportive even when I told them that I wanted to pursue my graduate studies 15, 000 miles away. My sisters and my nieces have also been integral parts of my support system. I would also like to thank my in-laws, Arthur and Pauline, for their cheerleading from afar, not to mention their generosity which deserves a much lengthier expression of gratitude than I can display here. v Lynette, my wife, is my pillar. Throughout the ups and downs of graduate school, she has always been there for me even if she had a long day herself. I only hope I allow her to lean on me half as much as I have leaned on her. Finally, we come to Norah. Having a bossy two year old around while trying to write a dissertation is not something I would recommend to anyone. But I can't imagine having done it any other way. vi DEDICATION To my parents who saw me through the early part of this journey, and to my wife who has seen me through the rest. vii TABLE OF CONTENTS Abstract…………………………………………………………………………...……...ii Acknowledgement………………………………………………...……………………..iv Dedication……………………………………………………………………………….vii Chapter 1 Introduction................................................................................................1 1.1 Specificational copular clauses, inversion and connectivity ..............................1 1.2 Outline of Dissertation .....................................................................................8 Chapter 2 Specificational Copular Clauses as Inverted Predications .....................10 2.1 Introduction .......................................................................................................10 2.2 Specificational copular clauses in Tamil............................................................13 2.2.1 The -aa suffix as a Pred head........................................................................14 2.2.2 Inverting the Predicate..................................................................................20 2.3 Where does neuter agreement come from? .........................................................25 2.3.1 Neuter Agreement is not default agreement ..................................................26 2.3.2 Neuter Agreement is not semantic agreement...............................................32 2.3.3 The subject is not a concealed question .........................................................36 2.3.4 Taking Stock................................................................................................40 2.4 Where does the neuter feature of predicates come from?....................................40 2.4.1 Dependent Case Marking (Baker 2015)........................................................42 2.5 A further application of [FP F DP] as the predicate nominal ................................45 2.6 Feature Unification and Labeling .......................................................................51 viii 2.7 Conclusion.........................................................................................................55 Chapter 3 The Semantics of Specificational Copular Clauses .................................58 3.1 Introduction....................................................................................................58 3.2 Inverted Predication vs. Equation...................................................................61