The Dependencies of Objects (Linguistic Inquiry Monographs, 34)

cover title: author: publisher: isbn10 | asin: print isbn13: ebook isbn13: language: subject publication date: lcc: ddc...

Author: Esther Torrego

23 downloads 639 Views 872KB Size Report

This content was uploaded by our users and we assume good faith they have the permission to share this book. If you own the copyright to this book and it is wrongfully on our website, we offer a simple DMCA procedure to remove your content from our site. Start by pressing the button below!
Report copyright / DMCA form

DOWNLOAD PDF

cover

title: author: publisher: isbn10 | asin: print isbn13: ebook isbn13: language: subject publication date: lcc: ddc: subject:

next page >

The Dependencies of Objects Linguistic Inquiry Monographs ; 34 Torrego, Esther. MIT Press 0262700689 9780262700689 9780585069289 English Grammar, Comparative and general--Complement, Semantics, Markedness (Linguistics) , Minimalist theory (Linguistics) , Romance languages--Syntax. 1998 P299.C59T67 1998eb 415 Grammar, Comparative and general--Complement, Semantics, Markedness (Linguistics) , Minimalist theory (Linguistics) , Romance languages--Syntax.

cover If you like this book, buy it!

next page >

< previous page

page_i

next page > Page i

The Dependencies of Objects

< previous page

page_i If you like this book, buy it!

next page >

< previous page

page_ii

next page > Page ii

Linguistic Inquiry Monographs Samuel Jay Keyser, general editor 1. Word Formation in Generative Grammar, Mark Aronoff 2. X Syntax: A Study of Phrase Structure, Ray Jackendoff 3. Recent Transformational Studies in European Languages, ed. Samuel Jay Keyser 4. Studies in Abstract Phonology, Edmund Gussmann 5. An Encyclopedia of AUX A Study in Cross-Linguistic Equivalence, Susan Steele 6. Some Concepts and Consequences of the Theory of Government and Binding, Noam Chomsky 7. The Syntax of Words, Elisabeth Selkirk 8. Syllable Structure and Stress in Spanish: A Nonlinear Analysis, James W. Harris 9. CV Phonology: A Generative Theory of the Syllable, George N. Clements and Samuel Jay Keyser 10. On the Nature of Grammatical Relations, Alec Marantz 11. A Grammar of Anaphora, Joseph Aoun 12. Logical Form: Its Structure and Derivation, Robert May 13. Barriers, Noam Chomsky 14. On the Definition of Word, Anna-Maria Di Sciullo and Edwin Williams 15. Japanese Tone Structure, Janet Pierrehumbert and Mary Beckman 16. Relativized Minimality, Luigi Rizzi 17. Types of A-Dependencies, Guglielmo Cinque 18. Argument Structure, Jane Grimshaw 19. Locality: A Theory and Some of Its Empirical Consequences, Maria Rita Manzini 20. Indefinites, Molly Diesing 21. Syntax of Scope, Joseph Aoun and Yen-hui Audrey Li 22. Morphology by Itself: Stems and Inflectional Classes, Mark Aronoff 23. Thematic Structure in Syntax, Edwin Williams 24. Indices and Identity, Robert Fiengo and Robert May 25. The Antisymmetry of Syntax, Richard S. Kayne 26. Unaccusativity: At the Syntax-Lexical Semantics Interface, Beth Levin and Malka Rappaport Hovav 27. Lexico-Logical Form: A Radically Minimalist Theory, Michael Brody 28. The Architecture of the Language Faculty, Ray Jackendoff 29. Local Economy, Chris Collins 30. Surface Structure and Interpretation, Mark Steedman 31. Elementary Operations and Optimal Derivations, Hisatsugu Kitahara 32. The Syntax of Nonfinite Complementation, Zeljko Boskovíc 33. Prosody, Focus, and Word Order, Maria Luisa Zubizarreta 34. The Dependencies of Objects, Esther Torrego

< previous page

page_ii If you like this book, buy it!

next page >

< previous page

page_iii

next page > Page iii

The Dependencies of Objects Esther Torrego The MIT Press Cambridge, Massachusetts London, England

< previous page

page_iii If you like this book, buy it!

next page >

< previous page

page_iv

next page > Page iv

© 1998 Massachusetts Institute of Technology All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form by any electronic or mechanical means (including photocopying, recording, or information storage and retrieval) without permission in writing from the publisher. Set in Times New Roman on the Monotype "Prism Plus" PostScript Imagesetter by Asco Trade Typesetting Ltd., Hong Kong. Printed and bound in the United States of America. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Torrego, Esther. The dependencies of objects / Esther Torrego. p. cm. --(Linguistic inquiry monographs; 34) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-262-20112-7 (alk. paper).- ISBN 0-262-70068-9 (pbk.: alk. paper) 1. Grammar, Comparative and general-Complement. 2. Semantics. 3. Markedness (Linguistics) 4. Minimalist theory (Linguistics) 5. Romance languages-Syntax. I. Title. II. Series. P299.C59T67 1998 415-dc21

97-47623 CIP

< previous page

page_iv If you like this book, buy it!

next page >

< previous page

next page >

page_v

Page v Contents Series Foreword

ix

Preface

xi

Chapter 1 Introduction and Proposal

1 2

1.1 Object Raising in Romance Languages 3 1.2 Syntactic Factors in the Minimalist Program 6 1.3 Inherent Case and Structural Case 9 1.4 The Subsequent Chapters Chapter 2 Case Marking and Object Raising

13 17

2.1 Classes of Verbs and Marked Accusatives: An Overview 23 2.2 Two Different Types of Marked Accusative 24 2.3 The Case Particle Used with Accusatives 27 2.4 The Agentivity Constraint 36 2.5 Marked Accusative and Object Asymmetries

< previous page

page_v If you like this book, buy it!

next page >

< previous page

next page >

page_vi

Page vi 45 2.6 The Syntactic Roots of Object Raising 52 2.7 Morphological Marking and Object Raising 65 2.8 The Semantic Factor 71 2.9 Case and the Language Split Chapter 3 Case Marking and Economy

73 74

3.1 Preliminaries on Causative Formation 79 3.2 Syntactic versus Semantic Explanation 87 3.3 Case Marking and Economy 100 3.4 Accusative, Its Types, and Its Licensing Conditions 109 3.5 Three-Place Predicates versus hacer 118 3.6 The Data 121 3.7 The Approach 125 3.8 Justifying the Approach 126 3.9 The Analysis 129 3.10 Conclusion

< previous page

page_vi If you like this book, buy it!

next page >

< previous page

next page >

page_vii

Page vii Chapter 4 Case Alternations

131 132

4.1 Ditransitives 151 4.2 Subject-to-Subject Raising 158 4.3 The Features of Clitics Chapter 5 Conclusion

167

Notes

169

References

183

Index

195

< previous page

page_vii If you like this book, buy it!

next page >

< previous page

page_i

next page > Page i


< previous page


next page >

< previous page

page_ix

next page > Page ix

Series Foreword Samuel Jay Keyser for the Editorial Board We are pleased to present the thirty-fourth Linguistic Inquiry Monograph. These monographs present new and original research beyond the scope of the article. We hope they will benefit our field by bringing to it perspectives that will stimulate further research and insight. Originally published in limited editions, the Linguistic Inquiry Monographs are now more widely available. This change is due to the great interest engendered by the series and by the needs of a growing readership. The editors thank the readers for their support and welcome suggestions about future directions for the series.

< previous page

page_ix If you like this book, buy it!

next page >

< previous page

page_i

next page > Page i


< previous page


next page >

< previous page

page_xi

next page > Page xi

Preface This book draws on a body of work presented in courses and presentations going back to 1989. It is a study of the nature and properties of the grammatical constraints that yield overt marking of objects in a number of languages, and of the consequences of such marking. The evidence brought together here constitutes a relatively unfamiliar aspect of otherwise well-known syntactic phenomena such as accusative and dative Case marking, causative structures, and "clitic doubling." The book came into being through researching the range of syntactic variation found within the Romance languages. Some of the material discussed in it belongs to the tradition of Romance linguistics within the generative paradigm, yet the corpus of data that constitutes the basis of the investigation is mostly new. The study has proven more difficult than I initially thought, given the number and nature of semantic issues that the characterization of overtly Case-marked objects reveals. My syntactic analyses are developed in the general framework of Chomsky's (1995) Minimalist Program. Since the issues I discuss in this book have been in my mind for some time, many of the ideas were originally conceived at earlier stages of the Minimalist Program, and later rethought and further developed. The material in chapters 2 and 3 was presented in part at the Linguistics Colloquium at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1989, at the 1990 Girona International Summer School of Linguistics, in several courses and seminars at the University of the Basque Country in Vitoria-Gasteiz from 1990 to 1993, at a graduate course in the Instituto Ortega y Gasset in Madrid in 1991, at the Verb Movement Conference at the University of Maryland in 1991, at the Universidad Autónoma in Madrid in 1992, at the Syntax Lunch at the Graduate Center at the City University of New York in 1993, at the Department of Linguistics and Psychology at

< previous page

page_xi If you like this book, buy it!

next page >

< previous page

page_xii

next page > Page xii

the University of Rochester in 1991, at the Universidad Autónoma Metropolitan de Iztapalapa in 1994, and in the Utrecht ''Going Romance 10" in 1996. Independent of my individual research efforts, the writings of S. Epstein, J. Grimshaw, R. Kayne, A. Marantz, and D. Pesetsky have been of great help to me. My profound gratitude also to N. Chomsky for welcoming all interested audiences to his seminars, and for his willingness to discuss his work with them. I am indebted to K. Hale for numerous discussions, and for informing me of relevant literature. His help has been invaluable. I also owe a great deal to C. Piera and I. Laka, who commented on an earlier version of this manuscript and who have given me generous help in many important ways. My gratitude to H. Ferguson for comments, suggestions and computer help. Thanks, too, to the late D. Wheeler, for her power to inspire me to persevere. I also wish to thank J. Harris, H. Lasnik, K. Sainz, and J. Uriagereka.

< previous page

page_xii If you like this book, buy it!

next page >

< previous page

page_1

next page > Page 1

Chapter 1 Introduction and Proposal Linguistic theory seeks to derive syntactic phenomena in particular languages from invariant principles of Universal Grammar and their parameters, which are set in one of the permissible ways. This book studies the nature of the syntactic and semantic behaviors of a particular class of grammatical objects: objects morphologically marked by the dative preposition in Romance languages, especially in several dialects of Spanish, with consideration of similar phenomena in other languages. Morphologically marked objects show quite complicated and intricate behaviors in syntactic respects, especially in their Case. There are a number of reasons why this is so. The overt marking of accusative objects in the grammars under consideration is not free: it obeys regular patterns of behavior rooted in the semantics of predicates. The type of lexical marking implicated in these objects (sometimes called "quirky") has been studied for subjects (mainly for Icelandic) but not for objects, and has been traced back to the aspectual nature of predicates (Grimshaw 1990). This type of marking makes us wonder whether the Case of morphologically marked objects of accusative verbs is uniformly inherent or structural, or whether it is structural with some classes of verbs and inherent with others (as I conclude it is). The morphological marking of accusative objects is tied to specific semantic classes of verbs. Different verbs, depending on their inherent aspectual class in the sense of Vendler (1967), Dowty (1979), and others, may or may not obligatorily mark accusative objects with a case particle. This issue, and a host of others, can be related to the position that the object occupies at the LF interface. In this book I argue that objects of accusative verbs that appear with a case particle in Romance languages undergo object shift, the term used by Holmberg (1986) to describe overt object raising in the Germanic languages. Overt

< previous page

page_1 If you like this book, buy it!

next page >

< previous page

page_2

next page > Page 2

object raising tends to occur in languages in which the verb raises to Inflection (ibid.) but no exact correlation holds between the two grammatical operations. 1.1 Object Raising in Romance Languages One of the main topics of current syntactic research is the role of inflectional elements such as T and v (a functional head of sorts to which V raises and adjoins at some point) in the displacement of categories. The empirical phenomenon being investigated in this book, overt object raising in the Romance languages, bears directly on v. Why objects raise overtly has been extensively investigated for Scandinavian languages. The analysis of object raising in earlier versions of the Minimalist Program was based on an Agro, a functional element that has only agreement features. The property that motivates object raising in this version of the theory is "strength." Features can be strong or weak, and strong features must enter into a checking relation prior to LF. The issue of object raising takes a different form under Chomsky's (1995, section 4.10) approach. In this later version of the theory, functional heads that lack semantic import have no place in the grammar. Chomsky offers alternative ways to motivate object raising, all of them based on aspects of v. Within conceptions of lexical structure such as that of Hale and Keyser (1991, 1993a,b), VPs can have two layers of structure, one headed by V and one by v. Arguments are distributed within the VP in a binary branching structure (Kayne 1994), and their ¬0-role is determined by virtue of their specific position within the structure. Chomsky (1995) suggests that v may have a D feature that causes the object to raise to a position associated to v. (The precise target of object raising can be ignored for the moment.) For the Romance languages, this alternative analysis is particularly appealing because it offers a frame for the general question of why some languages have clitics. All the Romance languages have clitics. If languages were allowed the option of having the D-feature of v realized on an independent head (a D), we could establish generalizations about the clitic system of a given language on the basis of the properties of v (and, possibly, of T). If the clitic can be understood as the realization of D, variability in the clitic system could be viewed in terms of the particular features of Dan approach that can help in explaining a great amount of cross-linguistic variation in the area of clitics. I

< previous page


next page >

< previous page

page_3

next page > Page 3

evaluate the clitics of present-day Spanish in this light, and I comment on the clitic system for other Romance languages. 1.2 Syntactic Factors in the Minimalist Program Some of the syntactic topics I discuss draw heavily from specific aspects of the Minimalist Program, outlined by Chomsky (1992, 1994, 1995). In this section, without undertaking a comprehensive view of the theory, I will focus on the components of the theory that are central to the investigation of these topics. 1.2.1 Move F The Minimalist Program postulates economy conditions on derivations. In certain domains, economy conditions provide us with more refined tools of analysis than are available in previous theoretical frameworks. One such domain is movement. On minimalist assumptions, movement involves features rather than categories. Hence, Move a (a being a category) is replaced by Move F (F being a formal feature). Formal features include categorial features such as [D], person, gender, and Case, the features that are accessible to computation (excluding phonological and purely semantic features). Move F, though, automatically carries along the set of formal features of the lexical item. Thus, derivationally, Move F can raise a host of other formal features. The operation Move F is morphologically driven. Any feature of a functional head that must be checked can drive Move F. Checking results in deletion or erasure of the feature of the functional category that motivates the operationa distinction that amounts to either eliminating the feature (erasure) or making the feature invisible to LF but accessible to the computation (deletion). Some formal features are Interpretable; others are -Interpretable. Both types of features can be checked, but only -Interpretable features delete. A derivation is said to converge if it leads to representations at Phonetic Form (PF) and at Logical Form (LF) that can receive an interpretation at each of these levels. The representation then satisfies Full Interpretation (FI). Because of PF convergence, isolated features cannot move out of words, and the entire category "pied-pipes." For example, in English, the wh-phrase who appears fronted in questions such as Who did you see? in spite of the fact that, under present assumptions, the question element who is not driven to move (only its wh-feature is). Exactly the

< previous page


next page >

< previous page

page_4

next page > Page 4

same happens in Spanish. In the question A quién viste?, the Spanish wh-phrase a quién, an accusative object with the dative preposition (referred to in this book as "marked accusative") is driven to raise by the interrogative Q prior to LF. On the surface, whether the derivation of these wh-questions in English or Spanish involves category movement or feature movement yields no empirical distinctions. However, consideration of a broader spectrum of cases reveals that this is not so. Feature movement is at the core of a large domain of empirical distinctions to be analyzed in this book. In the late 1970s and the early 1980s, generative grammarians discussed contrasts such as Spanish A quién viste? to whom pro saw? and *A quién lo viste to whom pro him-saw? The latter contains the accusative pronoun lo, a clitic; this clitic co-occurs with the wh-phrase a quién, a marked accusative object. If movement is conceived as Move F, so that the particular F that is being driven to raise is the wh-feature, we can arrive at the account of a type of contrast that has resisted analysis for decades: that between Lo vi a un niño pro him-saw to a child 'I saw a child' and *A quién lo viste to whom pro him-saw? 'Whom did you see?' Under the Move F hypothesis, the wh-feature alone must raise and check the interrogative complementizer Q ([+wh]), although the entire phrase a quién is carried along with the wh-feature. The computational procedure is concerned only with the wh-feature Q seeks in order to enter into a checking relation with it. However, the wh-phrase containing the wh-feature, a quién, has undergone a previous instance of checking, namely a Case-checking relation with the accusative clitic. Apparently, the Case-checking relation has a fatal effect for checking of the wh-feature of Q. My basic claim is that Spanish accusative third-person clitics such as lo involve a Case-checking mechanism that implicates all the formal features (a particular instantiation of "strong" agreement). Hence, Case checking with this type of clitic implicates all the formal features of the associate. Once the wh-object undergoes checking with the clitic, the wh-feature of the object is frozen in place and cannot check Q. The wh-object, on its way to Q, checks its Case against the clitic, a functional element. Upon Case checking, the wh-feature of the object becomes inaccessible to the interrogative wh-feature of the complementizer that drives the object to raise in the first place. The type of account I have sketched of the interactions between wh-phrases and third-person accusative clitics is not possible in theories in which categories rather than features move, simply because Move F can

< previous page


next page >

< previous page

page_5

next page > Page 5

appeal to modalities of checking that group features together and Move a cannot do so. Since the conceptual question weighs heavily in this direction of the theory, that empirical evidence in its favor can be found is a very welcome result. Along with Move F, there are several economy conditionsproposed by Chomsky (1995) and othersthat constrain derivations. The fact that the accusative clitic associated with the marked accusative cannot be skipped on its way to Q is a consequence of economy. The sketched analysis assumes that the checking relation between the clitic and its associate is imposed by the Minimal Link Condition (Chomsky 1994; Chomsky and Lasnik 1993). This local condition captures the idea that, given an otherwise legitimate operation, each step in the derivation must be minimal. Accordingly, the wh-object must enter into a Case-checking relation with the clitic that it encounters. I assume that the Minimal Link Condition is inviolable. Further economy conditions restrict Move F. I do not give any consideration to a host of technical questions relating to Move F, or to revisions of checking theory or aspects of economy that can or must be refined; on these matters I refer the reader to Collins 1997 and Kitahara 1997. 1.2.2 Specifiers Since I investigate object raising in Romance languages, and since I attribute a cluster of syntactic and semantic properties of marked accusative objects to their being raised outside VP to a specifier of v, it matters what syntactic structures can be built. Phrase-structure theory must satisfy minimalist conditions. This yields a system of "bare phrase structure" with no distinctions between the lexical element and bar levels. Two structure-building operations, Merge and Move, construct syntactic objects by iterative applications. Move is viewed as involving Copy plus Merge. Maximal and minimal projections are understood in relational terms; categories are maximal or minimal depending on whether they project or not. A category that projects is maximal (XP); one that does not project is minimal (X0). Merge always pairs two objects (say, a and ß) and forms a new object K by concatenating them. The operation Merge is asymmetric because one projects and the other does not. The one that projects (either a or ß) becomes the label of the newly formed object K; if a projects, the new object formed is {a, {a, ß}}. A consequence of the drastically reduced role of phrase-structure theory is the lack of dif-

< previous page


next page >

< previous page

page_6

next page > Page 6

ferentiation between a complement and a specifier for heads with a single argument. In this theory, outside the headcomplement relation (the "most local" relation between a head and a phrase), all other structural relations apart from adjunction are head-specifier relations (Chomsky 1995, section 4.3). The system, however, permits a head to have multiple specifiers (Ura 1994, 1996). The empirical material with which I deal in this volume bears on several aspects of these considerations. In the proposals of Marantz (1990) and Hale and Keyser (1992), "affected objects" originate not in complement position but in the specifier position of the verb, a [Spec, V] position. In Spanish and the other languages considered here, the marking of objects of accusative verbs is obligatory when they fit the description of Affectedness (everything else being equal). This would follow if a necessary condition for affected objects is that they appear outside VP by LF, in a [Spec, v] position. Given that objects raised to such position are those marked with a Case particle in these languages, they carry the Case marking of the objects that shift to this position. A multiple-specifier theory suggests two specifiers in the v-VP configuration of clauses with object raising, one filled by the subject and the other filled by the raised object. If what motivates the object to raise is the D-feature of v, we expect that the object, not the subject, establishes a checking relation with the D-feature of v. In the Scandinavian family of languages, the evidence indicates that the object raises above the subject, to a specifier higher than the specifier that has the subject. In Spanish, I have not found direct empirical evidence determining where the object raises. Because the verb moves to Infl (and for other reasons), word-order factors are relatively uninformative. The target of object raising in Romance languages has to be determined on purely theory-internal grounds. A revealing factor may be that the subject of predicates with an object in marked accusative has to be agentive in the vast majority of cases. In light of this, it is possible that the object raises to the outer specifier of v-VP, and that the agent is licensed in the innermost specifier because of some special condition about the licensing of agents. It would be plausible to expect the same for Icelandic and other languages. Whether this speculation is correct is left open here. 1.3 Inherent Case and Structural Case Syntactic theory distinguishes two types of Case: structural and inherent. Following Chomsky (1986), I assune that structural Case is licensed

< previous page


next page >

< previous page

page_7

next page > Page 7

solely in virtue of the configuration, and that inherent Case imposes further requirements. A fundamental property of inherent Case is that it is tied to q-marking: an argument bearing inherent Case has to be thematically linked to its qmarking head. The structural-versus-inherent distinction is revealed by the syntactic contexts in which a structurally or an inherently Case-marked nominal can appear; for example, the subject of the infinitival complement of the English verb believe appears in accusative in a sentence like they believe him to be in danger, an Exceptional Case Marking (ECM) context. On standard assumptions, the accusative Case of the subject pronoun him is licensed by the matrix verb, even though thematically him is associated with the verb of the infinitival clause. Contrary to this, the Case of an inherently Case-marked argument fails to be licensed by a head other than its q-marking head. For instance, nouns license genitive, an inherent Case; in the proof of the theory the of-phrase is q-linked to the noun and can therefore be genitive, whereas when no q-relation holds between the noun and the nominal (as in *the proof of the theory to be interesting; cf. the proof that the theory is interesting) genitive Case is unavailable. In English and in many other languages, the subject of a finite clause is nominative and the object of a transitive verb is accusative. For example, in they like them the form of the subject pronoun they is nominative and the form of the object pronoun them is accusative. If we replace the pronouns in the example by lexical DPs, as in the students like the teachers, nominative and accusative are still assumed to be present in the subject and the object. Case is always present abstractly. A well-established fact about English is that both nominative and accusative are structural Cases. When it comes to Spanish and similar languages, there are reasons to question the idea that accusative is always a structural Case. This holds, in particular, for objects in what I call marked accusative. As I have noted, objects of accusative verbs may appear in some languages with a Case marker. In Spanish this marker is a, which is the same as the dative preposition. An example of this for accusatives is María visitó a un amigo Maria visited to a friend 'Maria visited a friend'; an example for datives is María habló a un amigo 'María spoke to a friend'. A priori, it seems implausible that a accusatives can be inherently Case marked, if only because they are complements of accusative verbs. Baker (1988), on the basis of Bantu and similar languages, does away with the notion "inherent accusative" entirely. However, the a objects of certain classes of verbs share significant properties with datives. Dative Case is often considered to be an inherent Case. The strong resemblance between some of

< previous page


next page >

< previous page

page_8

next page > Page 8

the accusatives marked with the dative preposition and straightforward datives will lead me to the assumption that Spanish has an inherent accusative Case. The distinction between the structural and the inherent nature of the Case of a-objects is quite subtle once all other aspects intervening in the marking of these objects are untangled. Several factors make the task difficult. Whether inherent Case is available for a given argument of a verb depends partly on the structure. However, when we leave the domain of tensed finite clauses the structural tests that could in principle reveal distinctions of the sort posed by our assumptions about structural and inherent Case rarely work. Linguistic theory simply does not know at this point whether certain syntactic contexts have structures that correspond to complex predicates, to small clauses, or to something else (Williams 1974, 1979, 1980, 1983, 1994). Since the main tools of the analysis rely on structural matters, we are left with no definite criteria. Other aspects of the inherent/structural Case distinction are equally problematic for a objects. In Spanish, extraction from within a-objects does not yield uniform results; some are worse than others. But there are two possible interpretations of this fact: (1) the preposition adds more structure because it is an inherent Case marker or the realization of an inherent Case, (2) the preposition is the overt realization of structural accusative but nevertheless adds to the structure. In the exploration of inherent Case, a technical question that matters is whether inherently Case-marked arguments also bear structural Case. It has been proposed in recent literaturenotably by Holmberg and Platzack (1995) for Scandinavian languagesthat inherently Case-marked nominals are subject to structural Case checking. With accusatives, this poses no particular problem, because marked accusatives are complements of accusative verbs. However, with datives this issue is potentially important. In fact, the syntactic behavior of Spanish datives seems to provide support for the structural Case-checking requirement of arguments in inherent Case. Conspicuously, lexical datives in Spanish and in other clitic-doubling languages of the Romance group require an associate clitic in contexts in which no structural Case-marking head is available in the structure (for example, with unaccusative verbs). I argue that the doubling clitic is an inflectional element with Case, and that it can provide the structure with the structural Case feature that is missing from the verb. In other words, I take doubling clitics to be structural Case-feature providers, somewhat in the spirit of Borer (1984). One cannot,

< previous page


next page >

< previous page

page_9

next page > Page 9

however, conclude from this that an inherently Case-marked argument always has to be realized in association with a structural Case-marking head. Genitives and other inherently Case-marked arguments within nominals cannot be. Given this, I am led to view the requirement that certain inherently Case-marked arguments enter into a structural Case relation with a head as a parametric property of certain functional categories such as T and v. For datives, I assume that v is the functional head responsible for the double Case requirement of Spanish lexical datives. In structures that have no v, and in various other structures, the dative clitic is obligatory. I argue that the dative clitic and its double, the argument, originate in a phrase headed by a phonologically null dative preposition. (Kayne (1984) and Pesetsky (1995) have made extensive use of a null dative preposition, which Pesetsky (ibid.) calls G.) Other languages, however, may lack a structural Case requirement on inherently Case-marked arguments. In this context, one real empirical and theoretical challenge is to assess the role of structural Case in syntactic contexts that have both a marked accusative and a lexical dativethat is, in situations in which two morphologically nondistinct aobjects, one accusative and one dative, co-occur. These structures are worth studying, in spite of their obvious fuzziness, because Spanish ditransitive verbs do not seem to be "doubled accusative" verbs such as can occur in other languages (Baker 1988). There are severe limitations on the possibility of having two a-objects for one verb. I suggest that this is related to the structural Case requirement that holds for inherently Case-marked datives in Spanish. 1.4 The Subsequent Chapters In chapter 2 I present the generalizations that hold for morphologically marked objects of accusative verbs at a descriptive level. I demonstrate that morphology, syntax, and semantics all intervene in marking the object with a, I review the issues surrounding overt object raising, and show how overt marking of accusative objects and object raising are intertwined. Morphology aside, the three main threads that drive the marking of accusative objectsthe aspectual class of the verb, the specificity of the object, and the agentivity of the subjectare sorted out in this chapter. After showing that the morphological expression of the object has consequences for the aspectual behavior of predicates (Verkuyl 1972), I discuss an interesting ECM phenomenon, investigated by Kayne (1984)

< previous page


next page >

< previous page

page_10

next page > Page 10

and others for French, that provides evidence for the claim that the subject and the morphologically marked object have to be arguments of the same predicate (co-arguments). I do not attribute this result to inherent Case. The accusative Case of objects marked with the dative preposition, except (perhaps) for specific semantic classes of verbs, is structural. The state of affairs obtained in the ECM construction amounts to the morphologically marked accusative's having to be licensed by V and Infl together. This is significant for other syntactic domains, such as causatives (which I discuss in chapter 3). It proves useful to sort out whether the syntactic structure of syntactic causatives corresponds to complex predicates, to small clauses, or to full clauses by invoking the fact that a marked accusative and a subject need a joined Infl. I do not address the basic question of why this is so, although, intuitively, it seems to relate to event structure and the saturation of the event of predicates with objects in marked accusatives. The idea of invoking a joined Infl + V as a means of accounting for a Case phenomenon has been argued explicitly by Marantz (1991) for what he calls a ''dependent" Case. Marantz describes dependent Case as a Case assigned by the complex V + Infl to a DP in opposition to another DP. But, for reasons I discuss in chapter 2, an approach to the phenomenon based on Case seems problematic. Chapter 2 includes a reevaluation of how clitics and clitic doubling can be viewed. I suggest that object clitics in Romance languages reflect differences in the morphological expression of the D-feature that Chomsky (1995) proposes for v (and also for T). A large body of empirical evidence involving contrasts between accusative and dative clitics is derived from the theory of feature movement. In chapter 3 I investigate basic types of causation involving the verb make in Romance languages, where this verb can express lexical choices such as English make, do, cause, have, and get. I conduct a case study of a structure that has the causee between make and the infinitival embedded verb (a structure attested in Spanish and, more restrictively, in Catalan). My analysis of this causative is straightforwardly compatible with the idea that Case is the basis of causative variation across languages; it is incompatible with Alsina's (1992) claim that semantic parameters, rather than syntactic properties of the elements involved in the causative, are responsible for variation in causatives. The role played by Case, however, does not blur the role of event semantics in causatives. I try to untangle the link by examining a number of verb types embedded under the causative verb.

