Anaphoric correlatives in Ossetic and beyond Oleg Belyaev, Dag Haug All sourced examples are from the Ossetic National Corpus¹. I mark the source as “ONC” when the corpus does not include data about the source (unfortunately, this is sometimes the case). Un- sourced examples are elicited from native speakers; I have tried to keep them to a minimum in order to be as objective as possible. 1 General info on correlatives A classic example from Hindi: (1) [[ jo laṛkii ]DPrel khaṛii hai ] [ vo ]DPmat lambii hai girl standing is she tall is ‘e girl who is standing is tall’ (Srivastav 1991) Two analyses in the literature (Srivastav 1991; Bha 2003): CP CPrel СPmat whi girli you gave flowers to I saw DPmat heri CP CP[rel]i СPmat whi girl you gave flower to I saw DP CPrel DPmat ti her In the former case, the mediation is said to be “anaphoric”. However, in all explicit analyses (that I know o) we still deal with variable binding, i.e. the correlate is like an “overt trace”, so the resultant semantics is the same as that of ordinary RCs, only derived differently. E.g. Srivastav provides the following semantics for the RC: (2) 휆푃.푃(휄푥(girl′(푥) ∧ stand′(푥))) e correlate is interpreted as a “phonetically realized trace”, thus the main clause is an open proposition, in this case 휆푥. tall’(푥). We substitute this into (2) and get: (3) 휆푃.푃(휄푥. girl′(푥) ∧ stand′(푥))(휆푥. tall’(푥)) ⇒ tall(휄푥. girl′(푥) ∧ stand′(푥)) Compare this to the standard semantics for relative clauses, i.e. set intersection (ine 1960; Partee 1975, 229; Larson and Segal 1995, 256; Zwart 2000, 378): (4) ⟦girl who is standing⟧ = 휆푥. girl(푥) ∧ stand(푥) If we combine this with a definite article, we will eventually get the same meaning as in 3: (5) a. ⟦the⟧ = 휆푃.휄푥.푃(푥) b. ⟦the girl who is standing⟧ = 휄푥. girl(푥) ∧ stand(푥) 1. http://corpus.ossetic-studies.org/en 1 c. ⟦the girl who is standing is tall⟧ = tall(휄푥. girl′(푥) ∧ stand′(푥)) So basically Srivastav’s analysis treats correlatives as definite RCs, only derived differently². In what follows I will show that for Ossetic and a few other languages, such an analysis meets with considerable difficulties, and we must rather analyze the linking between DPrel and DPmat as a kind of coreference. 2 e syntax of (simple) correlatives e basic structure of the correlative clause in Ossetic is illustrated by the following (the list of glosses is at the end of the paper): (6) a. [ didinǯ-ətɜ sə čəžg-ɜn ba-lɜvar kod-t-aj ], fed-t-on wəj flower- what girl- -present do--.2 see.--.1 DemDist[] fəd-ə father- b. fedton, [ didinǯətɜ sə čəžgɜn balɜvar kodtaj ], wəj fədə ‘I saw the father of the girl that you gave flowers to.’ at is, DPrel is preverbal, and is “resumed” in the main clause by DPmat containing a distal demonstrative. e subordinate clause may be located either in the le-peripheral position or im- mediately preceding the correlate. From the syntactic point of view, both DPrel and DPmat are full-fledged DPs, that can have their own modifiers such as numerals, adjectives, and even certain quantifiers: (7) … [ sə birɜ čingʷə-tɜ ba-kašt aχɜšton-ə ], wədon-ə midiš =dɜr what many book- -see[..3] prison- DemDist- content =zə nɜ roχ kod-t-a. 3SgEncl. oblivion do--.3 ‘He didn’t forget the content of the many books that he read in prison.’ (ONC: Gusalov B.M. I vozdastsja každomu, 2003) (8) [ jekup-ə kɜrt-ə sə ɜrtɜ fɜtk’ʷə-jə žaj-ə ], wədon-ə dərʁ-tɜ Ekup- garden- what three apple- grow-.3 DemDist.- fruit- raǯə ɜfšnajd ɜr-səd-əštə… long_ago gather. -go-..3 ‘e fruits from the three apple trees that grow in Ekup’s garden have been gathered long ago.’ (ONC: Max dug 4, 2008) As is typical for correlatives in different languages (including Hindi), the subordinate clause has two potential positions: le-adjoined to the main clause and le-adjoined to the correlate: (9) a. [ didinǯ-ətɜ sə čəžg-ɜn ba-lɜvar kod-t-aj ], fed-t-on wəj flower- what girl- -present do--.2 see.--.1 DemDist. fəd-ə father- b. fedton, [ didinǯətɜ sə čəžgɜn balɜvar kodtaj ], wəj fədə ‘I saw the father of the girl you gave flowers to.’ In the laer case, the RC and DPmat form a constituent, since the RC must immediately precede DPmat, and two groups of RC+DPmat can be coordinated: 2. For universal interpretations she also has a conditional reading, but I omit this at this point. 2 (10) alan kɜš-ə, [[[ sə činəgi =ən ba-lɜvar kod-t-a aslan ], Alan read-.3 what book 3SgEncl. -present do--.3 Aslan wəji ]DP, ɜmɜ [[ sə statʲjaj nə-ffəšt-a žawər ], wəjj ]DP ]CoP DemDist[/] and what article -write-..3 Zaur DemDist[/] ‘Alan is reading the book that Aslan gave him and the article that Zaur wrote.’ A demonstrative DPmat is obligatory; it is impossible not to have any correlate, or for the correlate to be expressed by an enclitic pronoun or a possessive proclitic (there are certain exceptions, but I will omit them here): (11) * [ či rba-sɜw-a ], dwar ba-jgom kɜn who. -go-.3 door -open do[.2] (‘(I) who comes, open the door.’) (12) [ sə lɜpːui ɜrba-səd-i ], wəji /*∅i me= fšəmɜr u what boy -go-..3 DemDist[] 1SgPoss brother be..3 ‘e boy who came is my brother.’ (13) a. [ sə lɜpːui ɜrba-səd-i ], wəm-ɜni činəg rad-t-on what boy -go-..3 DemDist- book give..1 b. * [ sə lɜpːui ɜrba-səd-i ], činəg =əni rad-t-on what boy -go-..3 book 3SgEncl. give..1 ‘I gave the book to the boy who came.’ us I assume that syntactically, correlative clauses are adjuncts to either CP or DP. As I will show below, this has no important consequences for the semantics (at least not for the issue I am going to discuss). 3 Semantics 3.1 Why the linking is anaphoric Bridging Correlatives can have both an internal and an external “head”. In most cases the sub- ordinator and the correlate are coreferent as in referring to the same entity, but we also find some examples of bridging: (14) [ afɜz-ɜj afɜz-mɜ =šɜ sə kɜnd-tɜi qɜw-ə ], wə-sə year- year- 3PlEncl. what remembrance- need-.3 DemDist- χɜrz-tɜj∼i mɜ= χi-mɜ iš-ən. expense- 1SgPoss Refl- take-.1 ‘I take the expenses needed for the remembrances that they need every year on myself.’ (lit. ‘What remembrancesi they need every year, I take these expensesj∼i on myself.’) (ONC) (15) [ pišmo sə boni ra-jšt-a ], wə-sə ižɜrj∈i ješt’a ɜmɜ verɜ-mɜ leer what day -receive-..3 DemDist- evening Esta and Vera- nə-ffəšt-a ladinɜ-jə χabar bɜlvərd-dɜr ba-žon-ən-ə təχːɜj. -write-..3 Ladina- story precise- -know- for ‘In the evening of the day when he received the leer, he wrote to Esta and Vera in order to get to know Ladina’s story more precisely.’ (lit. ‘On what day he received the laer, that evening he wrote …’) (ONC) (16) danel, [ fɜštag-mɜ jɜ= χo-t-ɜm sə k’ami a-rvəšt-a ], wə-sə Danel last- 3SgPoss sister- what photo -send-..3 DemDist- kostʲum-əj∼i, urš χɜdon ɜmɜ tar galstuč-ə lɜwwəd. suit- white shirt and dark tie- stand[..3] 3 ‘Danel stood in the same suit that he was in on the photo he sent to his sisters last time, white shirt and dark tie.’ (lit. ‘Danel, what photo he sent to his sisters last time, he stood in that costume, white shirt and dark tie.’) (ONC) (17) [ adɜjmag χʷəždɜr sə vžag-əli zur-a ], wə-sə adɜməχatː-ɜjj∼i person beer what language- speak-.3 DemDist- nationality- u. be..3 ‘A person belongs to the nation whose language s/he speaks beer.’ (lit. ‘What languagei a person speaks beer, from that nationj∼i he is.’) (ONC: Ajlarov I., Gadžinova R., Kcoeva R. Poslovicy [Proverbs]. 2005) Interestingly, we find such indirect linking even when the relative clause is DP-adjoined: (18) ɜž χorž žəd-t-on, [ de= št’ol-əl sə k’am iš ], wə-sə lɜpːu-jə I well knew your on.table what photo is DemDist- boy ‘I knew well the boy whose photo is on your table.’ (lit. ‘I knew well, what photo is on your table, that boy.’) (ONC) Now these are impossible to accommodate to a variable binding/standard set intersection anal- ysis as far as I can see. So we need some kind of indirect anaphoric coreference to do the trick. Split antecedents Unlike in Hindi etc., Ossetic correlatives may stack, i.e. there may be several subordinate clauses at the le periphery corresponding to a single correlate (but not to several dif- ferent correlates). In this case we may have split antecedents, i.e. one correlate corresponding to a sum of all the DPrels: (19) [ sard-ɜj sə konflikt-tɜi išt-a ], [ sə χarakter-tɜj ɜvdəšt-a ], life- what conflict- take-..3 what character- demonstrate-..3 wədoni+j wəd-əštə kadɜǯ-ə ɜrmɜg. DemDist. be-..3 legend- material ‘What conflictsi he took from life, what aractersj he demonstrated, theyi+j were legendary material.’ (ONC) (20) [ kalač-ə sə sɜl, sə bon wəd-i ], [ sə χɜžna wəd-i ], city- what goods what force be-..3 what richness be-..3 wədon ra-χašt-oj ɜfšɜd-tɜ. DemDist. -carry-..3 army- ‘What goodsi, what forcej, what rinessk there was in the city, the armies took themi+j+k away.’ (Max dug 8, 1996) (21) labažan =dɜr gašan-ə χʷəžɜn kʷə w-aid, χabib =dɜr, mɜχɜmɜt =dɜr, štɜj Labazan Gasan- like if be-.3 Khabib Makhamat then innɜ-tɜ =dɜr, [ kɜj žon-ə ] mɜ [ kɜj nɜ žon-ə ], wədon other- who.