< previous page


next page >

< previous page

page_11

next page > Page 11

Chapter 4 is entirely dedicated to datives. The range of topics covered in this chapter is diverse, and some of the data are complex, but all the themes of this chapter have datives as a common denominator. I establish a parallel between v and the dative preposition, arguing that the dative preposition is a functional head that can have a D-feature. I show that a unified analysis of a number of seemingly disparate syntactic phenomena involving obligatory dative clitics in Spanish and similar languages is possible. Invoking cross-linguistic differences in the case of datives, I demonstrate that the MLC analysis of feature movement captures various contrasts in structures of subject-to-subject raising over a dative argument. I argue that the various contrasts exhibited by these movement phenomena are also deducible from the Minimal Link Condition if unaccusative verbs differ from accusative verbs in that v is not part of the structure of the former.

< previous page


next page >

< previous page

page_i

next page > Page i


< previous page


next page >

< previous page

page_13

next page > Page 13

Chapter 2 Case Marking and Object Raising As is well known, languages show variability in the grammatical expression of objects of transitive verbs. In languages as typologically diverse as Hindi and Spanish, objects of transitive accusative verbs can appear with a Case particle: the dative postposition -ko in Hindi (see (la) from Mohanan 1990), or the dative preposition a in Spanish (see (1b)), although, as illustrated in (1c), the preposition can sometimes be missing in Spanish: (1) a. ilaa-ne bacce-ko uthaayaa *. Illa childACU lift 'Illa lifted the/a child.' b. Ana levantó a un niño. Ana lifted to a child 'Ana lifted a child.' c. Conocieron un lingüista. pro met a linguist 'They met a linguist.' Arguably, the choice of the dative preposition as the marker of accusative objects is not arbitrary. This fact and several others that I discuss in this chapter appear to support the involvement of v in object raising. Following Hale and Keyser (1993a,b) and Chomsky (1995), I assume that transitive accusative verbs have the following configuration:

< previous page


next page >

< previous page

page_14

next page > Page 14

(2)

This structure allows the morphological demands of the transitive verb (V) to be differentiated from those of v. My general view is that v is to the morphological shape of the Case of the object what Tense is to the morphological shape of the Case of the subject. The parallel suggested for T and v can be better argued by considering the clustering of properties that characterize Spanish accusative objects marked by the dative preposition. The first generalization to be made is that accusative objects can occur with a doubling clitic in the accusative; thus, subject to dialectal variation, we can have los (acc.) visitamos a los amigos pro them-visited to the friends 'We visited our friends.' When objects are in abstract accusative, the doubling clitic is not allowed (Jaeggli 1981); in the vast majority of Spanish dialects, la visitamos a la biblioteca pro it-visited the library 'We visited the library' is excluded. This property of marked accusatives can be understood in the context of v. If clitics can be viewed as the realization of the feature that can occur in v, along the lines I suggested in chapter 1, the correlation between the marker a and the doubling clitic can be traced back to object raising. When the D-feature of v is "active," the doubling clitic will appear with the accusative object. The doubling clitic signals overtly the D-feature that is otherwise housed in v. Doubling clitics can have agreement features. The accusative clitic is thus similar to the agreement features of Tense that yield nominative Case in pro-drop Romance languages. In both cases, T and v are associated with rich agreement. We will see, though, that the feature structure of the Spanish third-person accusative clitic is not the same as the Agr that yields nominative Case. The second generalization, which correlates with Chomsky's postulation of a D-feature for v, has to do with "specificity," a notion of interest to both semantics and syntax (Diesing 1992). Chomsky takes D to be the

< previous page


next page >

< previous page

page_15

next page > Page 15

locus of specificity. As Mahajan (1990) observed, objects with the postposition -ko in Hindi are necessarily interpreted as "specific." The correlation between the overt marking of accusative objects and their particular interpretation extends to Spanish and a wide range of other languages. Many linguists have stressed this point upon surveying Enç's (1991) work on Turkish. Interpretative facts like this have been argued to signal that the object is outside the VP at LF. Diesing (1992), in particular, discusses at length the presuppositionality of DPs raised outside VP in the context of her wellknown Mapping Hypothesis. The third generalization concerning a-objects relates to the aspectual behavior of predicates. In Travis's (1992) proposal, the "trigger" of object raising is an Interpretable feature with aspectual content. Although I do not adopt her suggestion, it is important to observe that object raising appears to affect the aspectual interpretation of predicates. Aspect is a notion that relates to the internal temporal organization of events (Comrie 1976). This notion is relevant for verbs, predicates, and sentences. Verbs are put into aspectual classes depending on whether they can be considered to have an endpoint. The accepted term for how situations are described is telicity (Garey 1957). A situation with an endpoint is telic; a situation with no endpoint is atelic. Later in this chapter I will show that one of the factors that govern the presence of the marker a with accusative objects in the grammar of Spanish is the aspectual class to which the verb belongs. The fourth generalization about a-objects with respect to the functional head v has to do with the q-role of the subjects of sentences in which they appear. One detectable property of accusative a-objects is that they occur with verbs that take an agent or a cause as subject; for example, we find contrasts such as El herido reclamaba a un médico the injured demanded to a doctor 'The injured demanded a doctor' and La situación reclamaba (*a) un médico the situation demanded (to) a doctor 'The situation demanded a doctor.' The object can appear overtly marked by a only in the former sentence, where the subject of reclamar ('demand') is agentive. This state of affairs differs conspicuously from the state of affairs obtained with objects in abstract accusative. Abstract accusative Case in Spanish is blind to such interpretative distinctions. 1 Chomsky (1995, section 4.6) suggests that the causative or the agentive role can be taken to be expressed by the v-VP configuration. Accordingly, the sensitivity of a-objects to the thematic nature of the subject of the clause can be

< previous page


next page >

< previous page

page_16

next page > Page 16

attributed to the v-VP configuration. The v of the v-VP configuration that yields overt object raising will host two specifiers: the specifier of the agentive subject and the specifier of the raised object. Somewhat similar to v, finite Tense in the languages of the Romance family can have two associates: an expletive and an argumental subject, as in the Galician sentence El chegou un estudiante tarde it arrived a student late. (See Raposo and Uriagereka 1990 for discussion of this and similar cases.) The fifth generalization to be made concerning marked accusatives has to do with an animacy restriction that holds of morphologically marked objects. In Hindi and Spanish, the overt marking of accusatives is restricted to animates. Both the boundaries and the correct characterization of the notion of animacy will require adjustments. However, for expository purposes I will refer to animates and inanimates. Inanimates do not bear the Case particle in Spanish, so we find contrasts such as compraron a un testigo pro bought to a witness 'They bought a witness' and compraron (*a) una casa pro bought (to) a house 'They bought a house'. Perhaps this animacy restriction can be approached in terms of the D-feature of v. If there is variation in the features encoded in v, we may be able to encode a person feature in v; this feature would then be responsible for the animacy of objects that raise overtly (subject to parametric variation). Alternatively, the restriction in Spanish and some other languages that only animates can be overtly marked could reflect the assignment of secondary agentive role in the v-VP configuration. Both alternatives are discussed and evaluated in the next section and in chapter 4. The sixth and last generalization bringing together accusative a-objects and v relates to "affected objects." The dative preposition appears to mark all affected (animate) accusatives. On Marantz's (1990) premise, affected objects are not in a complement position at LF but in a specifier position. The v-VP analysis of transitives permits the claim that affected objects must appear in a specifier of v by LF. The obligatory morphological marking of these objects would appear to reflect this fact. In this chapter, I argue that marked accusative objects raise overtly outside the VP. Although I do not take Agro to be the motivation for object raising, I argue that the feature composition proposed by Chomsky for Agro in earlier versions of the Minimalist Program corresponds, basically, to the feature composition of the Spanish accusative third-person clitic (lo). Some of the empirical evidence on which I base this claim holds

< previous page


next page >

< previous page

page_17

next page > Page 17

for other languages tooconcretely, for Albanian and Greek. The accusative third-person clitic is similar but not identical to Agro, since the clitic is categorially a D and bears a Case feature. In Chomsky's system, Agro lacks a D-feature and a Case feature. Throughout this and subsequent chapters, I use indefinites whenever I need to test whether a given verb permits or forces morphological marking on the object. A compelling reason for this is the fact that the definiteness of determiners forces morphological marking of accusatives across languages (Enç 1991; Diesing 1992). In Spanish, however, indefinites and (more generally) nominals with weak determiners allow for a Case choice of abstract accusative or marked accusative. My starting point in this chapter is the particular contribution of Aspect to the phenomenon of marked accusative. 2.1 Classes of Verbs and Marked Accusatives: An Overview Transitive accusative verbs do not behave uniformly with respect to the overt Case marking of their objects. With some transitive accusative verbs, objects appear obligatorily Case marked; with other verbs, however, objects may or may not be overtly Case marked (everything else being equal). Two main facts emerge. One is that marked accusative Case is influenced by the inherent telicity of lexical classes of verbs. For example, objects of verbs such as encarcelar ('jail'), classified as accomplishments (which are said to be telic), have to appear in marked accusative when they are animate; hence, the object in the sentence la policia encarceló *(a) varios ladrones 'The police jailed several thieves' carries the marker a obligatorily. In contrast, other aspectual classes of transitive accusative verbs (roughly the atelic class, but see below for details) do not impose marked accusative on their animate indefinite objects, as can be illustrated with the verb esconder ('hide'): escondieron (a) varios prisioneros 'They hid several prisoners'. The other main fact that emerges bears on the verbs for which marked accusative appears to be a choice; it has to do with how objects in marked accusative influence the telicity of predicates. I will show that predicates differ in their aspectual behavior depending on whether the object is in marked accusative or in unmarked accusative. Concretely, the predicate behaves as telic when the object appears in marked accusative and as atelic when the object appears in unmarked accusative. It is possible that the syntactic process of overt object raising is responsible for the semantic shift that occurs with such verbs. Objects moved outside the

< previous page


next page >

< previous page

page_18

next page > Page 18

VP have a delimiting role for their predicates. This may give a telic reading to the predicate. Finally, there is the related Case effect of the semantic condition of Affectedness. Looking at all the instances in which an indefinite (animate) object requires marked accusative, one can see a kinship among them in the derived position of the marked accusative: a specifier position in the v-VP. 2.1.1 Affectedness Affectedness was originally identified as a constraint on passive in nominals: 'the city's destruction' versus '*the play's enjoyment' (Anderson 1977). Since then, other grammatical phenomena have been shown to be sensitive to Affectedness. Several authors have attempted to fit Affectedness into the semantic descriptions of lexical items (see Jackendoff 1990). Tenny (1994, p. 4) explicitly links Affectedness to the closely related semantic notion of delimitedness: "the property of an event's having a distinct, definite and inherent endpoint in time." For her, Affectedness "correlates with the existence of a temporal bound for the event described by the verb, which is associated with the measuring-out of the event" (ibid., p. 161). Dowty (1991) terms objects that delimit the event incremental themes, a concept he develops within his theory of proto-roles. In each of these theories, certain objects are able to "measure out'' the event expressed by the verb. The generalization that emerges from the Spanish data is that accusative objects that are understood as "affected" by the action described by the verb bear the dative preposition obligatorily. Intuitively, an entity is understood as affected when it changes its location or when it changes physically or psychologically. The contrast in the marking of affected and non-affected accusative objects can be seen by comparing the Spanish verbs ver ('see') and golpear ('beat'). The object of the former does not have to be marked by the dative preposition: El guardia vió (a) un prisionero the guard saw (to) a prisoner; however, the object of the latter must appear with the dative preposition: El guardia golpeó *(a) un prisionero the guard beat to a prisoner. Since neither ver nor golpear appears to be telic, I attribute to Affectedness the obligatory marking of the object with golpear and similar verbs. On the face of it, the semantic conditions of Affectedness and the aspectual notion of telicity seem to involve different factors. However,

< previous page


next page >

< previous page

page_19

next page > Page 19

Affectedness and telicity can be united on the basis of the syntactic representation yielded by object raising. In the proposals of Marantz (1990) and in those of Hale and Keyser (1992), Affectedness correlates with a designated structural position within the VP, namely the specifier of VP. Thus, Marantz (1990) proposed, within the theory of Principles and Parameters, that the original site of affected objects is not the [V, DP] position but the [Spec, VP] position. Hale and Keyser (1992) made a similar suggestion: that Affectedness licenses a designated structural position in VP; their analysis, like Marantz's, presents options very similar to those of overt object raising, and it recalls Travis's (1992) claim that Aspect is the key player in overt object raising. The assumption that affected objects occupy a specifier position at LF is very plausible conceptually and empirically. However, it cannot be adopted for verbs whose internal complement domain contains a single argument. Within Chomsky's (1992, 1995) theory of Bare Phrase Structure, there is simply no way to distinguish between a specifier and a complement when Merge pairs V and a single argument. Merge creates a configuration in which the two elements are sisters. Given the overt raising analysis of marked accusative objects, examples with "affected" (animate) objects, such as El guardia golpeó *(a) un prisionero the guard beat (to) a prisoner, will have the object raised to a specifier of the v-VP configuration. To say that affected objects must occupy a specifier of v-VP implies that these objects ought to be given the Case status of objects that raise. For animates, this Case is marked accusative. Within the terms of my proposal, the obligatoriness of marked accusative for affected (animate) objects fits the Case marking of objects that raise to a specifier of VP. Syntactically, though, the overt Case marking of affected objects manifests properties not found in nonaffected, overtly Case-marked objects. For this reason, more will have to be said about the marked accusative of affected objects. I will attempt to relate the diverging syntactic behavior of affected objects in marked accusative to the idea that they bear inherent Case, as I assume datives do. The dative-shift alternation in English has long been shown to be sensitive to Affectedness. For instance, the contrast between (i) 'John gave a book to Mary' 'John gave Mary a book' and (ii) 'John described the book to Mary' '*John described Mary the book' (Oehrle 1976) is said to be rooted in the fact that 'give' affects the object and 'describe' does not. What exact interpretation is given to this fact is an open question, but the parallel

< previous page


next page >

< previous page

page_20

next page > Page 20

behavior between affected marked accusatives and datives undergoing dative shift is unlikely to be coincidental. 2.1.2 Aspectual Classes of Verbs The classic literature (Vendler 1967; Dowty 1979; Verkuyl 1972) distinguishes four basic categories of verbs according to their aspectual properties: activities (such as walk), accomplishments (such as nail and build), achievements (such as find), and states (such as know). In principle, achievements and accomplishments express eventualities that have an end in time; they are said to be telic. Activities and states do not indicate an end in time, and in this respect they are said to be atelic. Individual studies give different emphases to particular conceptual properties in the cluster on which this classification is based. However, there is common agreement that certain adverbials highlight the (a)telicity of predicates. Typically, adverbial expressions such as in an hour are compatible only with telic events; for example, the felicity of this adverbial in the sentence They found a clerk (in an hour/*for an hour) provides grounds for establishing that the situation described in this example is delimited or telic. Adverbials such as for an hour, but not adverbials such as in an hour, can be used in the sentence They played in the garden for an hour/*in an hour; this, in turn, indicates that the situation expressed in this example is undelimited or atelic. The literature on aspectual meaning (see e.g. Verkuyl 1972 and Dowty 1991) points out that some of the verbs in Vendler's classification may shift from one category into another, depending on various contextual properties. The type of action described by a given verb does not depend solely on the verb's lexical meaning. In addition to the type of object that a given verb has (a PP, a definite DP, or an indefinite DP), different instantiations of tense (the preterit versus the imperfect, the present or the progressive, etc.) influence telicity. I claim that marked accusative on animate indefinite objects alters the aspectual properties of statives and activities. The choice of marked accusative shifts statives to activities-an observation that will be justified by a battery of tests characterizing activities versus statives. The presence of marked accusative on the object of activity verbs, on the other hand, turns activities into accomplishments, although this shift is subtler than the one that changes states into activities. I suggest that this is due to the "specificity" of overtly Case-marked

< previous page


next page >

< previous page

page_21

next page > Page 21

objects, a semantic property that correlates with the outer v-VP specifier position reached by the object as the result of movement. 2 2.1.2.1 Eventive Transitive Accusatives The following examples involve esconder ('hide'), an eventive verb classified in principle as an activity verb3: (3) a. Laura escondió a un prisionero durante dos años. Laura hid to a prisoner for two years b. Laura escondió un prisionero durante dos años. Laura hid a prisoner for two years 'Laura hid a prisoner for two years.' The object appears in marked accusative in (3a) and in abstract accusative in (3b). Sentence (3a) expresses that Laura hid a certain individual who was a prisoner (the indefinite object is presuppositional); sentence (3b) expresses that Laura hid an unspecified prisoner (the indefinite object has a cardinal reading) (Enç 1991; Diesing 1992). In (3a) the durante ('for') phrase is ambiguous. In particular, the adverbial is ambiguous, offering a repetitive reading where dos años ('two years') delimits the time over which the act of hiding took place and a reading where this adverbial delimits the duration of the single act of hiding (a result state produced by the act of hiding). However, (3b) has only the repetitive reading. We are dealing with a single verb, namely esconder ('hide'). Still, this verb behaves like an accomplishment in (3a) and like an activity in (3b). A distinction that appears appropriate in the context of the present discussion is that between (un)boundedness and (a)telicity. This distinction, introduced by Declerck (1989), has been discussed in detail by Depraeterre (1995). Events express potential endpoints and actual temporal boundaries. Although most authors take both notions into account to determine telicity, Depraeterre argues that each relates to a different semantic dimension. Telicity is about endpoints; (un)boundedness is about temporal boundaries4 A clause is considered telic if it reflects a situation with an endpoint, either intended (as in Sheila deliberately swam for two hours) or natural (as in the bullet hit the target) (Depraeterre's examples). However, a sentence is bounded if it represents a situation with a temporal

< previous page


next page >

< previous page

page_22

next page > Page 22

boundary, "irrespective of whether the situation has an intended or inherent endpoint or not" (ibid., p. 3). What is relevant to the phenomenon of marked accusative is telicity, not boundedness. Both (3a) and (3b) above express temporally bound situations. In both, the verb is inflected in the preterit, a particular instantiation of tense that expresses a punctual event. However, only (3a) is telic. The generalization to be derived from the Spanish data discussed in this chapter is that marked accusative coincides with the intended endpoint of the situation described by a given predicate for all verbs other than accomplishments, and with situations that have a natural endpoint for accomplishments. I think the former characterization is particularly relevant to the predicates in which the option of marked accusative is conditioned upon an agentive subject; I am thinking of verbs, such as esconder ('hide') and reclamar ('demand'), that preclude marked accusative when the predicate does not have an agentive subject. Compare Ella esconde (a) muchos prisioneros de guerra she hides (to) many war prisoners and Esa montaña esconde (*a) muchos prisioneros de guerra that mountain hides (to) many war prisoners. At an intuitive level, it would appear that the intervention of an agent contributes to "the intended endpoint" of the eventuality described by the predicate. 5 2.1.2.2 Stative Transitive Accusatives The behavior of stative verbs with respect to marked accusative is the same as that of eventive verbs. Statives that mark their object with the Case particle of marked accusative have agentive subjects. Consider conocer ('know'), a typical stative verb. Conocer "assigns" either marked accusative or structural accusative: Marta conoce (a) un médico Martha knows (to) a doctor. The choice of marked accusative with stative conocer requires that the subject of the predicate be agent. This is shown by the fact that the Case marker that characterizes marked accusative is precluded in sentences that have a non-animate as subject e.g., La ópera conoce (*a) muchos aficionados Opera knows (to) many fans 'Opera has many fans'. As with eventive verbs, some stative verbs impose marked accusative on their animate indefinite objects: Cain odiaba *(a) un hermano 'Cain hated (to) a brother'. I postpone consideration of the aspectual factors that could be held responsible for this Case behavior. Table 2.1 summarizes the syntactic types of predicates with respect to accusative Case. In this table, for expository purposes, I divide statives

< previous page


next page >

< previous page

page_23

next page > Page 23

Table 2.1 Accusative marking for animate indefinite objects. Events States ActivitiesAccomplishmentsAchievementsClass Class II I esconder operar encontrar odiar conocer (hide) (operate) (find) (hate)(know) Abstract Yes No Yes No Yes accusative Marked Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes accusative into two classes. Class I includes odiar-typeverbs; class II includes conocer-typeverbs. Later I will show that the former correspond to statives that permit the progressive in English. As can be seen in the table, only two aspectual classes of verbs reject abstract accusative for their animate indefinite objects: accomplishments and a subgroup of stative verbs to which the verbs odiar ('hate') belongs. The semantic factor of Affectedness is not captured in the table. The precise differentiation between obligatory and non-obligatory marked accusative Case on the object of a given verb (everything else being equal) is particularly important in considering another dividing line between objects with a Case particle. 2.2 Two Different Types of Marked Accusative Both nominative and accusative are considered to be structural Cases. Structural Case is checked (or assigned) by certain heads in virtue of the configuration in which they appear in relation to their bearers (Rouveret and Vergnaud 1980; Chomsky 1981, 1986b; Stowell 1981). In earlier versions of the Minimalist Program, Chomsky (1991, 1992) assumes that structural Case (nominative and accusative) is checked via the intervention of an Agr, in a split Infl of the type proposed by Pollock (1989). Although the feature content of Agr is one and the same, we talk about Agrs for subjects and about Agro for objects. Morphological Case is less understood than abstract Case. 6 There are two separate parts to the morphological marking of arguments. First, there is the general question of how to characterize this marking. This question, in turn, can be subdivided into two parts: What type of Case is

< previous page


next page >

< previous page

page_24

next page > Page 24

this? On which basis does the marking take place in the grammar? These issues have been addressed only briefly in the literature, yet I believe progress can be made toward their understanding. The morphological expression of any given Case poses the question of whether it is a structural or an inherent Case. In the linguistic tradition, inherent Case is q-dependent and arguments inherently Case marked are often lexically or "quirky" marked. 7 A close look at the syntactic behavior of each class of marked accusatives reveals that there are actually two different classes of morphological accusative. The Case of "non-affected" morphologically marked objects is structural, but the Case of "affected" morphologically marked objects appears to be inherent. The idea that there is such a thing as an "inherent accusative'' Case is not standard and requires justification. Later I will present several types of evidence in its support. Lexical datives in Romance languages, like marked accusatives, are introduced by the dative preposition. It is clear that this cannot be accidental. The syntactic properties displayed by lexical datives in Iberian Romance justify the claim that dative is an inherent Case. Lexical datives in some structures can be considered to be lexically or "quirky" Case marked. On these grounds alone, the proposal that marked accusative on "affected" objects is quirky unifies fundamental properties of typical datives (indirect objects) and these marked accusatives. Since both classes of objects are introduced by the same Case particle (the dative preposition), the analysis ties the dative preposition to v. By linking the dative P to v, we will see that the syntactically motivated derivation and the semantically motivated interpretation of the derivation of marked accusatives fit together. 2.3 The Case Particle Used with Accusatives In this section I will comment briefly on the evidence that motivates my analysis of the theoretical issues raised by the Case particle used with accusatives. The two main topics of investigation are the particular Case particle used with accusatives and its syntactic status. 2.3.1 Why the Dative Preposition? We have seen that there is cross-linguistic evidence that the Case marker of accusative objects is not any arbitrary particle. In Spanish and in

< previous page


next page >

< previous page

page_25

next page > Page 25

Hindi the object marker is the dative preposition or postposition. The examples in (4a) are from Spanish; those in (4b) are from Hindi (Mohanan 1990) (4) a. Ana saludó a un amigo. Ana greeted to a friend 'Ana greeted a friend.' b. ilaa-ne bacce-ko uthaayaa. * Illa child-A lift-PERF 'Illa lifted the/a child.' Why is the dative preposition precisely the Case particle of accusative objects? Intuitively, the explanation of this fact relates to the particular feature or features that induce marked accusatives to raise overtly. In the analysis I have adopted, v has a D-feature that can attract the object to raise overtly. From the perspective of object raising of marked accusatives, we must assume either that the dative preposition has a D-feature or that the dative preposition is absent in the derivation of object raising with marked accusatives. I will make the crucial assumption that the dative preposition can have a D-feature. Still, the assumption that the dative preposition can have a D-feature, and that hence objects in marked accusative can potentially be attracted to raise to v, does not explain why the dative marking of accusative objects differs with semantic classes of verbs. If the dative preposition can be seen as a functional category whose feature structure can vary across languages, as I assume it can, differences in the behavior of verbs with respect to the marking of objects with the dative preposition can be traced back to the lexical structure of each class of verbs (in the sense of Hale and Keyser 1991, 1992, 1993); some verbs will have a more complex lexical structure than others, depending on their semantic class. Syntactically, this could mean that, although marked accusative objects undergo overt object raising generally with all accusative verbs, the dative preposition could bring more structure with some verbs than with others. When we compare the syntactic properties of marked accusatives with verbs such as destruir ('destroy') and ver ('see'), we will see that the facts are consistent with this intuition.

< previous page


next page >

< previous page

page_26

next page > Page 26

2.3.2 Syntactic Variation in the Dative Preposition An in-depth examination of objects in marked accusative reveals that languages, and dialects within a single language, may vary concerning the syntactic behavior of marked accusatives. Objects in marked accusative can be doubled by a clitic in some grammars but not in others. The range of forms of the doubling clitic allowed by each grammar varies, and the syntactic behavior of the argumental object also varies depending on the Case of the doubling clitic. These differences, I believe, should be traced back to the dative preposition: the dative preposition may or may not be a syntactic head, or its feature composition may vary across languages. It is hard to think of evidence that can decide between these two possibilities. For the moment, I will pursue the former possibility, namely that the dative preposition may be a syntactic head in some grammars and not in others. However, I do not consider the issue settled (see chapter 4) In Albanian (see (5a), from Massey 1991), accusative clitics can double objects in the absence of a Case particle. In the Spanish spoken in the "Southern Cone" of South America (see 5b), the doubling clitic is also accusative. However, in Peninsular Spanish (see (5c)), the doubling clitic can only be dative: 8 (5) a. Dritën e pa atin i tij. Drita CL see father her ACC ACC NOM 'Her father saw Drita.' b. Juan lo visitó al chico. Juan CL visited to the boy NOM ACC ACC 'Juan visited the boy.' c. Juan le visitó al chico. Juan CL visited to the boy NOM DAT ACC 'Juan visited the boy.' The two types of marked accusative objects (those that occur with a clitic in the accusative and those that occur with a clitic in the dative) are in

< previous page


next page >

< previous page

page_27

next page > Page 27

certain crucial respects similar to one another and, at the same time, different from abstract accusatives. However, the two behave asymmetrically in regard to a large body of syntactic phenomena. My analysis links marked accusatives that are categorially DPs to a doubling clitic in the accusative, and links marked accusatives that are categorially P-DPs to a doubling clitic in the dative. 2.4 The Agentivity Constraint The assumption of a correlation between a verb's agentivity and marked accusative Case for an object is, of course, an empirical hypothesis, and, as such, can be proved true or false. In this section I examine some cases that support this correlation and summarize the previous data. 2.4.1 Eventives Consider the implications of the correlation between agentivity and morphological accusative marking for verbs that have no thematic subject. Since marked accusative is a variety of accusative, and accusative Case is assigned only by verbs with an external argument (Burzio 1981), objects of unaccusative verbs will not appear in marked accusative. But even in the particular case of a verb that has no external argument but has accusative Case, such as existential haber ('have') in variants of Peninsular Spanish, marked accusative is not an option: (6) a. Había (*a) muchos amigos. there was (to) many friends 'There were many friends.' b. Los había por todas partes. them-was everywhere there were (of) them everywhere 'There were many of them everywhere.' Unaccusative verbs such as haber lack an external argument and hence are non-agentive (Perlmutter 1978). The fact that haber cannot license marked accusative even in dialects in which it licenses accusative further supports the established dependency of marked accusative on the agentivity of its predicate. 9

< previous page


next page >

< previous page

page_28

next page > Page 28

In general, the passive suppresses accusative Case and demotes the subject. We therefore expect an object not to be morphologically Case marked in passivesand, as the following examples show, it is not: (7) a. Detuvieron *(a) los emigrantes. pro detained (to) the immigrants 'They detained the immigrants.' b. Fueron detenidos (*a) los emigrantes. were detained (to) the immigrants 'The immigrants were detained.' Mohanan (1990) makes the same point for Hindi (N-nominative; Aaccusative; I-instrumental): (8) a. raam anil-ko uthaaegaa *. Ram-N Anil-A lift/carry 'Ram will carry Anil.' b. Anil (raam-se) uthaayaa* jaaegaa. Anil-N Ram-I carry go 'Anil will be carried by Ram.' The fact that marked accusative is not an option in passives brings up an important question: Is marked accusative a structural or an inherent Case? Evidence from Icelandic suggests that the kind of overt marking associated with inherent Case (quirky Case) is preserved under passivization. Typically, both dative and genitive are instances of inherent Case. In Icelandic, both of these Cases are preserved in passives: (9) a. Honum voru

syndi*

drengirnir.10

he (Dat) was (p1) shown (masc-pl) the boys (masc-pl) b. Hennar var saknao*.11 her (Gen) was missed (cf. Ég mun sakna hans 'I will miss her (Gen)'

< previous page


next page >

< previous page

page_29

next page > Page 29

When we turn to marked accusative, cross-linguistic evidence gives mixed results. In the Spanish dialects I am familiar with, accusative objects never preserve the Case marker a in passives. 12 In Hindi, though, Mohanan (1990) notes that certain dialects have the marking 'ko-' with objects in passives.13 The following example is hers: (10) anil-ko (raam-se) uthaayaa* jaaegaa. Anil-A Ram-I carry go 'Anil will be carried by Ram.' Mohanan goes on to observe that the accusative nominal Anil is "affected" by the action denoted by the verb. Sentences such as (10) are of potential significance for the idea that the marked accusative of "affected" objects may be inherent rather than structural. If the marked accusative of "affected" objects were inherent, overt marking in passivization could be preserved (just as the marking of datives and genitives is preserved in Icelandic passives). It remains to be seen whether relevant data from the dialects of Hindi confirm this expectation. 14 Let us now return to transitive accusative verbs with a thematic subject. It is clear that the only verbs that are useful for testing the agentivity constraint on marked accusative are transitive accusatives that can take an animate object. I have already provided many examples showing that the choice of marked accusative for the object forces the subject of eventive verbs such as esconder ('hide') to be agent. With the few other transitive verbs that (somewhat marginally) permit non-animate subjects, marked accusative correlates with agentivity just the same: (11) a. El herido exigía/ pedía (a) un médico. the injured required/asked for a doctor b. La situación exigía/pedía (*a) un médico. the situation required/asked for a doctor Other verbs require that their subject be animate. With these verbs it is harder to test the agentivity constraint on marked accusative. Among these verbs are ver ('see') (vieron (a) una mujer they saw a woman), buscar ('look for') (buscan (a) un médico / they are looking for a doctor), examinar

< previous page


next page >

< previous page

page_30

next page > Page 30

('examine') (examinaron/buscaron (a) un paciente they examined/looked for a patient), and besar ('kiss') (besaron (a) un niño they kissed a child). It is plausible that, at least in some cases, the presence of marked accusative on the object brings about an intentional reading of the subjecta reading that is absent in the corresponding sentence with structural accusative. 15 As I have noted, accomplishments (which express a causal relation) impose marked accusative on the (animate indefinite) object. Whether accomplishments have an animate subject or not, marked accusative on their animate indefinite objects is required. This can be seen clearly in the following examples, where the object is in marked accusative whether the subject of the predicate is a volitional actor (as in (12a)) or a cause (as in (12b) and (12c)).16 (12) a. El soldado emborrachó *(a) varios colegas. The soldier (made) drunk (to) several friends 'The soldier got several friends drunk.' b. El vino emborrachó *(a) varios invitados. the wine (made) drunk (to) several guests 'The wine made several guests drunk.' c. La lluvia empapó *(a) muchos turistas. the rain soaked (to) many tourists 'The rain soaked many tourists.' Among the verbs that fit this characterization are sobornar ('bribe') (La empresa sobornó *(a) varios agentes de policia the company bribed (to) several police agents), insultar ('insult') (La prensa insultó *(a) un ministro The press insulted (to) a minister), atacar ('attack') (Ese periódico ha atacado *(a) varios grupos de influencia That newspaper has attacked several influential groups), defender ('defend') (La televisión ha defendido *(a) variós congresistas Television has defended (to) several congressmen), and pervertir ('pervert') (Han pervertido *(a) un menor They have corrupted (to) a minor).17 It is a common assumption that agents have a special syntactic status in the grammar. Marantz (1984) proposed that the agent role is assigned compositionally by predicates rather than by lexical verbs, an idea that can be found in various forms across the literature (see, e.g., Jackendoff

< previous page


next page >

< previous page

page_31

next page > Page 31

1972 and Hale and Keyser 1992). Chomsky (1995) discusses the issue in the context of the VP-internal subject hypothesis and suggests that the causative or the agent role can be understood as the interpretation assigned to the v-VP configuration. The fact that the semantic distinctions among predicates that assign marked accusative all turn out to be among those postulated in relation to the v-VP configuration (causal roles and the agent role) provides evidence for Chomsky's view. The constraint that predicates with objects in marked accusative have an agentive or a causal subject enhances the role played by v in the syntax and the semantics of marked accusative objects. 2.4.2 Statives A stative verb that has an object in marked accusative must have an animate subject: (13) a. Inés conoce (a) un médico. Inés knows (to) a doctor b. La ópera conoce (*a) muchos aficionados. opera knows (to) many fans 'Opera has many fans.' The object in (13b), which has a non-animate subject, cannot be in marked accusative. Since only animates can be agents, the contrast between (13a) and (13b) shows that the agentivity constraint of marked accusative holds of statives. 18 The literature on verbal aspect points out that stative verbs in English tend to disallow the progressive, but that some of them tolerate the progressive better than others. For instance, it has been noted that hate in English can appear in the progressive more easily than know. The following examples are from Smith 1991: (14) a. *I am knowing zoology. b. I am hating zoology class.

< previous page


next page >

< previous page

page_32

next page > Page 32

The statives that allow the progressive in English impose marked accusative on the object in Spanish: (15) a. Conocen (a) un vecino. pro know (to) a neighbor 'They know a neighbor.' b. Odian *(a) un vecino. pro hate (to) a neighbor 'They hate a neighbor.' Pesetsky (1995) observes that the verbs in the class of hate denote "active" emotions, and that these emotions are transitory. As is shown here, hate, unlike know, requires its object to be in marked accusative. This is in favor of positing an agentive analysis of hate. As the following example shows, admirar ('admire') and respetar ('respect') are in this class. 19 (16) Admiran/respetan *(a) un amigo. pro admire/respect (to) a friend 'They admire/respect a friend.' Significantly, Spanish conocer ('know') tolerates the progressive when the object is in marked accusative and disallows it when the object is in structural accusative20: (17) a. Estoy conociendo a un vecino. pro am knowing a neighbor b. *Estoy conociendo un vecino. pro am knowing a neighbor 'I am getting to know a neighbor.' Furthermore, the imperative is allowed when the object is in marked accusative and disallowed when the object is in abstract accusative:

< previous page


next page >

< previous page

page_33

next page > Page 33

(18) a. Conoce a un vecino! know to a neighbor 'Get to know a neighbor.' b. *Conoce tu vecino\la respuesta! know your neighbor\the answer It seems, then, that stative predicates can become activities, and that the overt Case marking of the objects has the effect of shifting the reading from a state to an activity. Both the progressive and the imperative are considered standard tests for the distinction between statives and non-statives. Other such tests yield similar results. Typically, only non-statives can occur as complements of the verb force. If marked accusative signals the non-stative status of conocer ('know'), we expect contrasts such as the following: (19) a. Juan forzó a su hijo a conocer al vecino. Juan forced to his son to know to his neighbor b. *Juan forzó a su hijo a conocer la respuesta. Juan forced to his son to know the answer In (19a) the Case of the object is marked accusative, whereas in (19b) the Case of the object is structural accusative. Again, marked accusative discriminates between the stative and the non-stative reading of conocer. In addition, adverbials such as deliberately are permitted only with non-statives. This type of adverbial modification is allowed when the object of conocer ('know') is in marked accusative but not when it is in structural accusative: (20) a. Juan conoció a un vecino deliberadamente. Juan knew to a neighbor deliberately 'Juan deliberately got to know a neighbor.'

< previous page


next page >

< previous page

page_34

next page > Page 34

b. *Juan conoció un vecino\la respuesta deliberadamente. Juan knew a neighbor\the answer deliberately Finally, non-statives can appear in pseudo-cleft constructions, but statives cannot: (21) a. Lo que hizo Juan es conocer a un vecino. What Juan did is to know to a neighbor b. *Lo que Juan hizo es conocer un vecino\la respuesta what Juan did is to know a neighbor\the answer As these examples show, the difference between the active and the stative meanings of Spanish conocer ('know') hinges on marked accusative. This Case choice, in turn, correlates with the agentive meaning of the subject. 21 For what aspect(s) of the phenomenon of marked accusative is agentivity relevant? I think that the dependence on agentivity of marked accusative Case has to do with the aspectual evaluation of the arguments of a given predicate. Broadly speaking, agents are the most prominent arguments of all. In recent theories, the organization of the verb's arguments is partly determined by event structure. The task of setting up the event structure of verbs so that their being agentive relates to their objects' raising overtly is well beyond my reach. Nevertheless, I want to make some remarks concerning how the overt Case marking of objects can be linked to the agentivity of their verbs. My remarks will be based on Grimshaw's (1990) proposal to predict the quirky Case realization of ''dative subjects."22 2.4.3 The Agentivity Constraint and "Quirky" Case Marking The evidence in the preceding subsection shows that if the verb has an object in marked accusative the subject must be an agent or a cause. This recalls the basic facts about quirky Case marking of subjects in Icelandic and other languages. Concretely, if a verb has both an agent and an experiencer, the experiencernever the agentmay appear lexically Case marked (in quirky Case). I want to pursue the intuition that the lexical marking of objects arises when the object competes in the aspectual

< previous page


next page >

< previous page

page_35

next page > Page 35

dimension with the agentive subject, and the object and the agent are co-arguments. 23 Grimshaw (1990) postulates that quirky Case-marked DPs are external arguments thematically but not aspectually. An argument can be lexically specified or quirky when it has maximal prominence only thematically. In Grimshaw's system, arguments are aligned in the thematic dimension and in the aspectual dimension. Together, the thematic and the aspectual properties of the predicate organize the arguments hierarchically in prominence relationships. The basic ranking of arguments in the thematic structure is the usual one: (agent (experiencer (goal (theme/patient)))).24 Aspectually, each verb has an associated event structure, and the event structure of the clause is determined by the verb together with other elements. Depending on how the event structure of each verb is set up, one or another argument has maximal prominence. The most aspectually prominent argument is realized as the subject. Thus, Grimshaw's basic idea is that an argument can be lexically specified or quirky only when it has maximal prominence thematically. It is clear that this view cannot be held for objects. In particular, marked accusative objects are lexically marked or quirky but do not have maximal prominence thematically. Instead, the agent has maximal prominence thematically (and aspectually). Observe, though, that an argument can be aspectually prominent and still be projected as an internal argument. I claim that this is the state of affairs obtained with (at least) affected objects in inherent Case. The key aspect of Grimshaw's system for argument projection is the alignment of arguments in the two dimensions. Grimshaw observes that the prominence relations among arguments may or may not coincide in the two hierarchies. Working out a new characterization of the notion of external argument (initially due to Williams (1981)), Grimshaw defines an external argument as the argument that is the most prominent in both the thematic and the aspectual dimension. In her proposal, external arguments are maximally prominent in both dimensions, and only one argument can have maximal prominence. For example, the verb arrest takes an agent and a theme. Under standard assumptions, the agent is thematically more prominent than the theme. The agent is also specified as having maximal prominence in the aspectual dimension. Hence, with arrest the prominence relations among arguments coincide in the two hierarchies, and therefore the agent is projected as the external argument, with the theme projected as the internal argument.

< previous page


next page >

< previous page

page_36

next page > Page 36

One way to reconcile the cross-linguistic data on quirky Case is to assume that an argument (subject or object) can be lexically or quirky marked when it has thematic or aspectual prominence relative to the other argument. The two arguments of an agentive telic transitive verb are both aspectually prominent. Hence, the argument that is less prominent thematically is the object; the object is therefore the argument that is lexically or quirky marked. Assuming that agents have maximal prominence in the thematic and in the aspectual dimension, the argument that is not the agent will not be maximally prominent in either dimension. This is a desirable effect insofar as marked accusatives are projected as objects and not as subjects. However, the position reached by the marked accusative object in virtue of overt raising makes the object aspectually prominent at the LF level. Arguments that undergo overt object raising display the properties that are characteristic of subjects (the literature usually cites definiteness and topichood). I assume that what matters for the aspectual hierarchy is how arguments are organized within the predicate at LF. 25 In sum, the dependence of the lexical marking of objects on an agentive or causal subject can be viewed as resulting from competition between two argumentsthe subject and the objectin the aspectual dimension.26 This approach covers the fact that the object of only agentive and causative verbs can or must be lexically or quirky Case-marked, and also covers the fact that the overall phenomenon of marked accusative Case happens with verbs that have agentive subjects. The hypothesis that the mechanism responsible for the properties associated with marked accusative is overt object raising will be particularly plausible if (1) affectedness correlates with a certain position within the VP (Marantz 1990; Hale and Keyser 1992), (2) animacy can be understood in conjunction with Marantz's (1984) proposal about the secondary agentive role assigned by predicates, as further elaborated by Chomsky (1995), and (3) my view that dative in Romance languages is a quirky Case licensed by V in conjunction with v is on the right track.27 2.5 Marked Accusative and Object Asymmetries There are at least two asymmetries in the syntactic behavior of objects in marked accusative that seem problematic for the idea that marked accusative is a single Case. One concerns extraction possibilities from within objects so marked. The other relates to the distribution of the Case par-

< previous page


next page >

< previous page

page_37

next page > Page 37

ticle a in derived nominals. In this section I discuss these asymmetries and show that they fit the proposal that event structure is implicated in the overt marking of objects and the proposal that there may be two (rather than one) marked accusatives, one structural and the other inherent. 2.5.1 The Wh-Extraction Asymmetry One central fact that has to be explained is that wh-movement from within objects in marked accusative yields more deviance with some objects than with others. Consider the following: (22) a. ?El chico del que han visto [a varias hermanas t] ayer. b. ? han encontrado c. ? han buscado d. ? han conocido The guy of whom pro have seen [to several sisters] yesterday. have found have looked for have known These examples are marginal; those in (23) are considerably more degraded. (23) a. *El chico del que han acusado [a una hermana t] b. han castigado c. han ofendido d. han empujado e. han golpeado the guy of whom pro have accused [to a sister ...] have punished have offended have pushed have hit Not surprisingly, the best results are obtained when wh-extraction occurs from within objects in unmarked accusative:

< previous page


next page >

< previous page

page_38

next page > Page 38

(24) a. El chico del que he visto/he conocido [varias hermanas t] ayer the guy of whom pro have seen/known several sisters yesterday b. La ciudad de la que han quemado [varios edificios t] en la guerra the city of which pro have burnt several buildings in the war The grammatical difference between extraction from the objects overtly marked in (22) and (23) is not accounted for by just invoking the dative preposition. Since the dative preposition occurs in both cases, there is no reason why the dative preposition would cause this difference. The Case of an argument marked with a Case particle can, in principle, be inherent or structural. If the Case particle of marked accusatives instantiates inherent Case with some objects and structural Case with others, this may ultimately be responsible for the difference in grammaticality between (22) and (23). 28 In the particular instances of overt movement in (22)-(24), the feature that must undergo movement is a wh-feature. In Chomsky's (1995, 4.4.4) theory, raising formal features (such as [wh-] and Case) is more economical than raising categories. Although covert movement involves the raising of only formal features, overt movement pied-pipes enough phonological material to ensure PF convergence. The phrase that pied-pipes in the examples we are considering is a genitive phrase. Later I will suggest that the problem with the extractions in (23) lies in the crossing of the genitive whphrase over the inherently Case-marked "accusative" object. In the account to be presented, all Case features exhibit uniform behavior with respect to Economy. 2.5.2 The Dative Marker in Nominals The other basic fact separating marked accusative objects into two main groups concerns nominalizations. Objects within derived nominals may require the dative preposition29: (25) a. [Su acusación /empujón/insulto al teniente] nos costó el puesto. ['Her accusation/push /insult to the lieutenant] caused us her dismissal.'

< previous page


next page >

< previous page

page_39

next page > Page 39

b. *[Su acusación /empujón/insulto del teniente] nos costó el puesto. [Her accusation/push /insult of the lieutenant] caused us her dismissal.' The genitive preposition de ('of') on the object is rejected in favor of the dative preposition a ('to'). It is crucial that the derived nominals in (25a) are process nominals. Grimshaw (1990) has proposed that process nominals have a complex event structure. The examples in (25) have the prenominal possessor subject su ('his', 'hers', 'theirs'), and this ensures the meaning of a process nominal. In the following examples, in the absence of the prenominal subject, the genitive preposition is allowed with the object of the nominals 30: (26) [La acusación /empujón/insulto del teniente] nos costó el puesto. [the accusation/push /insult of the lieutenant] caused us the dismissal. The derived nominals in (26) are followed by a genitive phrase. The genitive phrase is ambiguous: it can be understood as the subject or as the object. Complex event nominals have an event structure analysis. One therefore expects their object to have the same aspectual status as the object of the corresponding verb. The fact that the objects of nominals such as those in (25) impose a ('to') and preclude de ('of') provides support for Grimshaw's (1990) event analysis of nominals. 2.5.3 Case and Verbs Recall that marked accusative (for animate indefinites) is a possible choice for some verbs, whereas it is the only choice for others. Thus, verbs such as ver ('see'), encontrar ('find'), buscar ('look for'), and conocer ('know') may mark their animate indefinite object in structural accusative or in marked accusative: (27) Encontraron/buscaron /vieron/conocieron (a) un físico. pro found /looked for/saw /knew (to) a physicist 'They found/looked for/saw/knew a physicist.' However, for verbs such as acusar ('accuse'), castigar ('punish'), ofender ('offend'), empujar ('push') golpear ('beat'), and odiar ('hate'), marked accusative is obligatory for animate indefinites:

< previous page


next page >

< previous page

page_40

next page > Page 40

(28) Acusaron/castigaron/ofendieron/empujaron/golpearon/odiaron *(a) un sargento. pro accused/punished/offended/pushed/beat/hated (to) a sergeant 'They accused/punished/offended/pushed/beat/hated a sergeant.' On the basis of the data in this subsection, I conclude that verbs that impose marked accusative on their indefinite (animate) objects behave asymmetrically with respect to verbs for which marked accusative is only a choice. (I assume that causative verbsand, more generally, agentive verbsthat are inherently telic fall into the former group, as do verbs that "affect" their objects.) The wh-extractions in (23) belong in this group; so do the derived nominals in (25a). In the remainder of this section, to facilitate the presentation, I will refer to marked accusatives that strongly resist whmovement from within as MA1, and to the others as MA2. Before proceeding, I will use nominals to test the animacy constraint of marked accusatives. 2.5.4 No Animacy Constraint in Nominals In Spanish, there is a difference between verbs and derived nominals in regard to the range of objects that can appear with the preposition a ('to'). With verbs, only animates can; with derived nominals, both animates and non-animates can: (29) a. Su/el amor al dinero. his/the love to the money 'His/the love of money.' (cf. Aman (*a) el dinero 'They love money') b. Su /el odio a la gramática. their/the hatred to the grammar 'Their/the hatred of grammar.' (cf. Odian (*a) la gramática 'They hate grammar') c. Sus /los golpes a la mesa. their/the blows to the table (cf. Golpeó (*a) la mesa 'She/he hit the table')

< previous page


next page >

< previous page

page_41

next page > Page 41

The absence of an animacy constraint within derived nominals follows from my earlier proposal about the animacy constraint with verbs. I have proposed that the animacy constraint that holds of objects of verbs is an effect of a parametric choice of grammar concerning overt object raising. Once the object is in the appropriate specifier position of v-VP (which specifier does not matter at this point), the object can receive a secondary agentive role from the predicate (or enter into agreement with a person feature in v). The overall conditions that cause the animacy constraint of verbal objects simply do not occur with nominals. 2.5.5 Inherent "Accusative" Let us now turn to a tentative explanation for the difference between animate indefinite objects that have the Case particle obligatorily and those that have the Case particle optionally. Suppose that the Case particle of indefinite objects that appear obligatorily in marked accusative signals inherent Case. There are a number of reasons why this idea is helpful in explaining the data. After addressing them, I will provide some reasons why the idea of "inherent accusative" is helpful but potentially problematic. 2.5.5.1 The Data First, the dative preposition of lexical datives in Romance languages also bars wh-movement from within, as Demonte (1987) noted: (30) ??*El profesor del que hablamos [a un alumno t ] sobre ese asunto. the professor of whom pro talked [to a student t ] about that matter (cf. Hablamos [a un alumno de ese profesor] sobre el asunto We talked [to a student of that teacher] about the matter) We saw in (23) that the dative preposition bars wh-movement from within marked accusatives labeled MA1. Plausibly, the parallel behavior of lexical datives and MA1 marked accusatives in wh-extraction from within can be traced to the same factor. The idea that there is a parallelism between lexical datives and MA1 marked accusatives in regard to extraction from within is plausible on a number of grounds. If the Case expressed by the dative preposition in MA1 objects were to be inherent rather than structural, the deviance of (23) and the deviance of (30) could be traced back to inherent Case.

< previous page


next page >

< previous page

page_42

next page > Page 42

The importance of attributing inherent Case to MAI objects in the present context concerns the Case particle. The basic idea I will pursue is that the Case particle "counts" for MA1 objects and lexical datives but not for MA2 objects. The assumption that objects labeled MAI bear inherent Case would prove useful in the domain of the historical origin of the phenomenon of accusative marking. 2.5.5.2 The Historical Argument The literature characterizes the accusative objects that appear first with the dative preposition as "affected" objects. According to Lapesa (1968), historical data reveal that around the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries the complements of verbs that denote an action that affects an individual physically or psychologically appear either in the dative or in the accusative, as witnessed by the overt Case of their pronominal realization prender ('to take prisoner') and herir ('to wound') among them (ibid., p. 531). Only in subsequent centuries do we see this kind of morphological marking in connection with non-affected animate objects. In the present approach, the historical data would reflect a common Case and hence a common licensing mechanism for both lexical datives and affected objects: quirky Case. As I discussed earlier, affected (indefinite) objects require obligatory overt marking in present-day Spanish. 2.5.5.3 Analysis So far I have suggested that the apparent marked accusative of some objects is actually the realization of inherent Case. In this subsection I will speculate on the implications of this assumption for wh-extraction from within inherently Casemarked objects. Chomsky (1986a) suggests that inherent Case may add a barrier to extraction from within. The exact content of the idea that inherent Case contributes to barrierhood is not made explicit. More recently, though, Chomsky (1995, 1.4.3) has made some remarks about inherent Case. On the basis of those remarks, I conjecture that the Case particle that realizes an inherent Case ('of' for genitive, and so on) is responsible for the strong deviance of the examples in (23). Inherent Case is q-dependent, contrary to structural Case (Chomsky 1986b). Typically, [+N] categories (Nouns and Adjectives) assign inherent Case to their thematic arguments. Chomsky (1995) differentiates

< previous page


next page >

< previous page

page_43

next page > Page 43

between the Case marker that realizes inherent Case (English 'of' for genitive) and an abstract Case feature needed for the satisfaction of the Case Filter. The latter Case can be either structural or inherent. I would like to suggest that marked accusatives, independent of the inherent Case that some may bear, have a structural accusative Case feature. Let me now turn to the problematic wh-extractions in (23) and (30). Following Chomsky (1995), I assume that movement of the wh-phrase to the matrix CP is driven by a strong feature of Q in the matrix CP, an Interpretable feature. The wh-feature that must reach the matrix CP is inside the genitive phrase, which in turn is the complement of the nominal in object position (the marked accusative or the dative). Both the genitive and the marked accusative are headed by a Case particle (a 'K' in the system of Bittner and Hale (1996)): de ('of') for the moving genitive and a ('to') for the marked accusative containing the genitive. It seems plausible that the wh-genitive, in crossing over the marked accusative to the matrix CP, fails to make the "shortest move," in violation of Economy. This implies that there is a site closer than CP where the genitive must first land. Comparative judgments in the data suggest that this other landing site is the specifier of the dative preposition of the marked accusative (and of the dative). Apparently, though, something goes wrong when the wh-genitive enters the specifier of the marked accusative ([genitive [to DP t ]]). The sketched analysis, though plausible, is not without technical difficulties. Let us focus on the marked accusatives (MAI), putting the lexical dative aside for the time being. After the object raises to a specifier of v-VP, we reach the following stage (where, to facilitate the presentation, I illustrate a partial derivation with English words): (31)

Consider how we can translate the intuition of the analysis into the minimalist framework. The essential part of the analysis is that the Case particle of MA1 objects is the realization of inherent Case, and that the wh-phrase that piedpipes to CP (headed by the Case particle de ('of')) must enter into the specifier of the dative preposition of the marked accusative. In the Minimalist Program, the Spec-Head relation is the primary means of expressing checking relations. Different features enter into a checking

< previous page


next page >

< previous page

page_44

next page > Page 44

relation with a different Head. The wh-feature of the genitive phrase must enter into a checking relation with the Q of the matrix CP. The key question is whether its inherent Case feature (the genitive) enters into a checking relation; in terms of the current discussion, this will be with the Case particle a ('to') of the marked accusative object. We have assumed that the wh-genitive moves to CP to ensure convergence. Within the set of assumptions of the Minimalist Program, we also assume that the operation Movelater reformulated by Chomsky (1995, chapter 4) as Attractmust meet certain economy conditions. For our present purposes, the one that matters is the Minimal Link Condition (MLC) (Chomsky and Lasnik 1993; Chomsky 1994), a descendant of Rizzi's (1990) Relativized Minimality. The MLC forces the shortest move and is inviolable. That is, given several potential landing sites, the closer must be chosen or else the derivation crashes. Chomsky (1995, 4.4.4) makes the MLC part of the definition of Move. Chomsky (1995) defines the operation Attract/Move that incorporates the MLC as follows: ''K attracts a only if there is no ß, ß closer to K than a, such that K attracts ß." In this formulation, K is the target and a is the wh-feature in the genitive. The problem appears to be that the wh-genitive pied-pipes out of the marked accusative and encounters K, the dative preposition; the moving genitive cannot ignore K. On present assumptions, both de ('of') (for the genitive) and a ('to') (for the marked accusative) are realizations of inherent Case. The dative preposition is closer to the genitive than CP is. This appears to force the genitive to land in the specifier of the dative preposition K first: (32)

Now, this derivation has two different inherent Cases in a Spec-Head relation: the genitive is the specifier, and the dative (expressing the marked "accusative") is the head. These two features do not match. Within the framework of the Minimalist Program, mismatch of features cancels the derivation. That is, no other derivation is possible, and hence ungrammaticality obtains. If this account is on the right track, it immediately carries over to lexical datives. Note that the explanation does not depend on object shift. If the object were to be in situ, movement of the genitive over the dative

< previous page


next page >

< previous page

page_45

next page > Page 45

preposition would violate the Minimal Link Condition just the same. In fact, this proposal predicts that if the entire dative pied-pipes the result will be good, as it is: (33) Este profesor, a un alumno del cual hablamos ayer, ... this teacher, to a student of whose pro talked yesterday, ... 'This teacher, a student of whose we talked to yesterday ...' The proposed analysis works, and I think it is right; however, there are several hidden assumptions that must be made explicit. I have assumed that inherent Case is present in both de ('of') and a ('to'), since each is the overt expression of inherent Case. This implies that inherent Case does not get deleted, which in turn implies that inherent Case is Interpretable. Nonetheless, in the suggested analysis I am forced to assume that the inherent Case encoded in the a ('to') of the marked accusative (or of the dative) conflicts with the genitive because they enter into a checking relation. In other words, the two crucial assumptions that drive the analysis are (1) that inherent Case does not get deleted and (2) that a Case particle that expresses inherent Case enters into a checking relation with another Head that expresses inherent Case. The potential problem here is that a Case feature that does not need to enter into a Case-checking relation, and is thus visible at LF, does in fact enter into a Case-checking relation somewhat accidentally. It must therefore be that all Case features exhibit uniform behavior with respect to Economy, inherent as well as structural. 31 2.6 The Syntactic Roots of Object Raising Current proposals concerning object raising rely on the notion of multiple specifiers. Bare phrase structure permits a head to have multiple specifiers. The central use of the multiple-specifier approach has been in deriving the range of cross-linguistic options for, precisely, overt object movement (Koizumi 1995; Jonas 1995; Ura 1996). Given the multiple-specifier theory, the v-VP analysis of transitives allows v to be the locus of parametric variation concerning object raising. In (34), one of the specifiers hosts the subject and is therefore motivated by q-theory; however, the other is not.

< previous page


next page >

< previous page

page_46

next page > Page 46

(34)

The second specifier must be motivated on grounds other than q-theory. Chomsky (1995, section 4.10) advances the proposal that the property of v that is responsible for the "outer" specifier (Spec2) is a strong D-feature. Although the subject is in the "inner specifier," in Chomsky's analysis the subject will not enter into checking with v, because it does not head a nontrivial chain. Given that the subject is inserted by Merge, the subject is not in the checking domain of v. The empirical evidence for which specifier of v is filled by object raising in Spanish (such as word order matters) is extremely elusive. 32 In fact, I rely solely on theory-internal arguments to postulate overt object raising for Spanish marked accusatives. In the first three sections of this chapter, I have attended to the nature of the accusative verb and to the nature of the nominal in object position, unifying the two under overt object raising. In the assumptions laid out in 1.1, I suggested an approach to object clitics in which the clitic hosts the D-feature otherwise encoded in v. In this regard, the behavior of object pronouns is particularly revealing. Plausibly, all object pronouns undergo object raising when they are stressed. Stressed pronouns manifest many of the properties listed at the outset of this chapter for nonpronominal objects in marked accusative. Thus, in a sentence such as la visitaron a ella pro her-visited to her 'They visited her', the stressed object pronoun a ella appears with the dative preposition obligatorily (*la visitaron ella pro her-visited her), must have animate reference (ella cannot refer to an inanimate nominal such as library), and requires the doubling clitic la: *visitaron a ella. All these properties hold no matter the class of the accusative verb, as they do with other definites. (Although the fact that all stressed object pronouns have animate refer-

< previous page


next page >

< previous page

page_47

next page > Page 47

ence is pending analysis.) Overall, the postulation of object raising for Spanish a-objects expresses significant generalizations about their behavior. The next subsection explores how this syntactic analysis fares in passives. 2.6.1 Contrasts in Passives The ordinary assumption about passives is that the Case feature of the verb is absorbed and the subject is demoted from its argumental status. In passives, the thematic object is nominative and must therefore check nominative against finite Tense, either overtly or covertly. Hence, passives are structures in which the object may raise overtly. In principle, passives should then be possible with the classes of verbs that take objects in marked accusative. In fact, this is exactly the prediction made by certain approaches to object raising. Ura (1996) proposes that there is parametric variation in regard to the economy principle that favors LF operations in Chomsky's (1995) theory, namely Procrastinate. Some grammars allow violations, forced or unforced, of this principle; others do not. Violations are forced when convergence is at stake; otherwise they are unforced. Since I argue that the cluster of properties displayed by marked accusative objects is to be derived from object raising, I must assume that the grammar of Spanish allows violations of Procrastinate. Passives should therefore be possible with the classes of verbs that have objects in marked accusative. Surprisingly, the situation is more complex than Ura's approach would lead one to expect. Verbs of the telic class such as encarcelar ('jail') yield well-formed passives, as do verbs such as torturar ('torture'): (35) a. Varios conductores borrachos fueron encarcelados (por la policia). 'Several drunk drivers were imprisoned (by the police).' b. Dos chicas fueron atropelladas (por un auto). 'Two girls were hit (by a car).' c. Muchos inocentes fueron torturados/quemados (por la Inquisición). 'Many innocents were tortured /burned (by the Inquisition).'

< previous page


next page >

< previous page

page_48

next page > Page 48

d. Dos vinos fueron servidos (por el camarero). 'Two wines were served (by the waiter).' But comparable passives of activity verbs such as esconder ('hide') and ver ('see') classified as atelic are quite degraded: (36) a. ???E1 ganador de la carrera fue besado por la alcalde. 'The winner of the race was kissed by the mayor.' b. ???E1 fugitivo fue escondido por los colegas. 'The fugitive was hidden by his friends.' c. ???Varios extraterrestes fueron vistos por el guardia. 'Several extraterrestrials were seen by the guard.' The contrast seen here would indicate that telic transitives tolerate violation of Procrastinate, and that atelic transitives do not. But this contradicts the result obtained in the active. Both esconder and ver allow a marked accusative object when their subject is agentive. Furthermore, the object of Spanish passives can appear after the past participle, which makes it difficult to know whether the object actually raises. For instance, instead of (35) we can have the following order: (37) a. Fueron encarcelados varios conductores borrachos (por la policía). were imprisoned several drunk drivers (by the police). b. Fueron atropelladas dos chicas (por un auto). were hit two girls (by a car) c. Fueron torturados/quemados muchos inocentes (por la Inquisición). Were tortured /burned many innocents (by the Inquisition). d. Fueron servidos dos vinos (por el camarero). were served two wines (by the waiter)

< previous page


next page >

< previous page

page_49

next page > Page 49

The postverbal order does not improve the ill-formed passives: (38) a. ???Fue besado el ganador por la alcalde. was kissed the winner 'The winner was kissed by the mayor.' b. ???Fue escondido el fugitivo por los colegas. was hidden the fugitive by his friends 'The fugitive was hidden by his friends.' c. ???Fueron vistos varios extraterrestes por el guardia. were seen several extraterrestrials by the guard. 'Several extraterrestrials were seen by the guard.' Once we see that passivization and object raising do not behave alike, we are led to ask whether good and bad instances of passivization bear on the possibilities of object raising. The answer appears to be that they do. The preceding discussion omits one important empirical fact: that when the subject of the ill-formed passives in (36) and (38) is unexpressed (i.e., no by-phrase appears) the resulting passives are nearly perfect: (39) a. Fue besado el ganador. was kissed the winner b. Fue escondido el fugitivo. was hidden the fugitive c. Fueron vistos varios extraterrestres en la ciudad. were seen several extraterrestrials in the city The facts I am discussing point toward a problematic interaction between the Case checking of the nominative Case of the Infl and the presence in the structure of the por-phrase in the passives of (38). The demoted subject in Spanish passives with verbs such as besar ('kiss') seems to prevent finite Tense (Infl) from checking its nominative Case against the object. This approach, in turn, implies that the por-phrase in the passives in (39) must be truly absent from the structure.

< previous page


next page >

< previous page

page_50

next page > Page 50

However, things are different with verbs such as encarcelar and torturar. As was shown in (37), the demoted subject does not alter the well-formedness of the passives of these verbs. We must therefore distinguish between the two cases. The contrastive behavior of verbs such as esconder ('hide') and quemar ('burn') in the passive suggests to me that the presence of an agent is linked to the licensing of multiple specifiers. We have seen that object raising is allowed if the verb has an agent or a cause as subject, which in turn implies a second specifier. Consider how the agent is licensed with various classes of verbs. As we saw, the subject of verbs such as esconder ('hide') is not necessarily agentive, but it has to be agentive when the object appears in marked accusative. However, verbs such as quemar ('burn') have an agentive or causal subject independent of the morphological realization of their object. This contrast suggests that the agentive subject of the former class of verbs can be licensed in a way that the subject of the latter verb does not. This semantic difference can be captured by assuming that an agentive subject can be licensed positionally more easily with quemar ('burn') than with esconder ('hide'), or that it can be licensed positionally only with the former class. Although in the vast majority of cases this difference yields no empirical results, we see here that in Spanish passives it does. The difference between the two can lie in the v that licenses multiple specifiers in the v-VP configuration of object raising. Under this approach, v is the locus of parametric variation concerning both object raising and passives. As an anonymous reviewer observed, agentive subjects are not suppressed universally in passives. For example, the agent in Imbabura Quechua exhibits identical Case marking in the active and in the passive (Jake 1983): (40) a. cai wambra-ca wagra-ta michi-ju-rca-mi. this boy-top cattle-acc herd-prog-3pst 'This boy was herding cattle.' b. wagra-ca cai wambra michi-ju-shca-mi ca-rca. cattle-top this boy herd-prog-pas-wit be-3pst 'The cattle were being herded by this boy.'

< previous page


next page >

< previous page

page_51

next page > Page 51

As is well known, the literature contains different approaches to how accusative Case is eliminated in passives. Some linguists treat the passive morpheme as having the accusative Case of the verb and the thematic role of the subject (Baker et al. 1989). Linguists differ in how they view the subject of a passive (Zubizarreta 1985; Jaeggli 1986b; Grimshaw 1990). No matter the approach, however, the main idea about passives is that they have an impoverished structure due to the auxiliary be. Watanabe (1993, 1996) discusses this in his "three layered Case checking hypothesis." My intuition is that the problem in the Spanish passives (38) resides in the nature of the "D property" of v. The main intuition resides in the idea that, owing to the nature of the v of the v-VP configuration of transitive verbs in the class of besar ('kiss'), the subject has to be licensed as an argument when v is part of the structure, and the accusative Case of V also needs to be licensed. When the por-phrase is absent, v will also be. The relevant configuration would then be as follows: (41)

I conclude that the locus of cross-linguistic variation in the area of passives is v. The intuitive motivation for taking v to be the element that draws distinctions in passives concerns the asymmetry found with the two classes of verbs examined with respect to the data in the previous sections of this chapter. In a wide range of cases, Spanish passives are problematic more so than passives in Italian and other Romance languages. Since I link clitics to the D-feature of v, and Spanish allows clitics to double arguments, I conjecture that the problematic status of Spanish passives should be looked at from the perspective of the possible realizations of the D associated to v.

< previous page


next page >

< previous page

page_52

next page > Page 52

2.7 Morphological Marking and Object Raising In the introduction to this chapter I laid out six generalizations covering the properties of marked accusative objects: (1) their capacity to be doubled by clitics, (2) their interpretation as "specific," (3) the sensitivity of their marking to aspectual classes of verbs, (4) their link to agentivity, (5) the animacy restriction that holds of them, and (6) the bearing of Affectedness on their marking. Consideration of ECM structures reveals one additional property of marked accusative. In the next subsection I discuss a syntactic contrast between marked and abstract accusatives that arises in an ECM structure attested in the Romance languages. 2.7.1 Marked Accusative in ECM contexts In French, the infinitival complement clause of croire ('believe'), an ECM verb, marginally allows a lexical subject when realized as a wh-phrase moved to the matrix Q. 33 Kayne (1984), who discusses this structure at length, gives the following French examples: (42) a. Quel garçon crois/reconnais/constates-tu être le plus intelligent de tous? 'Which boy do you believe/acknowledge/determine (to) be the most intelligent of all?' b. *Je crois/reconnais/constate Jean être le plus intelligent de tous. I believe/acknowledge/have determined Jean to be the most intelligent of all. In Spanish we find a contrast between a wh-subject in marked accusative and a wh-subject in abstract accusative, the former yielding far more deviance: (43) a. ?Qué problema crees/juzgas/asumes [t ser irresoluble]? what problem do you believe/acknowledge/assume [to be irresolvable]? b. *A qué alumno crees/juzgas/consideras [t ser inteligente]? to what student do you believe/acknowledge/consider [to be intelligent]?

< previous page


next page >

< previous page

page_53

next page > Page 53

An essential point is that this behavior does not distinguish between marked and abstract accusative in small clauses. The marked accusative in the following does not yield deviance: (44) A qué alumno crees/juzgas/consideras inteligente? to what student do you believe/acknowledge/consider intelligent? Since I consider marked accusative to be a structural Case (except for "affected objects"), the sharp deviance of examples like (43b) is surprising. It is implausible that the infinitival subject of (43b) can be considered "affected," since, as Rizzi (1986b) comments, it is someone else's perception process to believe someone intelligent. Importantly, the marking of objects of accusative verbs is restricted by the thematic nature of the subject. I have discussed how this marking can be predicted on the basis of event structure along the lines of Grimshaw's (1990) proposal for the marking of arguments in quirky Case. Although quirky Case is considered to be an inherent Case, it is possible that the marking of structural accusatives and the marking of inherently Case-marked arguments in quirky Case are subject to the same constraint. The empirical facts point to the intervention of Infl in the saturation of the event argument of verbs with objects in marked accusative, an aspect of event structure discussed in the semantic literature to which I have nothing to contribute. Nonetheless, I think it is worth discussing, step by step, how the ill-formedness of (43b) can be derived. The intervention of Infl in the marking of accusatives can best be seen in light of Marantz's (1991) proposal about "dependent" Case. Marantz observes that "dependent" Case is assigned by the complex 'V + I' to an NP in opposition to another NP governed by 'V + I', which for Spanish marked accusatives would be, generally speaking, an agentive subject. Prima facie, the ill-formedness of (43b) fits Marantz's description of "dependent" Case. The crucial aspect of the derivation disallowing the wh-subject in marked accusative in the ECM structure of (43b) would be that the infinitival subject is within a clause with its own Infl. In other words, the matrix verb and the infinitival verb are each associated with a different Infl. The DP that appears overtly marked is the subject of an embedded infinitival clause, and, therefore, a clause with an Infl. The ECM verb that licenses the Case of the infinitival subject is a verb that belongs to the finite matrix clause, a verb associated to a different Infl. Note that this approach requires the assumption that small clauses in

< previous page


next page >

< previous page

page_54

next page > Page 54

general, or, more narrowly, that small clauses embedded under the verb believe have no Infl. On the assumptions of the Minimalist Program, movement is driven by the requirement that some feature of a functional category be checked. Since the subject of the infinitival clause in (43a) is a wh-phrase, we must assume that it is the wh-feature of the matrix Q that drives the operation Move F. The wh-subject, though, has to check its Case feature on its way to the matrix Q. Kayne (1984) suggested that in the derivation of(42a) the infinitival wh-subject, on its way to the matrix Q, enters into the specifier of the lower Q and its Case is licensed by the ECM verb in this position. Although evidence discussed by Rouveret and Vergnaud (1980, note 23) and further evidence discussed by Pollock (1985) indicate that Kayne's analysis cannot be maintained, 34 under current assumptions whatever head checks abstract accusative in the infinitival subject in (43a) has to be able to check marked accusative on the infinitival wh-subject in (43b). Nothing that I know of can distinguish between the Case checking of an abstract accusative and the Case checking of a marked accusative in the ECM structure. No matter the details, the derivation of (43a) and that of (43b) must involve two different chains: an ''NP chain," (equivalent to an A-chain) and a "wh chain," (equivalent to a non-A-chain) (Ura 1993; Parodi 1995).35 The facts of this subsection suggest to me that the ill-formedness of (43b) does not have to do with Case checking per se. I think they relate to the conditions under which the grammar allows marking of an argument with overt morphology. When a marked accusative raises, its Case is licensed in the specifier of the v-VP, as the Case of any other accusative object raised overtly to this position is. I must conclude that the marking of an object with the dative preposition is independent of the nature of its Case (structural, as in most Spanish marked accusatives), or inherent (as in Icelandic quirky subjects). The restriction in question seems to derive from the special semantics of predicates with the object raised. 2.7.2 More Issues in Overt Object Raising I have already examined some of the central cases motivating overt object raising of marked accusatives. In this subsection I will discuss several other properties of marked accusatives that can be understood in terms of properties of v.

< previous page


next page >

< previous page

page_55

next page > Page 55

2.7.2.1 The Animacy of Marked Accusatives As I mentioned at the outset of this chapter, the Case of objects can be sensitive to their animate interpretation. 36 Mohanan (1990) observes for Hindi that objects appear in the accusative when they are animate, and in the nominative when they are inanimate. She also notices that subjects in Hindi can take ergative or nominative, but that the choice of ergative (restricted to Perfective Aspect) is confined to entities that are somewhat "agentive." The lexical factors that condition ergative Case in Hindi are the same as the lexical factors that condition marked accusative in Spanish. I will describe them below. Inanimates do not take Case morphology unless their lexical semantics qualify them as "actors."37 The category "actor" embraces a variety of concepts; in addition to nominals that refer to humans, those referring to acids and metals and those describing natural forces fit the characterization of "actor'' (Jackendoff 1993). Consider the following38: (45) El ácido afecta (a) los metales. 'Acid affects metals.' As Luján (1977) observes, this type of example calls into question the customary division between animates and inanimates. The term "actor" appears to be more appropriate to characterize the class of nominals that appear in marked accusative than the term "animate."39 The distinction between "animates" (or "actor"-like nominals) and "inanimates" does not appear to be semantic in nature.40 Notice that in the following example the object of the accusative verb requires Case morphology independent of the actual reference of the proper name Bárbara, which can refer to anything, from a boat to a magazine to a can of beer: (46) Esconde *(a) Bárbara. Hide (to) Barbara 'Hide Barbara.' The obligatory overt marking of proper names of humans such as Bárbara in (46) shows that this is a purely morphological property, not a semantic property. A variety of reasons makes it plausible to think that the determiner is the locus of these morphological restrictions.41 Among these reasons is the fact that, internal to the object, the determiner is the

< previous page


next page >

< previous page

page_56

next page > Page 56

locus of all other morphological features that influence marked accusative Case. 42 This is suggested by the crosslinguistic invariability of the overt Case marking of nominals that are definite (Enç 1991; Diesing 1992).43 Morphological Case characterizes a group of nominals that are superficially disparate. Presumably, the determiner is the part of the nominal responsible for this apparent diversity.44 The animacy restriction that holds of marked accusatives has empirical consequences in several syntactic domains, particularly, in causatives (chapter 3) and in ditransitive verbs (chapter 4). One question I leave open here is whether the animacy restriction is to be derived from morphological properties of v or not. Animacy does not play any role in object shift in the Germanic languages, nor does it in instances of "long" movement of objects. Thus, in sentences like Spanish qué carretera han arreglado? 'What road have they fixed?', the wh-phrase is an accusative object that raises (presumably) through the specifier of v-VP to Q, but no animacy restriction applies here. Only when the target of object raising is a specifier of the v-VP configuration animacy enters into play. We can deduce this semantic restriction from the configuration by saying that (subject to parametric variation) a secondary agentive role is assigned to the object raised to the v-VP configuration. This would be an extension of Marantz's (1984) idea (discussed in section 4.6 of Chomsky 1995) that the agent role is to be understood as the interpretation assigned to the v-VP configuration. This approach, which I regard as highly plausible, is helpful in understanding cases of "improper object movement," but it does not help in other cases discussed later in chapter 4. The problem we face with animacy is somewhat similar to the problem we face with the association between object raising and the agentive or the causative role of the predicate. It is obviously not the case that the subject of sentences in which an object has undergone "long" wh-movement has to be agentive. Again, the agentive restriction only applies when the object is attracted to move by a feature of v. I then suspect that semantics plays a role in these restrictions, but I am not prepared to address the semantic issues. 2.7.2.2 The Specifier of Object Raising At the outset of this book I suggested that the D-feature that Chomsky (1995) postulates for v can be helpful in the study of Romance object clitics. I have suggested that object clitics can be looked at as Ds encoding the categorial feature D of v, and agreement features. I would now like to explore the relation between Romance object clitics and v, concentrating mainly on third-person accusative clitics.

< previous page


next page >

< previous page

page_57

next page > Page 57

The question of where pronominal clitics originate, and the more specific question of where Romance object clitics originate, has been widely discussed in the literature (Sportiche, in progress). The order of Romance clitics with respect to the verb has been discussed at length by Kayne (1991, 1994), Uriagereka (1995), and others. I will have nothing to say about matters on word order here. I shall approach the more general question of the relationship between the functional head v and object clitics, arguing that object clitics are the overt realization of a D whose licensing head is v. In principle, the fact that clitics in Romance languages can appear with both transitive accusative verbs and with dative verbs can be seen in the context of v. When a VP is associated with v, v can host a clitic. This leads to the following representation, in which the clitic appears merged with v: (47) ...[v C1 v] VP... If I am correct in taking v to be the functional head that licenses pronominal object clitics in Romance languages, the presence of clitics in the structure should signal a v. In chapter 4 I will show that the picture is more complex than what my considerations here would suggest, but for the moment I will put all complications aside. Notice that this approach forces me to view the clitic as having an argumental associate. The standard assumption is that object clitics are associated with pro. This leaves the question of why the clitic systems of Catalan, French, and Italian differ from the clitic system of Spanish. The former languages have locative and partitive clitics in addition to accusative and dative clitics, whereas Spanish long ago lost the two former types of clitics. I will postpone discussion of these topics, and also of the question of how to analyze structures in which the clitic and its associate appear together (clitic doubling). In the present chapter, I will mainly concentrate on the analysis of syntactic structures involving clitics, which have, at their core, the features of object clitics. 2.7.2.3 Objects and Their Doubling Clitics Marked accusatives depart from the behavior of ordinary objects in the area of doubling clitics. It is a well-known fact that doubling clitics in Spanish appear only with objects preceded by the dative preposition. In this subsection I will provide an account of several syntactic interactions between marked accusatives and doubling clitics based on the assumption

< previous page


next page >

< previous page

page_58

next page > Page 58

that Move searches features rather than categories. The feature-movement analysis will lead to a restating of Agr as a parametric option within the Agr-less theory of the Minimalist Program. 2.7.2.3.1 Feature movement and doubling clitics In the Minimalist Program, Move involves feature movement. Move relates to checking of formal features. According to Chomsky (1995), Move raises F and derivatively raises the set of formal features of the lexical item. Thus, in an example such as A quiénes ha visto? 'To whom have you seen?' the formal features of the raised object are the whfeature, the D-feature, Case, person, and number. Move F carries along a phrase containing F only when movement is overt, as required by PF convergence. In this subsection I will examine some of the implications of feature movement for the syntactic interaction between marked accusatives and doubling clitics. I will first discuss the interaction between doubling clitics and wh-movement. Consider these Albanian examples, which are from Massey 1991 45: (48) a. Kujt i foli Murati? whoDAT c1DAT speak Murat Who did Murat speak to? b. *Kujt foli Murat? whoDAT speakACC Murat 'Who did Murat speak to?' These two examples show that a dative clitic can co-occur with a moved wh-object, whereas an accusative clitic cannot. In other words, a doubling third-person clitic in the accusative has a blocking effect for its wh-associate. This pattern of behavior is found across languages. Jaeggli (1981, 1986a) and Borer (1984) discuss similar data for Spanish. Some examples are shown here: (49) a. A quiénes (les) vieron? to whom pro (themDAT)-saw? 'Whom did they see?'

< previous page


next page >

< previous page

page_59

next page > Page 59

b. A quiénes (*los) vieron? to whom pro (themACC)-saw? 'Whom did they see?' The theory of feature movement provides a natural way to deduce these syntactic interactions. Suppose we assume that the Case checking of accusative third-person clitics involves agreement in all its formal features. What are the consequences of this modality of Case checking? Checking is parametrized, as is the feature composition of functional categories. The functional category that concerns us here is a clitic-in particular, a third-person accusative clitic. In Spanish, the third-person accusative clitic is inflected for accusative Case, gender, person, and number; hence, we may view it as a particular instantiation of strong Agr. Suppose that this sort of strong Agr checks its Case by "strong" agreement-that is, by implicating all its formal features in the checking of its Case, as stated in the assumption above. An immediate effect of this modality of Case checking is that the formal features of the object against which the clitic checks its Case are no longer accessible to a subsequent instance of checking. That is, once the clitic checks its Case against the object, the features that must act as "free riders" of the movement of the wh-feature in the object are not available. The blocking effect that the clitic has for wh-movement of the clitic's associate in Albanian and Spanish can reasonably be attributed to the proposed modality of Case checking. For example, (48b) and (49b) have a wh-feature [+wh]in Q that attracts the wh-feature of the object to move prior to LF. Since the wh-feature in the matrix clause that attracts the wh-feature of the object is strong, the wh-feature of the object must reach Q before LF. Since the phrase, not just its wh-feature, move (i.e., the object pied-pipes), the wh-object, on its way to the specifier of Q, encounters the clitic (no matter exactly where clitics are or move to). Hence, the wh-feature of the object cannot check strong Q. On the assumption that the accusative clitic checks its Case feature by entering into agreement with all the formal features of the wh-object, we expect the formal features of the object not to be accessible as "free riders" of the wh-feature. Since the wh-feature of the object cannot move independently of its other formal features, the strong wh-feature in Q fails to enter into a checking relation with the wh-feature of the object; this causes the derivation to crash at the interface level of PF, and perhaps also at LF.

< previous page


next page >

< previous page

page_60

next page > Page 60

The wh-feature of the object could reach Q only if the wh-object were able to skip the clitic. This, however, is impossible, owing to the Minimal Link Condition, which is inviolable (Chomsky 1995). I therefore conclude that the accusative third-person clitic prevents the wh-feature of the object from reaching the functional head Q, and that this causes the derivation to fail. Nothing of this sort will occur when the wh-object enters into an agreement relation with a clitic in which its other nominal features are dissociated. This situation is likely to occur with the dative clitic. The dative clitic in Spanish is inflected for person and number but not for gender: the only forms are le (singular) and les (plural). Assuming that the Case of the clitic is checked independently of its gender and number features, we derive the result that a dative clitic does not interfere with wh-movement of its associate. The behavior of the third-person accusative and the dative clitics now follows. 46 Let us briefly compare the feature structure of the third-person accusative clitic with Agro. According to Chomsky (1995, 4.10.1), functional categories such as Tense, Complementizer, and Determiner have Interpretable features but Agr does not. Agr consists solely ofInterpretable features. The clitic, unlike Agro, has a D-feature. Agro and the accusative clitic differ in other respects as well. Crucially, Agro lacks Case and is phonologically non-overt, whereas the accusative clitic has Case and is realized overtly. Though Agro has been proposed, no evidence has been found that Agro bars wh-movement of the argument that enters into agreement with it. French has a well-attested process of participial agreement, analyzed in Kayne 1989a: (50) Combien de tables as-tu repeintes? How many tables have you repainted?' Kayne attributes the overt agreement between the wh-phrase and the participle to an Agr element. Details aside, he proposes that the wh-phrase that raises on its way to Comp (Q) enters into an agreement relation with the participle (which we may assume moved and is now adjoined to Agr). (Kayne shows that an object that does not move outside the VP does not agree with the participle.) Plausibly, then, the fact that the accusative clitic is inflected for Case as well as for gender, number, and person influences the particular modality of Case checking of accusative third-person clitics in clitic-doubling languages.

< previous page


next page >

< previous page

page_61

next page > Page 61

If the Case checking of the accusative clitic requires complete agreement in features, the clitics in the following examples (from Spanish and Modern Greek 47) should be excluded on the same grounds as in (49b): (51) a. No (*lo) vió a nadie. pro no (himACC)-saw to nobody 'She saw no one.' b. Kanena dhen (*ton) idha. no-one not (himACC)-saw-I 'I saw no one.' The tacit assumption I am making is that the negative feature of the quantifier object is attracted to move by the negative feature of the negation at LF. Movement of this feature will not result in an instance of checking if the Case checking of the accusative clitic leaves the object with no formal features to move along with the negative feature. In the LF component, Move F also raises more than the feature F; it raises FF[F], which is the minimal unit containing F. As happens with wh-phrases, the dative clitic causes no such interference with the negative object: (52) a. No (le) hablé a nadie. pro no (himDAT)-talked to nobody 'I talked to no one.' b. kanenos dhen tou milisa. no oneDAT not himDAT-talked to 'I talked to no one.' However, as Suñer (1988) noted, partitives behave quite differently. An accusative doubling clitic does not bar whmovement of the partitive object: (53) A cuál de las dos candidatas la entrevistaron? to which of the two candidates pro herACC-interviewed? 'Which of the two candidates did they interview?'

< previous page


next page >

< previous page

page_62

next page > Page 62

(cf. *A cuál candidata la entrevistaron To which candidate pro herACC-interviewed? 'To which candidate did they interview?') One plausible analysis of the contrast between partitives and non-partitives with respect to a doubling accusative clitic is that the Case feature of the wh-partitive phrase and its wh-feature belong in two different sets of formal features. The locus of the wh-feature is cuál, a determiner. Suppose that the locus of the Case feature is not the determiner; partitives may have a null head, namely pro: cuál pro de las dos candidatas 'which one of the two candidates'. I assume that the locus of the Case feature of the entire partitive phrase is the null head, pro. 48 (A null head for partitives has been proposed in the literature on semantic grounds; see Uriagereka 1994 and Chierchia 1996.) The pattern in (53) seems to be general.49 The following Modern Greek example involves negative quantifiers: (54) Kanena apo tus kinighus dhen ton idha na kinighai arkudes. noneACC of the hunters not himCL saw to-hunt bears 'I didn't see any of the hunters hunting bears.' (cf.*Kanena dhen ton idha No oneACC not himCL saw-I 'I saw no one') As can be seen here, if a negative quantifier is a partitive, a doubling clitic in the accusative yields an acceptable result (in contrast to a non-partitive negative quantifier). The feature-checking analysis of the accusative clitic is attractive in several respects. Intuitively, the fact that agreement is the mode of Case checking involved with the more fully inflected clitic is very natural. There is also additional evidence favoring the analysis. Before examining it, though, let me briefly evaluate the sketched analysis for clitic left dislocation (CLLD). Cinque (1990) argues against a null operator movement analysis of CLLD, using examples such as these from Italian and Spanish: (55) Gianni, lo conocesmo. A Juan, lo conocemos. 'John, we know him.' Cinque (ibid., p. 60) observes that if CLLD were to involve null operator movement one would expect the accusative clitic in (55) to behave on a par with the clitic in (49b), which it does not. Therefore, the grammati-

< previous page


next page >

< previous page

page_63

next page > Page 63

cality contrast between (55) and (49b) (with the clitic) is evidence against the Null Operator analysis of CLLD. The analysis pursued for the blocking effects of the accusative clitic with respect to its wh-associate appears to be relevant to a different phenomenon as well. Consider the following examples: (56) a. Ana nos vió a muchos (de los lingüistas). Ana to us-saw to many (of the linguists) 'Ana saw many (of the linguists among us).' b. Ana nos vió (a los lingüistas). Ana to us-saw (to the linguists) 'Ana saw the linguists among us.' c. Ana nos vió (a toda la clase) Ana to us-saw (to the entire class) 'Ana saw our whole class.' In previous work (Torrego 1996) I analyzed the clitic as an inflectional element, the argumental object as the null pronominal pro, and the marked accusative as a DP in some non-A position. In (56) above, the phrase in parentheses is understood as being included in the reference of the clitic. Thus, (56a) means roughly "someone saw many of the linguists among us." On present assumptions, pro is then the argument. I assume that at LF an argumental chain must be established between the phrase in parentheses and pro, so that the phrase in parentheses is part of an argumental chain. This, in turn, requires that all or some of the formal features of object pro be accessible to the associated phrase in parentheses. One key assumption I made in my previous work on this topic is that the association between the phrase in parentheses and object pro is mediated, crucially, by the person feature of object pro (as suggested by the interpretation). 50 It is therefore crucial that the person feature of object pro be accessible to the phrase in parentheses at LF. Consider (57): (57) a. Les habló (a toda la clase). pro themDAT-spoke (to the whole class)

< previous page


next page >

< previous page

page_64

next page > Page 64

b. Los vió (*a toda la clase). pro themACC-saw to the whole class 'They saw the entire class.' Strikingly, the third-person accusative clitic, contrary to the dative clitic, disallows the phrase in parentheses. 51 Since I have established that the accusative clitic checks Case by agreement of all its nominal features, it is likely that the particular mode of Case checking of the accusative clitic makes the person feature of pro inaccessible to the phrase in parentheses. As a result, the accusative clitic disallows this construction. According to the proposal that the accusative clitic checks its Case by implicating all its formal features, the accusative clitic ought to force identity of all its F features (gender, number, and person) with pro. Although this is an instance of covert movement, and covert movement does not carry along whole categories, Case checking by agreement still requires raising all the formal features of pro. Crucially, the phrase in parentheses must access the person feature of pro. Therefore, the person feature of pro cannot be accessed, and this prevents the inclusive interpretation that is allowed in (56). 2.7.2.3.2 Some consequences for doubling clitics The evidence analyzed in the preceding subsection makes it possible to put several syntactic issues into perspective. Consider, first, the blocking effects of the accusative clitic for wh-movement of its associate, and for the other constructions I have discussed. The sort of rationale for the Case-checking modes proposed for doubling clitics is not available in a theory that treats clitics uniformly. Overall, the data I have analyzed support the classical idea that doubling clitics are agreement morphemes. However, the variation of the syntactic effects of doubling clitics depending on their morphological shape and depending on their grammatical function argues against treating doubling clitics uniformly. A long linguistic tradition has viewed the Case of clitics as the realization of a Case feature of the verb. (See, e.g., Borer 1984 and Aoun 1982.) This general line of analysis can be maintained if we regard the doubling accusative clitic as a product of v rather than as one of the q-assigning verb V. Several facts favor this approach. One concerns the Case variability of the doubling clitic with direct objects: dative versus accusative. Surely it is not the case that transitive accusative verbs have dative rather

< previous page


next page >

< previous page

page_65

next page > Page 65

than accusative in the languages I am considering here. Variability in the Case feature of the clitic can be traced back to v. Since v is a non-substantive category, v is more likely to be the locus of morphological variation than V. The Case relation established between the doubling clitic and V is indirect, as with any other inflectional element. Furthermore, it is important that the configuration in which doubling clitics are found in the languages discussed here is the v-VP configuration of (di)transitive accusatives. With verbs that lack a v (such as unaccusatives), the addition of a doubling clitic is required whenever the syntactic conditions of a complement require structural Case. This strongly disfavors the view that clitics express the Case feature of V. The clitic contributes to the structure with a Case feature, which is what makes it obligatory in that particular structure. Finally, a doubling clitic cannot be considered the spellout of a Case feature of the verb, since, as we have seen, doubling clitics are syntactically active. The preceding observations suggest a different approach to clitic doubling: through a difference in the Case features and v. On the assumption that clitics are internally non-complex and that they do not project, clitics are ambiguously heads and XPs (Chomsky 1995). Insofar as the doubling clitic has an effect on the output, we can assume that the doubling clitic is optionally drawn from the lexicon and placed in the numeration. 52 A clitic associated to v can be considered to be part of v and to merge with v: (58)

A pronominal clitic adds to the structure, in addition to Case and agreement features (in the languages considered here), a D-feature. 2.8 The Semantic Factor I have been using indefinites throughout this chapter because indefinites are the only class of DPs that give us a contrast between abstract and

< previous page


next page >

< previous page

page_66

next page > Page 66

marked accusative Case for animate objects. In this section, I will discuss the basic facts that support this claim. (Nothing in this section adds to what is already known in linguistic theory about the semantics of VP-external objects. Some readers may therefore want to skip to section 2.9.) 2.8.1 Definites Definites force overt Case morphology on animates. Consider esconder ('hide'), for which marked accusative is optional with indefinites: (59) a. Escondieron (a) un amigo. pro hid to a friend b. Escondieron *(a) su amigo. pro hid to their friend As the reader may recall, the morphological marking of the object has a semantic import for such verbs. The major import of marked accusative here is that it induces the eventive reading of the verb, which implies that the subject is agent. In theories such as that of Enç (1991), definites are considered to be specific. Everything else being equal, we expect definites to be morphologically Case-marked obligatorily. This expectation is borne out: (60) a. Llamaron *(a) los bomberos. 'They called the firemen.' b. Escucharon *(a) Miles Davis. 'They heard Miles Davis.' c. Necesitan *(a) tu secretario. 'They need your secretary.' Some nominals are in principle ambiguous in their animate/non-animate reading. With these nominals, Case marking disambiguates the two readings, singling out the animate. I will discuss this Case-marking effect on the basis of the following minimal pair:

< previous page


next page >

< previous page

page_67

next page > Page 67

(61) a. Buscan el pueblo de Numancia. pro are looking for the town of Numancia b. Buscan al pueblo de Numancia. pro are looking for the people of Numancia The nominal el pueblo de Numancia can be understood as referring to the people of a town (Numancia) or as referring to the town itself. The marker a resolves the ambiguity. The morphologically marked object in (61b) refers to the people, whereas the bare object in (61a) refers to the town. 53 2.8.2 Indefinites: Specific versus Non-specific As is customary, I will use existential there-be sentences to test the specificity of objects. In this environment, an indefinite is acceptable and a definite is not: There ensued a/*the riot on Mass. Ave. This restriction goes under the name definiteness effect (DE), although Millwork (1974) calls it the quantification restriction.54 Definites introduced by a class of determiners that Milsark labels ''strong" cannot appear as the post-copular subjects of there-be sentences. Universal quantifiers such as 'everybody' belong to Milsark's "strong" class. For the purposes of illustration, I offer a Spanish example with an idiomatic expression for 'everybody': the QP todo bicho viviente 'every living animal': (62) *Hay todo bicho viviente en la sala. 'There is everybody in the room.' As this example shows, the universal quantifier todo bicho viviente is excluded from this environment. Since the universal quantifier 'everybody' is strong, one expects it to bear marked accusative and not abstract accusative. As (63) indicates, this expectation is borne out. The verb esconder ('hide') allows indefinite objects to be in abstract accusative, yet marked accusative is the only choice for the QP 'everybody'. (63) Han escondido *(a) todo bicho viviente. pro have hidden everybody 'They have hidden everybody.'

< previous page


next page >

< previous page

page_68

next page > Page 68

(cf. Han escondido (a) un prisionero, pro have hidden (to) a prisoner 'They have hidden a prisoner.') We must therefore conclude that the obligatoriness of marked accusative on the QP 'everybody' stems from the inherent semantics of this QP. In other words, it must be that the QP todo bicho viviente 'every living animal' has some property that makes it unsuitable for existentials. Enç(1991) claims that the property at work is specificity. 55 If the QP todo bicho viviente is intrinsically specific, the fact that it must be obligatorily marked will follow from its semantics.56 Partitives provide further evidence for the specificity of marked accusative objects. Enç argues that partitives are necessarily specific. If marked accusative with indefinites correlates with specificity, again, everything else being equal, indefinite partitives will bear Case morphology obligatorily in Spanish, as they do in Turkish. When we look at the data, we find that only in a subclass of cases do partitives behave as specific. The following examples illustrate all the available options: (64) a. Escondieron *(a) cinco de ellas. pro hid (to) five of them b. Escondieron *(a) cinco de tus alumnos. pro hid (to) five of your students c. Escondieron ?(a) cinco de los alumnos. pro hid (to) five of the students d. Escondieron (a) cinco. pro hid (to) five Case morphology is obligatory with the partitive in (64a) and (64b), and optional in (64d), and, more marginally, in (64c). The optionality of the Case marker in (64d) can be understood as evidence that numerals are not necessarily partitives (cf. Había uno 'There was one'). The next class of cases I wish to discuss concern discourse situations like the following: (65) a. Buscan a un narcotraficante (de modo que no pueda salír del país).

< previous page


next page >

< previous page

page_69

next page > Page 69

b. Buscan un narcotraficante (*de modo que no pueda salir del país). pro are looking for a drug dealer (so that he cannot leave the country) These two examples differ in that the object is introduced by the dative Preposition only in (65a). Only when the object is morphologically marked can a comment be made specifying something about the object. This is the expected result if specificity correlates with a objects. Only in (65a) does the speaker have a specific person in mind. A fourth type of evidence in support of the specificity of a-objects involves "small clauses." Consider the following two examples, which differ in interpretation: (66) a. Alli vieron a una mujer muerta. there pro saw to a woman (who was) dead b. Alli vieron una mujer muerta. there pro saw a dead woman 'They saw a dead woman there.' The object of ver ('see') can be clausal in (66a) but not in (66b). Only when the object marker is present does the object denote a specific individual. Hence, the predicate muerta ('dead') cannot take a bare object as its subject. Next, consider these two examples, with a locative adverb and an object in abstract accusative and in marked accusative respectively 57: (67) a. Escondieron aqui una amiga durante la guerra. pro hid here a friend during the war 'They hid a friend here during the war.' b. Escondieron aqui a una amiga durante la guerra. pro hid here to a friend during the war 'They hid a friend during the war.' Both (67a) and (67b) are possible, but they do not have the same readings. In (67a) the locative is an ordinary adverb placing the action denoted by the verb (as suggested by the English gloss), so the sentence means that

< previous page


next page >

< previous page

page_70

next page > Page 70

they hid a friend here (for instance, in this room) during the war. Example (67b) has, in addition to this reading, another reading, which is missing from example (67a). In this other reading, the locative adverb does not refer to the room where they hid a friend. Rather, in (67b) the adverb indicates that the friend they hid during the war is physically present. A subtle pointing towards the friend with body language occurs during the utterance of this sentence. This is another semantic effect of the overt Case marking of objects. Presumably, only when existence of the object is presupposed is indexical pointing toward the object allowed. As expected, this reading is possible when the object appears in marked accusative, as in (67b), and is excluded when the object appears in abstract accusative, as in (67a). Restrictive and non-restrictive relatives also serve to test the specificity of indefinites preceded by the Case marker a. Spanish restrictive relatives allow the operator to be null or overt 58: (68) a.

The musician that everybody has known b.

The musician to whom everybody has known The musician that everybody has known The Operator is null in (68a) and overt in (68b). When the wh-phrase is overt, it must appear with the dative preposition. Now consider a restrictive relative that has a DP head denoting kinds, la clase de amigo 'the kind of friend': (69) a. Esta es la clase de amigo [Op [que [todo el mundo necesita t]]] b. *Esta es la clase de amigo [(a) quien [[todo el mundo necesita t]]] 'This is the type of friend that everybody needs.' (cf. La persona a quien todo el mundo necesita 'The person whom everybody needs.')

< previous page


next page >

< previous page

page_71

next page > Page 71

As (69b) shows, when the head of the relative denotes kinds, the presence of a quien yields ill-formedness. The conflict in (69b) seems to be semantic: the wh-phrase a quien appears to pick up specific individuals, while the head of the relative has an opaque reading with respect to the individuals of the kind. Hence, the only possible choice is the null operator (Carlson 1978). As expected, non-restrictive relatives require the Case marking of specific indefinites, an expectation that is fulfilled: (70) El músico, al que, al cual, a quien/*que conocí ayer ... the musician, to whom/that I met yesterday,... This is again what we expect, given the impossibility of appositives having a non-specific wh-phrase. 2.9 Case and the Language Split In examining the Case possibilities of doubling clitics with marked accusatives, we have seen that they can be in the accusative or in the dative Case. My claim has been that the syntactic status of the Case particle of morphologically Case-marked accusatives is fundamental for this division. An in-depth examination of the phenomena analyzed in chapters 3 and 4 reveals that the cluster of properties that typifies the behavior of accusatives preceded by the dative preposition is consistent throughout the entire grammar, splitting languages into two types. In grammar A, the dative P is present in the syntax; in grammar B, the dative P is absent from the syntax. I have established that languages that have the doubling clitic in the accusative belong to grammar B. Southern Cone Spanish falls in this group. Although I do not deal with Modern Greek, it is important to bring Modern Greek into the discussion here because, as in Albanian, direct objects in this grammar co-occur with doubling clitics but are not morphologically Case marked. Obviously, these objects get agreement with the accusative clitic without the intervention of the preposition, as I claim do marked accusatives in the languages that fall under grammar B. For speakers of grammar A (mostly in parts of Latin America and on the Iberian Peninsula), the morphological expression of the doubling clitic can vary enormously, ranging from a doubling clitic in the accusative occurring with an indirect object to a doubling clitic in the accusative

< previous page


next page >

< previous page

page_72

next page > Page 72

occurring with an unaccusative verb. The most productive phenomenon, though, is that in which a doubling clitic in the dative co-occurs with a marked accusative. I do not elaborate on each of these options unless they are significant to the syntactic analysis of the morphological Case-marked object. One of the main syntactic areas where the proposed distinction between grammars A and B yield widely different syntax is in syntactic or periphrastic causatives.

< previous page


next page >

< previous page

page_73

next page > Page 73

Chapter 3 Case Marking and Economy The conditions that determine marked accusative, discussed in chapter 2, have wide-ranging implications for causatives involving an infinitival verb embedded under a causative verb (syntactic causatives). All the notions that influence the Case phenomenon of morphological marking with objects figure prominently in syntactic causatives. In languages with marked accusatives, we do sometimes find possibilities in the distribution of the subject of the infinitival verb (the causee) that are not attested in languages that only have abstract accusative at their disposal. Given the analysis proposed in chapter 2 of marked accusatives (as DPs undergoing overt object raising to a specifier position of v-VP), and given the semantics that accompanies arguments so raised (agentivity and Affectedness), configurationally and semantically morphologically marked objects are a hallmark of infinitival causatives. In this chapter I examine how environments of morphological Case marking influence the formation of causatives and their cross-linguistic variation. My discussion of this topic is based almost entirely on a causative structure attested in some of the Romance languages, mainly in Spanish and Catalan. This causative involves the Romance verb 'make' and has the subject of the lower infinitival verb preceding it (Hizo a los alumnos escribir el trabajo otra vez 'pro made the students to write the paper again'). The details of this causative are important. I will contrast Southern Cone Spanish, which lacks this pre-infinitival order of the causee, with Spanish dialects that have it. The analysis of this causative will enable me to show that causative variation is determined by Case as constrained by economy principles. I will give special consideration to the Case behavior of the causative verb, showing how it determines basic variants of meaning in causatives.

< previous page


next page >

< previous page

page_74

next page > Page 74

There are causatives formed by the verb 'let' (and similar verbs: 'permit', etc.) and causatives formed by the verb 'make' (and their like: 'force', etc.). The literature on Romance discusses mainly 'make'-type causatives, as they are the ones that display the most interesting behavior (syntactically and semantically). Romance does not have lexically distinct causative verbs such as English 'cause', 'have', and 'get', with which to form infinitival causative structures like 'cause/have/get X to do Y'. All these variants of meaning can be conveyed in Romance languages by a single verb: 'make.' Different variants of causative meaning are established with syntactic tools, primarily Case. The syntactic expression of the causee (in particular, its Case and its distribution) plays a major role in differentiating variants of meaning in causatives. From the descriptive point of view, Spanish has the richest system for distinguishing among semantic variants in Romance causatives. On comparative grounds, Spanish is also the Romance language that exhibits more restrictions in the formation of certain varieties of causation with the verb 'make'. The explanation for this lies in the constraints that govern the distribution of morphologically Case-marked arguments. I will show that the interplay between how agents are thematically licensed and how verbs license morphologically Case-marked arguments in this grammar determines both the richness and the limits of syntactic choices with 'make'. 3.1 Preliminaries on Causative Formation As is well known, there is substantial superficial diversity among the languages of the world with respect to causatives. In some languages causatives are formed by affixation of a causative morpheme to a root, in others by the combination of two morphologically distinct verbs. Causatives of the former type, commonly referred to in the literature as morphological causatives, are attested in a great variety of languages (Comrie 1985; Marantz 1984; Baker 1988). In the Romance languages, causatives are of the latter type, and they go under different names: syntactic, periphrastic, or analytical causatives (Aissen 1974; Kayne 1975; Williams 1979; Rouveret and Vergnaud 1980; Burzio 1981; Taraldsen 1983; Rochette 1988; Zubizarreta 1985; Di Sciullo and Williams 1987; Li 1990; Guasti 1992; Williams 1994; den Dikken 1995). Both morphological and syntactic causatives have enjoyed significant linguistic attention in the literature. Even so, all of the basic concepts turn

< previous page


next page >

< previous page

page_75

next page > Page 75

out to be conceptually and technically challenging. While there seem to be certain cross-linguistic patterns of causative formation, the criteria by which syntactic causatives are formed are not well understood. There is no consensus in regard to their structure. Traditionally, two analyses have been proposed for them in the literature: the complexpredicate analysis and the small-clause analysis. In the complex-predicate analysis, the causative and the lower V jointly take the subject of the base verb (hereafter, the causee) as a common argument: .. [vP subject [v V] [vP CAUSEE make [vp V ... ]]]. In the small-clause analysis, the causative verb takes the embedded predicate as its argument: ... [vP subject make [sc CAUSEE VP ]]. Although discussion of complex predicates goes back to Chomsky 1955, it is still not clear whether causative structures are uniformly of one or the other type, or whether a mixed analysis is appropriate for them. In chapter 2 I provided evidence of the role of Infl in the syntactic structures containing an argument in marked accusative. I suggested (on the basis of Exceptional Case Marking configurations) that a marked accusative has to be within the inflectional domain of the verb or predicate that licenses the subject (that is, the subject and the object have to be co-arguments). This constraint is informative in syntactic contexts involving a causative and an embedded infinitival verb. Whenever the causee appears in marked accusative, we must assume that the structure of the causative lacks Infl. This, of course, does not tell us whether a given causative has the structure .. [vp subject [v V] [vp CAUSEE make [vp V ... ]]]. or the structure ... [vp subject make [sc CAUSEE VP ]]. since the small clause may lack Infl. The clustering of properties across causative constructions that we will encounter strongly supports the idea that there are two distinct causative infinitival structures: one without Infl and one with Infl. There are also some major areas of disagreement concerning how causatives are formed. Baker (1988) derives crosslinguistic variation in causatives by invoking Case theory. In Baker's approach, the driving force of the organization of arguments within the syntactic structure is Case.

< previous page


next page >

< previous page

page_76

next page > Page 76

Working within the Principles and Parameters theory, Baker argues that cross-linguistic differences in the domain of Case are responsible for causative variation. In Baker's analysis, causatives are derived by verb incorporation. A causative verb (or a causative affix in morphologically derived causatives) takes a clausal complement CP, and the embedded verb (or the verb stem) raises to Infl and C and incorporates into the causative. Baker works out a system of syntactic structures that allows different patterns of verb movement. He then derives from them alternative Casemarking possibilities that ultimately give us all the possible choices. (See Baker 1988 for details; see also Li 1990.) Alsina (1992) proposes an alternative characterization of the parameters involved in causatives. Focusing on morphological causatives of transitive verbs in Chichewa *, Alsina shows that the causative morpheme in languages such as Chichewa is a three-place predicate, with a causer, a caused event, and an additional patient argument. This contrasts with the standard approach to (at least) causative 'make', which is treated as a two-place predicate. Because the patient is semantically associated to both the causative and the base verb, a movement analysis of causatives in the manner of Baker 1988 would treat the patient as a co-argument of both predicates derivatively, rather than as an argument in the initial structure. In Baker's approach, the patient would receive a thematic role from two separate predicates (from the causative and from the base verb), in flagrant violation of the Projection Principle within the Principles and Parameters framework1. Alsina avoids this pitfall by proposing a mechanism of argument structure merger by which the patient merges with the subject of the base not through movement in the syntax but through the combination of argument structures. Baker's tenet that Case is the core of causative variation is considerably weakened if the distribution of the arguments of the causative is derived independently of the principles of syntax, in the argument structure. According to Alsina (1992), parametric variation in causative formation in natural language derives from options in argument structure merger. More concretely, Alsina's proposal is that the patient of the causative verb can merge either with the subject of the base verb (thus deriving a particular meaning) or with the object of the lower verb (thus deriving a different meaning). Some languages have one variant of meaning, some the other, and some both. The two forms of causatives are encapsulated here as variant 1 and variant 2.

< previous page


next page >

< previous page

page_77

next page > Page 77

variant 1 The causer, in order to bring about an event, acts on an individual who is the participant most in control of that event. variant 2 The causer acts on an individual by causing an event that affects that individual. According to the proposals developed by Alsina, whether a causative has one or the other variant of meaning is determined by two parameters: The patient of the causative predicate may fuse with the logical subject of the base predicate or with the logical object. Each variant of meaning correlates with an alternation in the expression of the causee. The following examples from Chichewa (Alsina's (12)) illustrate this; CST-causative. (1) a. Nungu i-na-phík-its-a maûngu kwá kádzidzi. porcupine cook-CST pumpkins to la owl 'The porcupine had the pumpkins cooked by the owl.' b. Nungu i-na-phík-íts-a kádzidzi maungu. porcupine cook-CST la owl pumpkins 'The porcupine made the owl cook the pumpkins.' Example (lb) illustrates variant 1 of causation; example (la) illustrates variant 2. In (lb), the patient of the causative predicate is expressed as an object. Since a patient is the entity interpreted as affected by the causation, (lb) corresponds to variant 1. In (la), the causee is expressed in the oblique and is not affected by the causing event; the causer is not acting on the thematic subject of the lower verb, but on the patient of the base predicate. As Guasti (1992, 1996) observes on the basis of Italian, both variants of meaning are attested in the syntactic causatives of the Romance languages. What, then, tells us the facts of Romance relative to the approaches of Baker and Alsina? Guasti (1996), who examines Italian in light of the Chichewa data, proposes a particular way to accommodate the data to the Principles and Parameters approach without incurring a Projection Principle violation. The notions that make possible one or the other analysis are evidently important. However, no empirical facts considered thus far within Romance causatives would prevent us from substituting one analysis for the other. In this chapter I will attempt to show that there are empirical facts that strongly favor the Case approach over the argument-fusion approach.

< previous page


next page >

< previous page

page_78

next page > Page 78

The empirical basis of the investigation will be the analysis of a particular instance of causative formation (with several different instantiations of the same theoretical principles) attested in Spanish and in Catalan but not in French or Italian. I will provide evidence that both variants of meaning characterized by Alsina as the result of parameters of argument fusion are attested in these dialects. Then, I will show that the shift from one variant of meaning to the other is constrained by syntax. In particular, I will show that the Case properties of the causative verb heavily constrain the shift from variant 1 to variant 2 of meaning. This Case effect of the causative verb is not an isolated fact characterizing syntactic causatives per se. Rather, it is a general property of the class of verbs that 'make' belongs to in those particular grammars: verbs that have an agentive subject and affect their (animate) object. I argue that the Case behavior of the causative verb that constrains the shift from variant 1 to variant 2 of meaning is imposed by economy conditions that underlie the rules of grammar within the Minimalist Program. As Alsina stressed, the question of how we understand the causative depends crucially on the syntactic expression of the causee. One finds similar observations across the literature. For instance, Saksena (1982) notes for Hindi that with the verbs that permit the subject of the base verb to appear marked by -ko (the marker of dative/marked accusative), or by -se (the instrumental), a semantic contrast obtains, yielding examples such as the following: (2) a. mãi-nee * raam-se kitaab parh-vaa-ii. I-agent Ram-instr. book read-C-past (c-causative) b. mãi-nee raam-ko kitaab parh-vaa-ii. I-agent Ram-D/A book read-C-past 'I made Ram read the book.' According to Saksena, -ko causees, in addition to their agent function, have a patient-like semantics of being affected by the verb activity. Thus, in (2b) (which has the causee marked by -ko) the goal is to get the causee agent to read the book. However, in (2a), which has the causee marked by -se, the goal is to get the book read, the causee being merely the instrument by which this task is accomplished (see also Saksena 1980). In other

< previous page


next page >

< previous page

page_79

next page > Page 79

words, (2b) corresponds to variant 1 in Alsina's classification, and (2a) corresponds to variant 2. Quite parallel to these causatives are the Romance causatives, where the causee can either be expressed in accusative/dative, or in a by-phrase. Although the following examples are from French, they hold true for all Romance languages: (3) Elle fera manger ce gateau à Jean. she will make eat this cake to Jean (4) Elle fera manger ce gateau par Jean. she will make eat this cake by Jean Example (3) differs from example (4) in the syntactic expression of the causee, and in meaning. The causative in (3), usually referred to in the literature as the faire-à, has the causee in the dative, and its meaning corresponds to variant 1. The causative in (3), however, referred to as the faire-par, has the causee in a by-phrase (in the instrumental), and its meaning corresponds to variant 2 (see Guasti 1996). 2 One major empirical concern of this chapter is the range of causative structures in which the causee can appear within the by-phrase (in the instrumental). To discuss this requires that we examine other syntactic expressions of the causee. 3.2 Syntactic versus Semantic Explanation In this section I will briefly consider the nature of the evidence that motivates the syntactic analysis of causative variation. The two main syntactic aspects that must be investigated are the distribution of the causee and its Case. 3.2.1 Different Choices The interesting mix of semantic and syntactic properties of Spanish causatives is rooted in the distribution of the causee argument: post-infinitival and pre-infinitival. The standard order in both French and Italian is that the causee appear after the infinitive. The following order is one of the possible choices in Spanish:

< previous page


next page >

< previous page

page_80

next page > Page 80

(5) Hicieron llorar *(a) la niña. pro made cry (to) the child 'They made the child cry.' However, in the vast majority of Spanish dialects the causee can also appear in pre-infinitival position. The following pairs are from Treviño 1994 3: (6) a. Hizo a su hermano vender la casa. pro made to his brother sell the house b. Hizo vender la casa a su hermano. pro made sell the house to her brother 'She made her brother sell the house.' (7) a. El fantasma hizo *(a) una niña llorar desconsoladamente. the ghost made (to) a child cry sorrowfully b. El fantasma hizo llorar *(a) una niña. the ghost made cry (to) a child 'The ghost made a child cry.' The morphological expression of the causee in the examples (6) and (7) is the same. Syntactically, though, the causee is pre-infinitival in the (a) sentences and post-infinitival in the (b) sentences.4 The syntactic alternation in the order of the causee poses a potential problem for Baker's (1988) Uniformity of Theta Assignment Hypothesis (UTAH), according to which ''identical thematic relations between items are represented by identical structural relationhips between those items (at the level of D-structure)." Naturally, the variability in the distribution of the causee will not be a problem for UTAH if the (a) and the (b) examples in (6) and (7) have different thematic structures, or if they have the same thematic structure but different syntax. But if they differ only in their syntax, we are faced with the question of why and how the grammar allows this optionality.

< previous page


next page >

< previous page

page_81

next page > Page 81

When we turn to Case, we may ask whether it is correct to characterize the Case of the pre-infinitival causee as the same Case as the post-infinitival causee. As in many other languages, the causee in Romance languages appears in accusative when the lower verb is intransitive. On cross-linguistic grounds, the most plausible assumption is that the Case of the post-infinitival causee in (5) is marked accusative. However, the situation in other structures is far less clear. What is the Case of a pre-infinitival causee when the embedded verb is transitive as in (7a): marked accusative or dative? And what variable does it determine when one or the other Case appears on the causee? In a disguised form, the following two sentences pose the same problem as (6) and (7): (8) a. Ana lo hizo trabajar. Ana himACC-made work b. Ana le hizo trabajar. Ana himDAT-made work 'Ana made him work.' The literature on causatives contains a fair amount of discussion concerning the ambiguity of make causatives across languages, a discussion that goes back to Shibatani 1976 and Dowty 1979. The basic observation concerns a difference in the interpretation of the causative. If the causee is realized as a clitic pronoun in the acccusative, as in (8a), one specific interpretation obtains. If the pronominal causee is realized in the dative, as in (8b), a different interpretation obtains. Everyone shares the intuition that the causative is more agentive when the pronominal causee is realized in the accusative than when it is realized in the dative (Strozer 1976). I will return to these distinctions shortly. A plausible idealization of these facts is that (8a) corresponds to the structure of the causative in (7a) (i.e., to the preinfinitival order of the causee) and that (8b) corresponds to the structure of example (7b) (i.e., to the post-infinitival order). The intuitive appeal of this idea is the possibility that grammars may differ only with respect to the morphological choices that yield one or the other structure. Some grammars could restrict the structure that yields the causee in pre-infinitival position to

< previous page


next page >

< previous page

page_82

next page > Page 82

clitics for whatever reason; many dialects of Spanish, however, permit both (7a) and (8a). 3.2.2 Preliminaries on Case The work on Romance causative structures within the last ten years or so has established a well-founded syntactic and semantic parallelism between the causee of a transitive verb and the goal argument of a ditransitive. My present purpose is not to assess the validity of this claim, but rather to focus on those aspects of causative formation where the languages I analyze can be used for, or can shed light on, the various, sometimes opposing views of causative formation. My primary goal is to characterize the syntax and semantics of make-causatives with a pre-infinitival argument. The aim I have in mind is to determine how central Case is in driving causative variation across languages. 3.2.3 Intransitives versus Transitives As a step toward clarifying the difference between marked accusative and dative, and their import in the syntax and semantics of causatives, it will prove useful to compare the Case facts of the pre-infinitival argument with intransitives and transitives, respectively, embedded under hacer. 3.2.3.1 Preliminaries on the Pre-Infinitival Causee As Moore (1991) and Treviño (1994) note, the causee always appears with the dative P in the pre-infinitival order. We must distinguish the cases when the lower verb is intransitive from those when it is transitive. With intransitives, Case considerations suggest that the causee is acted upon by the causer necessarily in the preinfinitival order. As affected objects, the pre-infinitival argument appears with the dative P obligatorily: (9) a. Juan hizo *(a) la radio funcionar. Juan made (to) the radio work 'Juan made the radio work.' b. Juan hizo funcionar (a) la radio. Juan made work (to) the radio. 'Juan got the radio to work.'

< previous page


next page >

< previous page

page_83

next page > Page 83

By way of contrast, consider the following: (10) a. *La guerra hizo (a) los precios subir. war made (to) the prices rise b. La guerra hizo subir los precios. war made rise the prices 'War caused the prices to rise.' For lexical reasons, the noun 'prices' cannot be used agentively. By placing a nominal such as 'prices' in the preinfinitival position, the pre-infinitival order with causative hacer becomes excluded. Causative verbs such as dejar ('let') and perception verbs influence neither the lexical choice of the pre-infinitival argument nor its Case: (11) a. Deja el agua correr! Let the water run! b. Oigo/veo (a) la máquina funcionar. I hear/see (to) the machine work Informally, what seems to separate (9a) from (11a) and (11b) is the semantic nature of the causative or the perception verb. As in the pre-infinitival order of the hacer-causative, the object of control verbs such as obligar ('force') appears in marked accusative obligatorily 5: (12) a. Obligaron *(a) la radio a funcionar. pro forced (to) the radio work 'They forced the radio to work.' b. *La situación obligó (a) los precios a subir. the situation forced (to) the prices to rise 'The situation forced the prices to rise.' But there is a subtle difference between (12a) and the hacer-causative in (9a): The meaning of (12a) is slightly odd, but this is not the case in (9a).

< previous page


next page >

< previous page

page_84

next page > Page 84

In "object-control verbs" such as obligar ('force'), the object seems to have an agentive role overimposed on it. Since the object in (12a) is animate but not human, sentence (12a) carries the implication that the radio was forced to act willfully, which is of course an impossibility. The fact that (9a) is natural implies, though, that all that is required of the pre-infinitival causee of an intransitive verb is that it be animate. As we will see, things are different with transitives. When transitives appear under causative make, the interpretation of the pre-infinitival causee is necessarily that of a volitional agent. As Treviño (1994) notes, examples such as El viento hizo al árbol tirar las hojas 'The wind made the tree shed its leaves' are acceptable only with the causee understood as anthropomorphic. The relevance of this point with respect to syntax concerns the Case-marking parametrization of agentive predicates with respect to how the agent is licensed thematically: by predicates rather than by verbs. There is a semantic difference that correlates with the syntactic distribution of the causee. For example, we can usually tell when the causee argument is understood as being manipulated by looking at its distribution. For transitives, the preinfinitival order of the causee coincides with the agentive interpretation of the causer and with the manipulative semantics of the causative. The post-infinitival distribution of the causee allows the causer to be either an agent or a causea distinction which, as we will see, plays a major role in causative structures. As various authors have noted, the subject of Romance 'make' bears either the role agent or the role cause. The literature does not generally establish a distinction between these roles. The notion agent encompasses these (and perhaps other) roles, but distinctions among subtypes are not always relevant. However, as in the area of psychpredicates (Pesetsky 1995), refinements of these semantic notions become important in causatives. The most interesting case is when causative hacer has an embedded transitive. The claim I make is that hacer licenses the structural Case of the morphologically marked causee independently from the lower verb. On economy grounds, if a verb can license Case alone, we expect that this choice will be forced on the structure over a more complex syntactic operation, no matter which one. I will demonstrate that this syntactic property carries along with it a certain semantics. I will examine various types of causation associated with a specific syntactic structure, and show how Case determines the semantics of each of these forms of causation.

< previous page


next page >

< previous page

page_85

next page > Page 85

3.2.4 Case and the Pre-Infinitival Order with Transitives I claim that hacer licenses the Case of the preverbal causee alone, much as morphologically single causative verbs such as 'burn' license structural Case on their inherently Case-marked object. 6 What distinguishes the Spanish grammars under analysis from the French and Italian grammars is, precisely, that an inherently Case-marked argument (the preinfinitival causee) undergoes object raising in the manner of marked accusatives and is licensed by a structural Case feature of the causative verb hacer. Crucially, I take the dative Case that appears on a dative clitic such as Spanish le to be structural Case (although the Case of argumental datives is inherent). I will deal with the evidence that justifies this view in the next chapter, showing that, beyond their inherent Case, arguments that are morphologically Case marked by the dative preposition are associated with structural Case. Given that dative and marked accusative are morphologically identical, we need to resort to indirect, theory-internal evidence to decide whether the Case of the pre-infinitival argument is dative or marked accusative. Evidence of different sorts strongly suggests that when the embedded infinitive is a transitive verb this Case is dative, but that it is licensed by a structural Case feature of the causative verb. Data from Catalan show that the Case of pre-infinitival arguments that have an embedded transitive cannot be marked accusative. The pre-infinitival order of a 'make' causative is unquestionably attested in Catalan when the lower verb is transitive: (13) Aquest guardia va fe al noi guardar la botella. This guard is going to make to the guy hide the bottle 'This guard is going to make the guy hide the bottle.' Crucially, though, Catalan has no marked accusatives7: (14) Van veure la teva germana / Tu coneixes aquests homes. pro are going to see your sister / you know those men 'They are going to see your sister.' / 'You know those men.' Since Catalan excludes the dative preposition for accusatives but not for datives, the pre-infinitival argument must be dative. This evidence suggests that the pre-infinitival order of the causee should be kept separate from the existence of marked accusative in a given

< previous page


next page >

< previous page

page_86

next page > Page 86

grammar. Additional evidence for this claim is provided by grammars that have marked accusative Case but still forbid the pre-infinitival order with causative make. This is precisely the state of affairs obtained in Argentinian Spanish and in other regional variants of Southern Cone Spanish. These variants of Spanish lack the pre-infinitival order of the hacer-causative entirely, both with transitives and (as the reader will find in the work done on Argentinian causatives by Bordelois (1975, 1988)) with intransitives. It is then clear that the pre-infinitival order of the hacer-causative does not necessarily correlate with the presence of marked accusative in any given grammar. Assuming that the pre-infinitival causee is dative, an inherent Case, let us ask what structure corresponds to this option. Since inherent Case is a thematic dependent Case, the causee has to be thematically linked to the complex predicate formed by hacer and the lower transitive verb. The rationale behind this claim is that the pre-infinitival causee is always interpreted as agent, and the agent is licensed by predicates rather than by verbs. This point will play a crucial role in the discussion of the comparative evidence that motivates my analysis of the faire-par causative. The specific structural Case relation of the causative verb hacer to the subject of the embedded transitive is, however, a different matter. With respect to structural Case, the pre-infinitival causee appears to be dependent only on hacer. For instance, the presence of the causee in the structure is entirely immune to the structural Case-marking properties of the lower verb. Thus, we find Case asymmetries of the following sort: (15) a. Hicieron a los soldados describir al general. pro made to the soldiers describe to the General 'They made the soldiers describe the general.' b. *Hicieron describir al general a los soldados. pro made describe to the General to the soldiers 'They had the soldiers describe the General.' (cf. *Describimos al general a los soldados we described to the General to the soldiers 'We described the General to the soldiers.') As shown in (15b), there is a ban forbidding two prepositional objects in the same causative. As illustrated in (15a), the ban disappears when one of the objects precedes the infinitive.

< previous page


next page >

< previous page

page_87

next page > Page 87

There are at least two possibilities for linking the pre-infinitival causee to the causative verb thematically. Both of them require that we assume a complex-predicate structure for the corresponding causative. The causee can be thematically linked to the causative verb in a complex-predicate structure, but not in the small-clause predicate: (16)

One possibility is that the verb hacer is a three-place predicate rather than a two-place predicate, along the lines argued for Chichewa * by Alsina (1992). This is, in fact, the standard assumption for the causative verb 'let', which displays the behavior of three-place predicates overtly (see Bordelois 1975 for details). The other possibility is that we assume that the inherent Case of the causee results from this argument being thematically linked to both the causative and the embedded verb. Either of these two alternatives satisfies the requirement that the pre-infinitival causee be thematically linked to both hacer and the lower verb. Configurationally, the causee is in the domain of hacer. The causee can receive a patient role from hacer and a secondary agentive role from the complex hacer-VP, or be the shared argument of both verbs involved in the causative structure. Support for the assumption that the structural Case of the pre-infinitival causee under analysis is licensed by hacer alone is provided by the facts of the faire-par causative. Let us turn to this causative, which corresponds to Alsina's variant 2 of meaning. 3.3 Case Marking and Economy Spanish dialects in which the faire-par is highly restricted manifest syntactic constraints directly related to the parametric choice of grammar that yields the pre-infinitival order of the causee. Careful consideration of

< previous page


next page >

< previous page

page_88

next page > Page 88

the factors restricting the formation of this causative reveals that Case parameters, and not semantic parameters, must be responsible for causative variation, because the processes that control the shift from one variant of meaning to the other are purely syntactic. This result is in accord with the traditional view on causative formation, argued for by Baker (1988) and by others. Let us consider the empirical evidence. Since Kayne's (1975) pioneering work on French causatives, it is known that the subject of the verb embedded under 'make', the causee, can appear in a by-phrase, as in passives: Elle fera manger cette pomme par Jean 'She will make to eat this apple by John.' In the 1980s, the faire-par causative was analyzed as a complex predicate involving the causative verb and a bare VP (Taraldsen 1983; Zubizarreta 1985; Burzio 1981). The complex-predicate analysis for this causative has since prevailed. 8 The following examples (from Zubizarreta 1985 and Bordelois 1988, respectively) are from Southern Cone Spanish9: (17) a. El arquitecto hizo trazar los planos por su ayudante. the architect made draw the plans by his collaborator b. Hicieron destruir la ciudad por los soldados. pro made destroy the city by the soldiers 'They had the city destroyed by the soldiers.' The sentences in (17) are well formed in the dialects of Spanish I have grouped as Southern Cone Spanish, as well as in their corresponding French and Italian equivalents. However, in Catalan and in the Spanish dialects that have the preinfinitival order of the hacer-causative they are excluded.10 This obviously suggests a correlation between the configuration that yields the pre-infinitival causative with hacer and the exclusion of (17a) in the relevant dialects. More specifically, it suggests that the syntactic processes that yield the pre-infinitival order of the causee cannot be bypassed with respect to the structure that is required for the faire-par. In simple terms, in these grammars the causee is licensed as an argument by hacerafact which suggests that in Southern Cone Spanish hacer cannot license the Case of the pre-infinitival causee. If the position of the pre-infinitival causee is licensed as a "q-marked position," as I am arguing, we expect expletives to be disallowed in this

< previous page


next page >

< previous page

page_89

next page > Page 89

position. 11 This prediction is borne out by the impossibility of the following sentences: (18) a. *Juan hizo llover ayer. 'Juan made it rain yesterday.' b. *Juan hizo haber tres hombres en ese jardín. 'Juan made there be three men in that garden.' In order to obtain the faire-par causative, we need a structure such as (19a) below. (19) a. ... [hacer [vpV ... ]] (by-phrase) b. ... [... v [vP pro hacer [vP V ... ]]]. In regard to a faire-par causative, the ordinary assumption has been that the object receives Case from the complex formed by the causative and the lower verb.12 I claim that hacer cannot license Case jointly with the lower V (in the grammars under discussion). Hence, there must be a null pronoun that can check the Case of hacer via the appropriate v; this null pronoun is the causee, as illustrated in (19b). This approach receives support from examples in which the causee is understood but does not appear overtly realized, such as the following: (20) a. Los militares suelen hacer llevar el pelo muy corto. Army officials usually make (soldiers) wear very short hair b. ??Los militares hicieron llevar el pelo muy corto. Army officials made (soldiers) wear very short hair To judge from what we have seen so far, the proper treatment of (20a) seems straightforward: it contains a phonologically null causee (pro) understood as a prototypical generic. The factors that induce the generic reading of the sentence are those discussed on the basis of Italian by Rizzi

< previous page


next page >

< previous page

page_90

next page > Page 90

(1986b). These factors concern null (affected) objects, both datives and accusatives. Omission of the causee yields a more or less felicitous result, depending on whether the sentence can be interpreted as generic or not; thus, (20b) is worse than (20a). The phenomenon of affected null objects, attested in a great variety of languages, often goes under the name Unspecified Object Deletion (Baker 1988; Alsina 1992). I have been arguing that a syntactic property of the causative verb, namely a structural Case feature, is responsible for the formal licensing of the pre-infinitival causee. The fact that hacer has either an agent or a cause as subject makes it plausible to think that the pre-infinitival causee of a transitive verb embedded under hacer raises overtly and is licensed in the position of marked accusatives by a structural Case-marking feature of v to which hacer moves and adjoins: (21)

This structure is identical to the one proposed for overt object raising of marked accusatives: the causative verb moves and adjoins to v, and the dative moves to the specifier of v-V. 13 A crucial feature of the proposed analysis of the pre-infinitival causative is that the v associated to 'make' checks a structural Case feature against the causee, which I claim raises overtly. Significantly, the-faire-par causative is attested in all dialects of Spanish and in Catalan, but under very specific conditions. In the upcoming subsections I will spell out the details of these conditions. They bring important supporting evidence for the analysis, and shed light on the semantics of both the faire-à and the faire-par causative.

< previous page


next page >

< previous page

page_91

next page > Page 91

3.3.1 Syntactic Differences A careful look at the data (in the relevant dialects) suggests that the derivation of the-faire-par causative succeeds in two main situations. One involves clitics, both pronominal and reflexive. The following is permitted in all Spanish dialects-even in those that exclude examples such as those in (17): (22) ?Lo/me/te hizo operar (por un buen médico) pro him/me/you-made operate on (by a good doctor) 'She had him/me/you operated on by a good doctor.' The almost well formed faire-par causatives are parallel to instances of overt object raising of marked accusatives (see chapter 2). First, the clitic has to receive an animate reading; thus, the following is excluded 14: (23) *El fósil, lo hicieron examinar por un especialista. the fossil, pro it-made examine by a specialist 'The fossil, they got a specialist to examine it.' (In the case of overt object raising of accusatives, the object also has to be animate.) Second, the clitic has to appear on the causative verb: (24) Hizo operarlo/me/te (*por un buen médico) pro made operate on him/me/you (by a good doctor) 'They had him/me/you operated on by a good doctor.' The position of the clitic signals a syntactic association between the Case-checking verb and the object. The data in (22) are supporting evidence that the Case feature of the causative verb hacer is implicated in the problems of the hacer-por in these dialects. In theoretical terms, the effect of the clitic associated with the causative verb is to eliminate the very Case feature of hacer that is responsible for the licensing of the null causee, no matter how this idea is to be implemented. The exact merging position of the clitic remains an open question. According to the discussion of clitics in chapter 2, the accusative clitic merges with the v that dominates hacer and has structural Case:

< previous page


next page >

< previous page

page_92

next page > Page 92

(25)

I assume that the lower verb merges with pro, and that the causative verb merges with the resulting structure. What exactly is the ''saving" role of the clitic in (22)? The clitic has wide-ranging implications for the derivation. First, the clitic provides the causative verb with the means to check its Case feature without implicating the causee. The clitic also permits the causative verb to check its Case independently of the causative verb. This suggests that the clitic encodes a Case feature that both the causative and the infinitive verb can license jointly, namely accusative. If true, this would enforce the view that the functional category associated to hacer is either a v with a P-feature, or a null p (see footnote 13 in this chapter). Reflexive clitics also permit the-faire-par in these grammars (as they do in all the other Romance languages): (26) Se hizo afeitar por el barbero. pro self-made shave by the barber 'He had himself shaved by the barber.' There is no consensus in the literature on the derivation of reflexive clitics. One of the best-known properties of reflexive clitics is their behavior with respect to the thematic structure of the causative structure. Essentially, verbs with a reflexive clitic object behave as if they were intransitives (Kayne 1975, 1986; Grimshaw 1982, 1990; Wehrli 1986). In Torrego 1996 I present arguments for the claim that reflexive clitics bind pro. If this approach were to prove tenable, the derivation of (26) would be identical to the one I have suggested for (22). However, the derivation of hacer-por cannot be the same when anaphoric clitics are involved as when non-

< previous page


next page >

< previous page

page_93

next page > Page 93

anaphoric clitics are involved. In Spanish, the former clitics yield fully acceptable hacer-por causatives, whereas the latter do not; the hacer-por causative with non-anaphoric clitics is always slightly marginal in the dialects under discussion. 15 Aside from clitics, the other situation in which the hacer-por causative (in the non-Southern Cone variants of Spanish) can be formed concerns marked accusative objects. Whether a non-pronominal object is in marked accusative or in abstract accusative makes a difference in the well formedness of this causative. Comparative judgments indicate that, everything else being equal, an overtly Case-marked object in the faire-par yields a better result than an object in abstract accusative: (27) a. *Hicieron beber la cicuta por Sócrates. pro made drink hemlock by Socrates 'They made Socrates drink hemlock.' b. ??Hicieron operar a su hijo por un buen médico. pro made operate on their son by a good doctor 'They had a good doctor operate on their son.' As indicated, (27b) is better than (27a). Contrasts, however, are much sharper when the object undergoes whmovement: (28) a. ?A qué niño hicieron operar por un buen médico? to what child pro made operate on by a good doctor? 'What child did they make operate on by a good doctor?' b. *Qué hicieron beber por Sócrates? what did they make drink by Socrates? 'What did they make Socrates drink?' First, there is a contrast between the wh-object that is overtly Case marked, as in (28a), and the wh-object that is not overtly Case marked, as in (28b). The faire-par, nearly perfect in the former case, is fairly degraded in the latter. There is also a contrast between (27b) and (28a), each of

< previous page


next page >

< previous page

page_94

next page > Page 94

which involves an overtly Case-marked object; the one that yields the better faire-par is the wh-object, (28a). The present facts concerning overtly Case-marked objects resemble the facts of past participle agreement discussed for French by Kayne (1985). 16 The similarity between French participle agreement and the present data lies in the fact that the raising of an object from its original position to the [Spec,CP] appears to involve a crucial intermediate step in the derivation, possibly having to do with Case checking. Why is there a difference between overtly Case-marked objects and objects in abstract accusative? Under the proposals of chapter 2, marked accusatives raise overtly. Overall, if overt movement can be avoided, by Procrastinate, it should be avoided. In the present context we expect that a violation of Procrastinate with a marked accusative yields better results than one involving an abstract accusative. The rationale for this assumption is that marked accusative Case is licensed by predicates that take an agent as subject, and that the subject of the causative verb (the causer) is either a cause or an agent. It is crucial that the causative verb be implicated in the Case licensing of the object; otherwise hacer will act alone and will license the causee as an argument in inherent Case. If the object in marked accusative is driven to move by, for instance, a wh-feature in Q, we may expect that this instance of overt movement will yield a better result than one in which the object is not driven to move overtly. If the wh-object has to raise, the object must cross over VP. The crucial steps in the derivation are illustrated in (29). (29)

According to Chomsky (1995), Case checking involves non-trivial chains. Since the worst case is that the object be in abstract accusative, we may

< previous page


next page >

< previous page

page_95

next page > Page 95

assume either that overt object raising of an abstract accusative does not yield any instance of Case checking or that abstract accusative Case cannot be checked in the [Spec v] position. I will leave this question open to further inquiry. Before we proceed, let us evaluate the results of this part of the investigation for the proposals set at the outset of this chapter. In the analysis I have presented, the causative verb hacer can license Case independently of the lower verb. I have argued that a structural Case feature of the pre-infinitival causee that raises is licensed by the v linked to hacer, as in the analysis proposed for verbs that have a morphologically Case-marked accusative (chapter 2). In this account, the pre-infinitival causee is not in marked accusative itself but rather in inherent Case. It is precisely this Case property of the causative verb that distinguishes hacer-causativesacross dialects in Spanish, and that separates Spanish, (and Catalan) from the other Romance languages. In other words, the pre-infinitival argument is a disguised accusative. Supposing, as I do, that the licensing of marked accusative is reserved for co-arguments of a given verb (arguments of the same predicate), we must assume that the pre-infinitival causee is an argument of hacer. Our exploration of the syntactic variation in causatives so far shows that the availability of a given causative structure in the grammar is rooted in the Case properties of verbs. Whenever hacer combines with a VP in a thematic complex, the causee argument receives dative Case from the verbal complex hacer + V and is licensed in a position of structural accusative by v-hacer. This yields a derived argument structure that corresponds to a particular variant of meaning: one in which the causee is the participant most in control of the event. As we saw, particular lexical choices (such as clitics) and a selected class of movement operations alter the syntax that correlates with this meaning, yielding a different variant of meaning for the causative. In the next subsection I will show the semantic contribution of the embedded predicate to the syntax available for each variant of meaning. 3.3.2 On the Contribution of Event Semantics I have not yet addressed the question of what motivates hacer to license the causee as a null argument. In this subsection, I introduce evidence showing that the syntactic conditions that need to be met in the faire-par causative activate Case marking on hacer. In particular, I show that hacer

< previous page


next page >

< previous page

page_96

next page > Page 96

is driven to license the Case of the pre-infinitival causee by the overt Case-marking parameter of agentive verbs. 3.3.2.1 The Effects of Accomplishment Verbs In the preceding subsections I have focused on Case and the syntactic differences that derive a faire-par causative in dialects of Spanish that otherwise disallow this causative. However, the lexical class of the verb embedded under causative 'make' must also be taken into account. The evidence suggests that verbs classified by Vendler (1967) as accomplishments yield fairly good faire-par causatives in Catalan and in the Spanish dialects under discussion. Within this class, some yield better results than others. The verbs that seem to work best are a group identified by Grimshaw and Vikner (1989) as "constructive accomplishments"-verbs such as construir ('build') and publicar ('publish'). Consider these examples: (30) a. ?El rey hizo construir un gran palacio por un famoso arquitecto. the king made build a great palace by a famous architect b. ?Hicieron publicar el libro por una editorial mexicana. pro have made publish the book by a Mexican publishing company The present facts suggest that hacer can form a syntactic unit with an embedded accomplishment verb, licensing accusative Case on the object jointly with the lower verb. This is the very property missing from configurations in which hacer licenses the pre-infinitival causee. Accomplishment verbs are commonly analyzed as internally complex, composed of two subeventualities: an activity and a resulting state. 17 The property that distinguishes "constructive accomplishments" in Grimshaw and Vikner's (1989) characterization is that their theme is not presupposed. We can capitalize on this observation and conjecture that the result state of constructive accomplishments does not impose identification of the causing subevent. If this is so, the cause event and the result state can be expressed by two different predicates. Interestingly, the semantics of the fairepar causative is, according to Guasti (1990, 1992), resultative. In the analysis of Levin and Rappaport Hovav (1995), resultatives are expressions in which the causing event and the change of state are each specified by a different predicate.

< previous page


next page >

< previous page

page_97

next page > Page 97

The facts of passivization also illustrate the special effects of accomplishment verbs in causatives. Bonet Farran (1989) observes that in both Spanish (see (31a)) and Catalan (see (31b)) passivization of 'make' is allowed when 'build' is the infinitival embedded verb. (31) a. Este palacio fue hecho construir por el rey X. this palace was made build by King X 'King X had this palace built.' b. Aquest palau fou fet construir pel rei X. this palace was made build by King X 'King X had this palace built.' The fact that (31a) is good shows that the nominative DP (este palacio 'this palace') is the object of the entire verbal complex hacer-construir; the same holds for the Catalan example (31b). There is great linguistic diversity regarding the range of verbs and syntactic contexts that allow passivization of 'make' in Romance languages (Williams 1994). For instance, whereas Italian permits it (see (32a), from Burzio 1981), Spanish prevents it (see (32b)). 18 (32) a. La macchina sara fatta [riparare t (da Giovanni)] the car will be made repair (by Giovanni) b. *El auto será hecho arreglar (por Juan) the car will be made repair (by Juan) Importantly, though, all Spanish dialects disallow the passive of 'make' with any other lexical class of verbs. The present facts are of great significance for our understanding of the interaction between the event structure of predicates and morphologically Case-marked arguments. The contexts in which hacer does not license Case independently from the lower verb come down to a single semantic factor: the subject of the embedded predicate should bear the role cause, rather than agent proper. Why should this be? I think the answer is rooted in how agents are licensed: by predicates rather than by individual verbs. The argument that merges with the

< previous page


next page >

< previous page

page_98

next page > Page 98

[hacer-VP] structure can always be agent, since agents are licensed positionally. The causee that is an agent is licensed by the complex formed by hacer and the lower verb. The faire-par requires that the causee be demoted (in a by-phrase). Demotion of the causee presumably requires that the causative and the embedded verb act as joint verbs. The problem, however, is that hacer can license structural Case independently from the lower verb, since this is precisely how the pre-infinitival causee gets to be licensed. In other words, in Spanish (and, more restrictively, Catalan) the parameter that links an agentive verb to the Case licensing of morphologically marked arguments is activated whenever the causative and the embedded verb form a complex predicate. As a result, the causee cannot be demoted and is formally licensed by hacer. It remains to be explained why the hacer-por causatives in (30) can be derived. It is probably because the role cause is licensed by verbs (rather than by predicates), and the argument bearing the role cause can be the subject of both the causative and the lower verb. The cause argument will merge with the [hacer-VP] structure. That is to say, event structure permits the cause argument to be the subject of hacer-construir ('make-build'). The ability of hacer to passivize in (31) in at least some dialects of Spanish and Catalan shows that the causative verb hacer acts as an independent verb. Thus, even though hacer ordinarily behaves as a structural Case-licensing verb, manipulation of its event structure eliminates this property from hacer. This suggests that causative hacer in (30) may correspond either to the meaning of 'cause' or 'have'. The preceding analysis confirms at least three things. First, it confirms that, as Pesetsky (1995) argued, refinements of the semantic notions agent and cause figure in the syntax and the semantics of predicates; Pesetsky justifies this point on the basis of psych-predicates, and the present facts justify it on the basis of syntactic causatives. Second, it strengthens the proposal that agent is a role licensed by predicates. Third, it provides further evidence for the claim that morphologically marked objects are arguments of agentive verbs. There is another aspect of the faire-par causative that is worth mentioning in the context of the present discussion. Guasti (1992) notes that the faire-par causative is restricted to accusative verbs whose objects are affected. The following Italian examples are hers 19: (33) a. Maria ha fatto dire la verità a Ugo.

< previous page


next page >

< previous page

page_99

next page > Page 99

b. *Maria ha fatto dire la verità da Ugo. Maria has made tell the truth by Ugo 'Maria made Ugo tell the truth.' As I discussed in chapter 2, a verb's affected object delimits the event-a semantic property for which I have proposed a structural analysis. Following Hale and Keyser (1992) and Marantz (1991), I have assumed that Affectedness correlates with a "designated" Specifier position in VP. This is, precisely, the specifier position to which objects raise. Guasti's generalization about Affectedness in the faire-par causative can then be looked at syntactically in terms of Procrastinate. Assuming that affected objects undergo overt object raising, we expect that the grammar will allow a violation of Procrastinate for affected objects. The faire-par is then restricted by Affectedness because the grammar permits affected objects to violate Procrastinate. There is a separate, but related, grammatical domain where accomplishment verbs display a similar behavior: in a construction attested in some of the Romance languages usually referred to as the impersonal se construction. The following Italian example is illustrative: (34) In questa università si studian le materie (nom.) letterarie. in this university si study (p1.) humanities (p1.) 'In this university one studies humanities.' This syntactic context has a passive-like character; the object appears in the nominative rather than in the accusative, and no overt subject other than the clitic (si in Italian, se in Spanish) appears. Ordinarily, no by-phrase can surface in impersonal constructions involving the "reflexive" clitic se, either in Italian or in Spanish (Belletti 1982; de Miguel 1990). However, Fradejas (1984) observes that with certain verbs Spanish allows a by-phrase to surface. 20 Upon close inspection of the data, it turns out that the verbs that make the by-phrase possible in the impersonal se construction belong to the accomplishment class, and that preferences within this class match those for the faire-par causative21: (35) a. Se construyó un palacio por un arquitecto famoso. se built a palace by a famous architect

< previous page


next page >

< previous page

page_100

next page > Page 100

b. Se publicó el libro por una editorial extranjera. se published the book by a foreign publishing company (cf. Se prohibe fumar (*por los empleados) se forbids to smoke (by the workers) 'It is forbidden to smoke (by the workers)') Plausibly, the event structure of accomplishments makes it possible to dissociate the Case marking of these verbs from the argumental status of their subject. One way to understand this idea is to assume that the clitic se can "absorb" the accusative Case of the verb without having to be q-marked (similar to the participial suffix in passives). The exact implementation of this idea will vary depending on our specific assumptions about passivization. The intuition I am pursuing is that the lower VP of accomplishment verbs (hence the Case of the verb) is to a certain extent independent of the projection of the (thematic) subject. In the ordinary case, the clitic can bear the q-role of the subject and the accusative Case of the verb (Belletti 1982; Chomsky 1981). With accomplishments, though, the separation of the activity subevent from the resultive part, I will assume, contributes to the possibility that the subject not be licensed as an argument in the structure, and hence the subject can appear in the by-phrase. 22 3.4 Accusative, Its Types, and Its Licensing Conditions In chapter 2 I argued that a number of properties that typify marked accusative objects (such as animacy, definiteness, and delimitedness) follow from overt object raising, and that Affectedness correlates with object raising. The correlation that holds between agentivity and marked accusative Case was traced back to the idea that the agent is licensed positionally in the same vP-shell above V-VP which the object moves to overtly. In this section, I discuss evidence from Case marking of accusatives in syntactic causatives that sheds light on some aspects of this general approach. 3.4.1 Asymmetries of Accusative We need to consider contrasts of the following sort: (36) a. La guerra hizo subir los precios. war made rise the prices 'War made the prices rise.'

< previous page


next page >

< previous page

page_101


b. La guerra los hizo subir. war themACC-made rise 'War made them rise.' The fact to be explained about these examples concerns the reading obtained for the causee clitic los in (36b)obligatorily an animate reading (equivalent to the English sentence 'The war made them rise up.'). Thus, there is no possibility that the accusative clitic stands for the post-verbal causee 'prices' of (36a). Abstract accusative is immune to the animate interpretation of a pronominal accusative clitic in third person. It must therefore be that (36b) instantiates the configuration that has the causee in marked accusative rather than in abstract accusative. It is not that the accusative clitic in (36b) lacks non-animate reference across the Romance languages. The interpretive fact described for the clitic in (36b) holds only in Spanish dialects where the pre-infinitival order with hacer is attested when the causative has an embedded intransitive verb. Argentinian Spanish does not impose the animate reading on the causee clitic, but my Peninsular Spanish dialect does. 23 The limited distribution of the phenomenon indicates that the hacer-accusative construction can be used in grammars in which dative verbs can license marked accusative (the dialects identified by classical grammarians as "loista" dialects).24 This phenomenon, of relatively minor empirical importance, is theoretically significant because it allows us to tease out empirical effects in areas in which we are seeking to establish general principles of grammar. Clitics in Spanish position themselves before or after the verb, depending on the finite or non-finite character of the verb. When the verb is finite, the clitic appears before the verb, as illustrated in (36b). When the verb is non-finite, the clitic appears after the verb, attached to the nonfinite form of the verb: (37) a. La guerra suele hacerlos subir. war uses to make-themACC rise 'War usually makes them rise.' b. La guerra podria haberlos hecho subir, pero no lo ha hecho. war could have-them made rise, but pro no it-has done. 'War could have made them rise, but it has not done so.'

< previous page


next page >

< previous page

page_102


Remarkably, the accusative clitic attached to the causative verb in (37a) can refer to a non-animate. This shows that being cliticized on the causative verb is not the relevant linguistic construct that yields the obligatory interpretation of the causee clitic in some grammars. Rather, what determines whether the causee clitic can refer to a non-animate is the con-figurational relationship established between the causee clitic on its way to Infl and the causative verb. How far clitics raise is one of the standard tests for determining complex-predicate formation in Romance languages. In ordinary cases of overt object raising, the object raises to a specifier of the functional head v dominating VP. One of the speculations I made about animacy in chapter 2 is that an object raised overtly receives a secondary role in the specifier of v-VP. We have already seen what is required from the standpoint of the configuration for overt object raising: the specifier position where the object has to be licensed (that is to say, object raising must be allowed). Since we are dealing with syntactic causatives involving the causative verb hacer, Affectedness is always active, and therefore the specifier of the higher vP-shell with which hacer is associated is licensed. We expect very tight conditions for the syntactic licensing of regular accusative in Spanish causatives-just the opposite of the situation encountered in Romance languages that do not have the parametrization of marked accusative Case, such as French and Italian. In light of these remarks, the examples in (36) must have two different underlying structures: the complement of hacer in (36a) must be clausal, and in (36b) the complement of hacer must be non-clausal. Linguists have repeatedly invoked an analysis of Romance syntactic causatives in which the causative verb selects for an IP or a VP. Standard constituency tests indicate that the structure embedded under hacer in (36a) behaves as a single unit; hence, it must be clausal: (38) a. Lo que la guerra hizo es subir los precios. what the war caused is to rise the prices b. !Subir los precios! ya lo creo que la guerra puede hacerlos subir. Rise the prices! It is certain that war can cause them to rise c. La guerra hizo y el gobierno dejó subir los precios. The war made and the government permitted to rise the prices

< previous page


next page >

< previous page

page_103


d. Qué ha hecho la guerra sino subir los precios? What has the war caused except rising the prices? The difference between (38a) and (38b) is, then, the difference we see between (37a) and the following examples: (39) a. La guerra hizo a algunos campesinos subir (de clase) The war made some peasants rise (in class) 'War caused some peasants to rise (in class).' b. La guerra los (= campesinos) hizo subir (de clase) The war themACC -made rise (in class) 'War caused them to rise in social class.' We have seen that two quite different configurations license accusative Case for the causee in syntactic causatives with intransitive verbs. The licensing possibilities of marked accusative are confined to the domain of a single Infl. Thus, when the verb embedded under hacer has its own Infl, the causee can be in abstract accusative. But when the verb embedded under hacer does not have its own Infl, marked accusative (a disguised dative) is necessarily licensed in the structure. The configuration of abstract accusative is (40); the configuration of marked accusative is (41). (40) v [hacer [TP Infl [V DP ...]]] (41) v [hacer [vP V DP...]] Descriptively, the contrasts in (37)-(39) illustrate that in the grammar of Spanish and similar languages, it is much harder to obtain structure (40) than structure (41). From the point of view of the theory, we can make sense out of this fact if we assume that (everything else equal), (41) is more economical than (40). Let us focus on (41), and discuss what problems (41) introduces for (36b). 25 Consider the following structure: (42) ... hacer [vP c1ACC-v [V pro]]

< previous page


next page >

< previous page

page_104


According to my assumptions, the functional head v is not part of the structure of VPs headed by unaccusative verbs. From this perspective, (42) cannot be the structure that corresponds to sentence (36b). Assuming that v is reserved for VPs headed by (di)transitive accusative verbs, the interpretation that obtains in (36b) is exactly as expectedthe interpretation that corresponds to the Case licensing of transitive accusative verbs in which the causee is necessarily animate: (43) .. [ [vP c1ACC- [ hacer [subir pro]]]] In this structure, the accusative Case feature in the complex formed by the accusative clitic and v attracts the Case feature of pro to raise to the specifier of v-VP, as the Case of preverbal causees is licensed. This yields the ''wrong" interpretation for (36b): los is animate. In order for the non-animate causee to be licensed, the structure in (40) is required, a more complex structure than the complex-predicate structure of (41). Consider the following, where the constraint that the causee and the causer be coarguments is off: (44) ... [ hacer [TP T [V DP...]]] The Case feature of the causee can be checked (perhaps) by hacer in an ECM sort of structure. The structure that yields a non-animate interpretation of the causee, in Spanish and similar grammars, is far less economical than its alternative structure, namely (41), but only in grammars in which hacer is able to license structural Case independently from the lower verb. This will hold no matter where clitics move to, which is subject to debate. (According to Kayne (1991), all clitics left-adjoin to a functional head; on this issue, see Uriagereka (1988) and (1995).) Tentatively, I assume that the structure of (37b) is an ECM configuration, and that the accusative Case of the clitic is checked against [v-V] 26: (45) ...[ TP T-AUX [vP v [vp hacer [TP T [subir ('raise') cl]]]]] Given that hacer does not raise to Tense (Aux does), the checking domain of hacer does not go beyond v, assuming that V will raise and adjoin to v at some point. Apparently, the fact that hacer does not enter into the checking domain of the matrix Tense contributes to allowing the licensing of abstract accusative, whatever the reasons for this are. In sum, the fac-

< previous page


next page >

< previous page

page_105


tors contributing towards the licensing of abstract accusative in Spanish syntactic causatives are economy factors, once the parameter of marked accusative is part of the grammar. 3.4.2 Asymmetries with Reflexives The Romance languages have two types of reflexives: a non-clitic form, such as 'herself' (referred to here as the stressed reflexive), and a clitic form, which for the third person is se. The principal facts of reflexives in Spanish causatives follow from the syntax of marked accusatives. This can be seen in the following examples, where the possibilities multiply owing to the fact that morphologically stressed reflexives in Spanish must occur with a weak reflexive (that is, a clitic): (46) a. ?El barbero se hizo a si mismo afeitar al cliente. the barber self-made to himself shave to his client 'The barber made himself shave his client.' b. ?El barbero se hizo afeitar al cliente. the barber self-made shave to his client 'The barber made himself shave his client.' c. El cliente se hizo afeitar por el barbero. the client self-made shave by the barber 'The client made the barber shave him (the client).' d. *El cliente se hizo afeitar a si mismo por el barbero. the client self-made shave to himself by the barber 'The client made the barber shave him.' Examples (46a) and (46b) have the structure depicted in (47a); (46c) has the structure depicted in (47b). 27 (47) a. ... [vp subject [v V] [vP REFLEX hacer [vP V OBI]]] b. ... [vP subject [v V] [vP hacer [vP V REFLEX]]]

< previous page


next page >

< previous page

page_106


I assume that the strong reflexive is always an argument, and that se is an argument just when the stressed form of the reflexive is absent. Examples (46a) and (46b) differ only in that the causee is the stressed reflexive in the former and the clitic in the latter. Although reflexive se forms a faire-par causative in (46c), the stressed reflexive does not, as shown in (46d). This contrast should be derived from the particulars of morphological accusative marking. The structure that corresponds to (46c) is (47b). If the reflexive object in (47b) is realized by the stressed reflexive, the stressed reflexive appears in marked accusative; as such, it needs to be licensed in opposition to an agent. This parametric option implies that an agent has to be derived positionally, in the outer specifier of v-VP, and this forces the causee to be in the structure as an argument. Once the causee has to be part of the structure as an argument, the faire-par causative fails to be derived. 28 3.4.3 Some Loose Ends Despite superficial similarities, the class of infinitival causatives involving accusative clitics attached to the causative verb is not a homogeneous class. It is composed of truly clausal structures (configuration (40)) and of the class that involves complex predicates. It appears, however, that hacer does not take a clausal complement with Infl when the resulting causative has the causee morphologically marked by the dative preposition. Regardless of its pre-infinitival or post-infinitival position, the causee in examples such as (7) must be morphologically marked. Given that in both (7a) and (7b) the only Case choice for the causee is marked accusative, we must assume that the structure of (7a) and (7b) lack an embedded Infl. This, however, leaves open whether causatives with post-infinitival causees should be analyzed as small clauses or as complex predicates, or whether they are of a mixed type. Although I will not work out the syntactic analysis of such causatives, I want to provide the empirical basis of the analysis, tying together a number of properties in a particular way. I assume that the causee in both (7a) and (7b) is in marked accusative. The analysis of (7a) is straightforward. It will clearly require attributing to hacer the Case licensing of the pre-infinitival causee. The analysis of (7b) is less straightforward. In addition to the complex-predicate structure, (7b) can be a small clause as long as we assume that small clauses lack an Infl.

< previous page


next page >

< previous page

page_107


The pre-infinitival or post-infinitival distribution of the morphological Case-marked causee is by no means a neutral choice. In general, each choice yields a well-formed sentence, although each carries a different meaning: (48) a. El profesor hizo pensar a Juan. the teacher made think to Juan 'The teacher made Juan think.' b. El profesor hizo a Juan pensar. the teacher made to Juan think 'The teacher made Juan think.' Semantically, (48a) and (48b) are different, as should by now be clear; whereas in (48a) the causer is cause, in (48b) the causer is an agent. With certain verbs, binding theory discriminates between the pre-infinitival and the post-infinitival orders. This is precisely the case for the verb pensar ('think') in (49): (49) a. *Juan se hizo pensar a si mismo. 29 Juan self-made think to himself b. Juan se hizo a si mismo pensar. Juan self-made to himself think 'Juan made himself think.' The grammaticality contrast between (49a) and (49b) shows that the availability of a post-verbal causee does not guarantee that reflexive binding is possible. What causes the grammatical difference between (48a) and (49a)? Since reflexives have to be bound within a certain local domain, it is plausible that the post-infinitival reflexive in (49a) is not within the local domain of its binder, and that (49a) is excluded for this reason. Reflexive binding requires that the binder and the bindee be in the same local domain. Following Chomsky (1986b), I take it that the domain within which the reflexive must be bound is the "Complete Functional Complex" (CFC) of the Head that is thematically linked to the reflexive. A CFC is a domain in which all grammatical functions compatible with

< previous page


next page >

< previous page

page_108


the relevant q-assigning Head (the complements and the subject) are realized. Structurally, the causer and the causee are within the same CFC in (49b) but not in (49a). We may instantiate the difference between the two in structural terms by assuming that (49a) is not a complex predicate but a small clause. The post-infinitival reflexive (the causee) in (49a) will then be within the CFC of the lower verb, and its binder (the causer) will be within the CFC of the causative verb. The crucial question that must be answered is why this is so. There are cases of reflexive binding that are well formed with an intransitive embedded under hacer. The following two options are allowed: (50) a. El actor se hizo vomitar a si mismo. the actor self-made vomit to himself 'The actor made himself vomit.' b. El actor se hizo a si mismo vomitar. the actor self-made to himself vomit 'The actor made himself vomit.' However, the thematic structure of (50a) appears to differ from that of (49a) in a crucial respect: se appears to be syntactically related to causative hacer only in (50a). This is suggested by the fact that the causer is interpreted as agent in (50a), and by the fact that (51a) is allowed whereas (51b) is not. (51) a. El actor se hizo vomitar. the actor self-made vomit 'The actor made himself vomit.' b. *El actor se hizo pensar. the actor self-made think This contrast suggests that in (51a) the patient argument of hacer has "fused" with the subject of the lower verb (the causee, either se or pro), and that this is not possible in (51b). But if this intuition is on the right track, causatives with a post-infinitival causee are not a homogeneous class.

< previous page


next page >

< previous page

page_109


3.5 Three-Place Predicates versus hacer We have seen that the behavior of 'make' as a three-place predicate depends on the semantic nature of the lower verb and on the realization and syntax of the arguments of the lower predicate. Among the semantic predicates that we would ascribe to similar semantics, the most obvious are object-control verbs such as 'order' and 'force'. These verbs are three-place predicates, and they express the same type of causative semantics as 'make'. Someone might then suggest an alternative syntactic characterization of the causatives I have discussed based on the concept of control, in the style of Bordelois 1975. I will attempt to show that comparison of the two types of structures does not lend support to the control alternative. 3.5.1 Some Syntactic Differences In sharp contrast to the standard approach to causative 'make' in Romance languages, the object-control analysis of verbs such as 'order' and 'force' treats these verbs as three-place predicates, taking an agent, a theme/patient, and a clausal complement. The view that is generally accepted is that the theme/patient argument is the controller of the PRO subject of the infinitival clause. 30 A closer look at these verbs reveals, however, that object-control verbs and hacer do not exhibit uniform behavior. Object-control verbs in the Romance languages come in two shapes. One has an obligatory dative preposition in the clausal complement of the verb, as illustrated by the Spanish example in (52); the other does not, as illustrated in (53). (52) Obligaron/forzaron al editor [a publicar el libro] pro forced to the editor [to publish the book] 'They forced the editor to publish the book'. (53) (Le) ordenaron/mandaron/pidieron a Pablo [sentarse cerca de ellos] 'They ordered/asked Pablo to sit near them.' Let us begin with verbs such as ordenar ('order'). There are at least two major syntactic differences separating causative hacer verbs from ordenar verbs, one concerning passives and the other concerning the class of predi-

< previous page


next page >

< previous page

page_110


cates that can be embedded under each. Passive is allowed with ordenar verbs and affects the dative argument, whereas this is entirely impossible in the hacer-causative: (54) a. Les fue ordenado/mandado a las tropas abandonar la ciudad. pro themDAT-was ordered/asked to the troops to abandon the city 'The troops were ordered to abandon the city.' b. *Les fue hecho a las tropas abandonar la ciudad. pro themDAT was made the troops to abandon the city 'The troops were made to abandon the city.' The second difference between hacer and ordenar verbs is that the latter show considerable variability with regard to the range of verbs that suit the infinitival complement. Very often, infinitival verbs yield degraded sentences when embedded under such verbs: (55) ??(Le) ordenaron/mandaron/pidieron a Pablo correr en el Maratón. pro himDAT-ordered/asked to Pablo to run in the Marathon 'They ordered/asked Pablo to run in the Marathon.' If the clausal complement is finite instead, no deviance is obtained 31: (56) (Le) ordenaron/mandaron/pidieron a Pablo que corriera en el Maratón. pro (himDAT)-ordered/asked Pablo that pro run in the Marathon By contrast, other infinitival verbs do not yield deviance when embedded under ordenar verbs: (57) Anibal ordenó a las tropas pernoctar en la ciudad. 'Hannibal ordered his troops to spend the night in the city.' The hacer-causative exhibits no such asymmetries. The patient that appears before the embedded infinitive yields a felicitous result no matter what the thematic role of the subject of the lower predicate:

< previous page


next page >

< previous page

page_111


(58) (Le) hicieron a Pablo correr en el Maratón. pro (himDAT)-made Pablo run in the Marathon 'They made Pablo run in the Marathon.' Syntactic differences like this can be viewed as stemming from the control nature of ordenar verbs versus the complexpredicate nature of the hacer-causative with the pre-infinitival causee and the embedded infinitival transitive verb. What is at issue here is how we are to understand these differences. We can think of dative Case as encoded in the lexical entry of ordenar verbs, whereas no such thing holds for causative hacer. The licensing of dative Case by hacer in the syntactic causative comes as a consequence of the role played by this verb in the particular structural configuration in which it finds itself with respect to the embedded predicate and hence by its functional head v (or p). And causative predicates such as Spanish hacer do differ across languages and dialects within the same language something that does not happen with ordenar verbs. Consider the thematic restrictions on ordenar verbs. The object-control analysis for verbs in the class of ordenar is natural in many respects for Romance, but the fact that the object that is the PRO-controller is overtly Case marked by the dative preposition makes us suspect that its status as a PRO-controller is problematic. One central assumption about PRO is that its controller must be in an A-position (an L-related position in the present framework) and must c-command PRO. It is not that inherently Case-marked objects fail to control PRO; they can control PRO (consider 'the desire of Mary to win'). But the capacity of the argument in quirky Case to control PRO might be impaired by the absence of a lexical association with the verb. For instance, if the object were to be unaffected by the action described by the verb, the lexical dative could not raise overtly. It would still be a complement of the verb, but in this case its capacity to control PRO may be impaired by the dative presposition. When we look closely into the infinitival verbs that yield well-formed structures under ordenar and similar verbs, we observe certain regularities in their semantics. The infinitival verbs that yield less deviant results when embedded under ordenar verbs seem to have a theme or a patient as subject, and this argument has an agentive use in the clause. To this effect, compare (59a) and (59b).

< previous page


next page >

< previous page

page_112


(59) a. Anibal ordenó a las tropas rodear/bloquear la entrada de la ciudad. 'Hannibal ordered the troops to surround/bar the entrance to the city.' b. ??Anibal ordenó a las tropas robar/buscar/matar los caballos del enemigo. 'Hannibal ordered the troops to rob/look for/kill the enemy's horses.' Bordelois (1988) noted that the clausal complement of ordenar can be realized as a derived nominal; the following example (in which both orders are allowed) is hers: (60) a. Ordenaron a las tropas retirarse/la retirada. pro ordered to the troops to withdraw/the withdrawal b. Ordenaron la retirada a las tropas/retirarse. pro ordered the withdrawal to the troops/withdraw 'They ordered the troops to withdraw.' My remarks about the thematic restrictions encountered with ordenar suggest that a complex-predicate analysis for these verbs is very likely to be appropriate for Spanish. Intuitively, complex-predicate formation with these verbs will be harder to obtain than with hacer, because ordenar verbs have more lexical content. Obviously, the thematic requirements of each verb must be compatible. If the lower verb selects a theme argument as subject, it appears that the complex predicate is felicitous. If not, the result varies. Since the agent role characterizes some sort of intentionality, the semantic status of the theme/patient has to be compatible with it. Accordingly, we must assume that the verb 'run' cannot have an agentive theme as its subject, whereas 'sit' (by someone's side) can. The plausibility of a complex-predicate analysis for this class of verbs did not pass unnoticed by the best classical grammarians. Bello (1847) gives the example shown here as (61) and points out that the post-verbal nominal behaves as the accusative object of mandar-evacuar, as the facts of the examples in (62) suggest.

< previous page


next page >

< previous page

page_113


(61) El general mandó evacuar las plazas. the general ordered to evacuate the plazas 'The general ordered the plazas evacuated.' (62) a. Las mandó evacuar. pro themACC-ordered to evacuate 'He ordered them to evacuate.' b. ?Se mandaron evacuar. se-ordered to evacuate 'They were ordered to evacuate.' c. ?Fueron mandadas evacuar. pro were ordered to evacuate 'They were ordered to evacuate.' 3.5.2 The Dative P as an Inflectional Element The analysis adopted here for verbs such as mandar ('order') makes crucial use of the idea that the object of these verbs has quirky Case and is unable to control PRO. Surprisingly, infinitival complements of 'force' and similar verbs do not exhibit the type of thematic restrictions I have just discussed for verbs in the class of 'order'. Under the approach pursued for verbs such as ordenar ('order'), this alone would justify considering the Case of the prepositional object to be marked accusative rather than dative. On the earlier analysis pursued for 'order' verbs, we could classify 'force' and similar verbs as standard object-control verbs. On close inspection, however, things are not so simple. Restrictions still apply with these verbs, and a process of complex-predicate formation seems appropriate for them as well. Two main facts support the claim that the Case exhibited by the prepositional object of 'force' and similar verbs is marked accusative, both of which I consider standard diagnoses of marked accusative. First, past participle agreement between the verb and the object obtains in passives; second, no dative clitic can surface in the passive:

< previous page


next page >

< previous page

page_114


(63) a. Las tropas fueron obligadas a abandonar la ciudad. (fem. p1.) (fem. p1.) the troops were forced to abandon the city b. *Las tropas les fueron obligadas a abandonar la ciudad. (fem. p1.) (fem. p1.) the troops themDAT-were forced to abandon the city 'The troops were forced to abandon the city.' On the surface, the ability of object-control verbs to assign or license marked accusative Case correlates with the ability of these verbs to have their sentential complement preceded by the dative preposition. Clausal complements preceded by a preposition are quite common in Romance languages, but there is very rich crosslinguistic variation. 32 For example, the range of syntactic contexts in which a preposition appears with the clause may vary, and the exact preposition that appears with the clause (a ('to') or de ('of')) may also differ from language to language. In addition, whether the preposition appears with both finite and non-finite clauses or only with the latter varies. The discussion that will ensue will be limited, for the most part, to the clausal complements of 'force' verbs, and to Spanish. Raposo (1989) notes in the context of Portuguese that the dative P that precedes sentential complements contributes semantically to the structure with some sort of aspectual content. This may be related to the feature structure of the dative preposition. Raposo characterizes the aspectual contribution of the preposition in Portuguese as progressive, illustrating it with examples such as Eu vis os meninos a ler(em) esse livro I saw the children to read (Agr) that book 'I saw the children reading the book.' When we turn to Spanish, the exact aspectual contribution of the dative P is less clear. Both purposive infinitival clauses (PCs) and object-control clauses require the preposition: (64) a. Enviaron a Sara a hablar con él (PC) 'They sent Sara to talk to him.' b. Obligaron a Sara a hablar con él. 'They forced Sara to talk to him.'

< previous page


next page >

< previous page

page_115


A clear parallel between the two types of clauses exemplified in (64) is the agentivity superimposed on the patient argumentthat is to say, on the object. This point, well established for PCs (Jones 1985), is stressed by Levin and Rappaport Hovav (1995, citing Lakoff 1966) for the control verb. My intuition is that the dative P contributes to this semantic effect because it is an inflectional head with a D-feature (and, perhaps, agreement features). The present data on these ''object-control verbs" seem to provide some support for this sort of approach. Let us examine some other syntactic contexts in which the dative P appears with clauses in Spanish. The dative P can appear in non-embedded contexts, such as imperatives and adverbial clauses. 33 When combined with an infinitive, the dative P yields a clause with imperative semantics. As Laka (1990) discussed (see also Harris 1995), infinitives with imperative semantics are independently attested in Spanish: (65) a. A comer! / A callar! eat / shut up! b. (*A) comed! / callad! eat / shut up! A plausible approach to (65a) is to consider the dative P a possible realization of sigma (¬), the Head proposed by Laka (1990) to have illocutionary force (Chomsky 1957). The illocutionary force associated with the presence of the dative P seems to be further exposed in expressions with threatening content, such as A que te pego! (lit. To that I hit you!). Laka analyzes infinitives with imperative content as instances of V raising to Z. We may assume either that the infinitive merges with the preposition or that the infinitive is unmoved and some feature moves to the dative P covertly, whatever the details of the analysis are. Another syntactic context involving the dative P concerns adverbial clauses with (roughly) the semantics of because: (66) causing event result Al abrir la ventana, se cerró la puerta. to the opening the window, the door closed 'By/because opening the window, the door closed.'

< previous page


next page >

< previous page

page_116


As Pesetsky (1995) observes in regard to the null counterpart of the English preposition 'to' (the preposition he labels G), the adverbial in (66) has causative semantics: the adverbial clause expresses the causing event, and the main predicate expresses the result. Let us now return to object-control verbs in the context of the dative P. Earlier we saw that with verbs of the 'order' class certain thematic restrictions arise when the lower verb is infinitival, but none when the lower verb is finite. The opposite situation is obtained with 'force' verbs: the restrictions occur precisely when the lower verb is within a finite clause. Consider the following examples: (67) a. Anibal obligó a saquear la ciudad. Hannibal forced the troops to loot the city b. ??Anibal obligó a las tropas a que saquearan la ciudad. Hannibal forced the troops to that loot the city 'Hannibal forced the troops to loot the city.' The data suggest that 'force' behaves like the causative hacer, selecting an event, the patient being the argument most in control of that event. In other words, (67a) corresponds to variant 1 of meaning in the classification proposed by Alsina (1992) and set forth at the beginning of this chapter. Observe that the examples in (68) pattern together. (68) a. Anibal obligó a que las tropas saquearan la ciudad. Hannibal made to the troops that loot the city 'Hannibal forced the troops to loot the city.' b. Anibal hizo que las tropas saquearan la ciudad. Hannibal made that the troops loot the city 'Hannibal made the troops loot the city.' A plausible way of understanding the present data is to assume that the dative P of the infinitival clausal complement of object-control verbs is an inflectional element selected by these verbs. The cases in which obligar appears with a finite clause do not seem to differ in any important respect from the cases in which hacer can appear with a finite clause:

< previous page


next page >

< previous page

page_117


(69) a. Vas a obligar a tu madre a que te castigue. pro are going to force to your mother that to you-punish 'You are going to force your mother to punish you.' b. ?Vas a hacer a tu madre que te castigue. pro are going to make your mother that punish you 'You are going to make your mother punish you.' For present purposes, I will assume that both (69a) and (69b) instantiate a causative in which the selected event is syntactically realized as a finite clause. 3.5.3 A Purely Syntactic Difference: Hacer versus Object-Control Verbs The facts discussed in the previous subsection for object-control verbs occur across dialects in Spanish. But hacer does not allow the pre-infinitival order of the hacer-causative across dialects, as I noted at the outset of this chapter. I have argued that this order corresponds to a complex predicate, with the pre-infinitival causee in dative Case and with hacer raising to Infl. 34 The cross-dialectal variation that occurs in the pre-infinitival order of the hacer-causative points toward a purely syntactic difference differentiating grammars that allow the pre-infinitival order of the hacer-causative from grammars that do not allow it. In the former grammars, hacer can license Case independently of the lower verb; in the latter, hacer cannot license Case alone. There is a correlation between the grammars in which the pre-infinitival order of the hacer-causative is attested and the grammars in which, according to the conclusions of chapter 2, the dative P of marked accusatives (and datives) is a syntactic head. Specifically, the pre-infinitival order with hacer is attested only in grammars in which the dative P is part of syntax. It is at least arguable that, in grammars in which the P of objects in marked accusative (Peninsular Spanish) or in dative (Catalan and Peninsular Spanish) is a syntactic head, verbs are able to license dative Case on a PDP regardless of the grammatical function of the prepositional object ("direct object" or "indirect object"). Dialect differences associated with Case and the two kinds of a-objects abound. Although verbs in some grammars license marked accusative or dative on P-DP objects

< previous page


next page >

< previous page

page_118


independently of their grammatical function (judging by the morphological Case of object clitics), the most widespread phenomenon is that accusative Case-marking verbs can license dative. I suggest that grammars in which the dative P is a syntactic head allow verbs to license the object preceded by the dative preposition in inherent Case ("inherent accusative" or dative), provided that the thematic restrictions on inherent Case are met. In summary, the semantics of the hacer-causative intersects with the Case properties of individual verbs across languages and within specific dialects of a given language. 3.5.4 The Focused Nominative Pronoun in Causatives We have seen that affected animate objects are always accompanied by the particle a. I have claimed that they always move overtly, and that their Case is licensed in the specifier position they reach outside VP. In this section I will discuss details of the analysis developed for pre-infinitival causees in light of certain interesting new data. The evidence to be discussed concerns a causative which I refer to as the Focused Pronoun Causative (hereafter denoted EPC, for Emphatic Pronoun Causative, in order to separate it from the faire-par causative). 3.6 The Data The defining property of the EPC is that it has a focused pronoun in nominative Case which looks as if it doubles a pronominal object clitic: me-yo (me-I): (70) a. Me dejas pedir yo (NOM)? (do you) to me-let ask I? 'Do you let ME ask?' b. Me hizo pedir yo (NOM) to me-made ask I 'She made ME ask.' The EPC causative is highly constrained and, at times, slightly marginal. In the absence of the clitic, the nominative pronoun cannot surface:

< previous page


next page >

< previous page

page_119


(71) *Dejas pedirlo yo? Do you let ask for it I? (cf. Dejas que lo pida yo? Do you let that ask for it I? 'Would you let me ask for it?') The ultimate analysis of the EPC is tantamount to a reassessment of the relation between links of chains. The leading idea of the EPC is that the nominative pronoun is licensed by being in association to argumental small pro, and that pro, in turn, is morphologically licensed by the clitic. In the Romance languages, PRO can be "doubled" by an emphatic pronoun in the nominative, as the following Italian example (from Burzio 1981) illustrates: (72) Persuase Maria [PRO a intervenire lei/*lui a risolvere il problema] pro persuaded Maria to intervene her/him to solve the problem There is a nominative emphatic pronoun in the infinitival clause (namely lei) that agrees in gender and number with controlled PRO. The emphatic pronoun of the EPC must also agree with the clitic (cf. Me dejas pedir yo/ (*ella)? '(do you) to me-let ask I/(*her)?) The EPC therefore resembles Romance control structures. 35 I have argued against a control analysis of Romance causatives. In the face of the fact that an emphatic pronoun is licensed in control structures, one might think that the EPC is, after all, a control structure. Various reasons, however, make this idea implausible. The apparent similarity between control structures and the EPC comes, I believe, from the fact that within each the emphatic pronoun doubles a null pronominal. The emphatic pronoun doubles pro in the EPC, and it doubles PRO in the control clause. The conditions under which the emphatic pronoun is allowed in each construction are quite different, and the range of languages that allow each also differs. Both Italian and Spanish permit the emphatic pronoun of control clauses across dialects. But the EPC is attested in only some dialects of Spanish (and, according to my informants, in Portuguese). Let us see under what conditions the emphatic pronoun can surface in each of these languages. In control clauses, the morphological expression of the PRO-controller plays no role in the licensing of the emphatic pronoun. The controller can be a lexical DP or any first-, second-, or third-person clitic pronoun:

< previous page


next page >

< previous page

page_120


(73) a. Propusieron a Maria [ PRO ir al cine ella] pro proposed Mary [to go to the movies SHE] b. Me/te/le propusieron [ PRO ir al cine yo/tu/él] pro to me/to you/to him [ proposed to go to the movies I/you/he] 'They asked ME/YOU/HIM to go to the movies.' By contrast, the licenser element of the emphatic pronoun in the EPC has to be a clitic. Furthermore, in order for the nominative pronoun to surface the clitic has to be in first or second person: (74) a. (Ahora) te (second person) dejo pedir tú/a ti (now) to you-let ask you/to you (Now) I let-you ask you b. No lo hagas pedir *é1/a él. not himACC-made ask he/to him Do not make-him ask he/to him c. (Por qué no) le dejas/haces pedir ??*él/a él? (Why don't you) himDAT-let/make ask-it he/to him? (Why don't you) let/make him ask for it him? Now consider the distribution of the nominative pronoun. In the EPC the focused pronoun must be adjacent to the verb. No such thing holds of control structures, however: (75) a. La ventana, me hizo abrirla yo. the window, pro to me-made open-it I 'The window, she made me open it.' b. Me hizo abrir la ventana (*yo). pro to me-made open the window (I) 'She made me open the window.' (cf. Ana quiere arreglar la ventana ella Ana wants to fix the window SHE)

< previous page


next page >

< previous page

page_121


One more fact separating the EPC from structures of control concerns the lexical class of the verb allowing the phenomenon in each. In the control clause, what verb is part of the infinitival clause is entirely irrelevant for the emphatic pronoun. For instance, the following is perfectly fine: (76) (Le) animaron a la actriz a bailar ella. pro (herDAT)-encouraged to the actress to dance she 'They encouraged the actress to dance.' The EPC also exhibits strong restrictions concerning the semantic nature of the infinitival verb under the causative predicate. 3.7 The Approach The range of non-finite verbs that allow an emphatic pronoun is far more restricted in the EPC than in the control clause. As anticipated, the lexical choice of the verb under the causative predicate has an important influence in the possibility of the focused pronoun. Consider the following examples: (77) Me hicieron correr/huir (??yo). pro to me-made run/run away (I) 'They made me run/run away.' (cf. Me hicieron correr/huir a mí pro to me-made run/run to me) 'They made me run/run away.') (78) Juan me hizo enfadar/llorar/reir (*yo). Juan to me-made angry/cry/laugh (I) (cf. Juan me hizo enfadar/llorar a mí Juan to made-me get angry/cry to me) Crucially, the verbs that favor the EPC are verbs that take non-affected agents as subjects: (79) a. Me dejó/hizo abrirla yo (la ventana). pro let/made me open-it I (the window)

< previous page


next page >

< previous page

page_122


b. Me dejó/ hizo plantarlas yo (las flores). she let/made me plant them I (the flowers) C. Me dejó/hizo buscarlo yo. she let/made me look for it I The agentive subjects of the verbs in (79) are not affected by the action described in the verb. By contrast, the subject of the verb in (78) is an affected agent. Why must the subject of the lower infinitival verb be an unaffected argument? We have seen that affected (agentive) causees appear obligatorily in either dative or marked accusative. The restriction against the causee's being an affected argument must be a Case restriction. The fact that the causee argument of the EPC cannot be licensed in either dative or accusative sugggests a Case link between the emphatic pronoun and the causee. Unless the causee can be in the nominative, the clitic will have to be thematically licensed in association to an argument, and then there will be no Case licenser for the nominative Case of the focused pronoun. 36 The emphatic pronoun is nominative, and its being in the nominative is contingent on the causee's also being in the nominative. To put it simply, the emphatic pronoun needs to match its licenser in Case (and in features). On the surface, the clitic stands for the subject of the lower verb. Nonetheless, I claim that the clitic is not the argumental causee; instead, null pro is. Note that if the clitic were to be the argument, we would expect that the particular realization of the causee should not matter, and the emphatic pronoun of the EPC would behave on a par with the emphatic pronoun of control clauses. The fact, however, is that the nominative pronoun of the EPC requires that the licenser of the emphatic pronoun be a clitic in first or second person. This makes it very plausible that the argumental causee of the EPC is not the clitic but null pro. Aside from the difference between the ECP and control clauses, evidence that I will discuss in chapter 4 supports the assumption that first- and second-person clitics are linked to pro, and that pro rather than the clitic is the argument.37 On this view, the role of the object clitic is to license the argumental causee as pro. Thus, the emphatic pronoun is contingent on pro, and pro is contingent upon the clitic.

< previous page


next page >

< previous page

page_123


The odd properties of the EPC are not entirely novel. In the linguistic literature, McCloskey and Sells (1988) analyze a construction for Irish that exhibits several important properties in common with the EPC. The main feature of the construction in questionwhich McCloskey and Sells label "the Double Subject Construction (DSC)"is that a prepositional object pronoun corresponding to an underlying or a notional subject is anaphorically dependent on the subject of an infinitival clause (PRO, in their analysis). This yields the odd result that the infinitival clause appears to have two subjects. The following example (their (56a)) illustrates this construction: (80) Niór mhaith liom [sibh eagla a bheith oraibh]. I-wouldn't-like you fear be-INFIN on-you 'I wouldn't like you to be afraid.' Importantly, both the EPC and the DSC contain a pronominal interpreted as a subject anaphorically dependent on another subject within an infinitival clause. In both, there is an Infl that has something special: in the EPC, the matrix Infl contains a clitic; in the DSC, the infinitival Infl contains a particle. Both constructions occur only with certain verbs (verbs such as 'be', which have a non-thematic subject position); in the account given by McCloskey and Sells, the DSC contains an NP in a non-argument position (a DP before the verb); in my account of the EPC, the clitic is the element in a non-argument position. Furthermore, there is an independent thematic-subject position bearing the role agent in both structures. The structure attributed by McCloskey and Sells (1988) to the DSC is a small-clause structure. Thus, 'be' takes a small clause, and the thematic position of the subject is the subject of the small clause. The thematic subject of the EPC merits more discussion and will be addressed shortly. For the purposes of illustration, consider the following as an initial configuration.

< previous page


next page >

< previous page

page_124


(81)

The key to my approach to the EPC is the idea that at LF it is a complex predicate that has the causee in the checking domain of the higher Infl. The extremely tight conditions under which the emphatic pronoun can surface in the EPC make it quite plausible that the EPC is a complex predicate at LF. The literature on complex-predicate formation emphasizes that verbs in complex predicates must join their event position (the "Davidsonian argument"). 38 Intuitively, if the event position of the lower verb has to raise at LF and be discharged in conjunction with the event position of the causative verb (in whatever manner this is done), event composition will place the two verbs within a single complex at LF. This, in turn, will permit pro and the emphatic pronoun to be within a single verbal complex. For reasons that will immediately become apparent, though, I attribute a clausal analysis to the initial configuration of the EPC, as depicted in (81). We need (1) the focused pronoun in the nominative to merge with the V projection of the lower verb (V2), (2) the null pro to

< previous page


next page >

< previous page

page_125


merge with the V projection of the causative verb (Vc), and (3) the clitic to either merge with Tense or be in v and move to Tense. I assume that the surface order obtains as a result of V2's raising to Infl and Vc's raising first to v and then to Tense. 3.8 Justifying the Approach The approach to the EPC through the distinction between the focused pronoun and pro is plausible on a number of grounds. Causative 'let' is unquestionably a three-place predicate, as manifested by the fact that the patient can be realized as an argument independently of the lower infinitive. As we have already seen, hacer, with the semantics of 'force', behaves the same way: (82) a. Me dejas que lo pida ahora? (do you) to me-let that it-ask for now? 'Are you letting me ask for it now?' b. No me hagas que lo pida ahora. don't me-make that I ask for it now 'Don't force me to ask for it now.' This adds plausibility to the idea that the causative predicate of the EPC takes a pro as complement, in addition to the clausal complement. I have proposed that the causative verb of the EPC takes a clausal complement. As noted, clitic raising from a nonfinite to a finite clause is a diagnosis for complex-predicate formation. ''Clitic climbing" is forbidden in the EPC: (83) Me (*lo) dejas pedir yo? / Me lo dejas pedir a mí? to me-(it)-let ask I? Do you let-me ask for it to me? Do you let me ask I? (cf. Me dejas pedir yo?) Furthermore, focus adverbs can separate the causative and the lower verb, suggesting that the two verbs involved are not within the type of adjoined structure yielded by V-incorporation (cause-V):

< previous page


next page >

< previous page

page_126


(84) a. Me dejarás algun día pedir yo/a mí? will you to me-let ever ask I Will you ever let ME ask? b. No me dejas nunca pedir yo/a mi. not me-let ever ask I 'You never let ME ask.' The surface order of verbs will result from the causative's having to move to finite Tense and the lower verb's having to raise to the lower Infl. 39 3.9 The Analysis The analysis of the EPC must answer the following questions: (1) Why must the non-finite verb have a non-affected agentive subject? (2) Why is the object clitic obligatory? (3) Why do third-person clitics fail in the EPC? (4) Why is the focused pronoun in the nominative? (5) Why is there adjacency between the lower verb and the focused pronoun? (6) Why is there cross-linguistic variability in the relationship between pro and focused pronouns? (7) Why do only some dialects have the EPC? The answer to each of these questions converges on the assumption that the LF configuration of the EPC is a complex predicate. The first question has two parts, one having to do with agentivity per se and the other with Affectedness. We have seen that the crucial difference between agentive and non-agentive subjects is that the former can be the bearer of a different thematic role. In the EPC, pro is the bearer of the patient role and the nominative pronoun is the bearer of the agent role. It is plausible that the agentive restriction of the EPC concerns the LF licensing of the overt pronoun. There are two views that can be taken of the emphatic pronoun in the context of the present discussion: either the emphatic pronoun is in the chain of pro (an A-chain) or it is in a separate chain (a non-A-chain). If the option of a single chain is taken, there will be a single thematic role in the chain: that of pro, with the emphatic pronoun having a role (agent) that can be subsumed in the A-chain as secondary. If the emphatic pronoun and pro are in two different chains, the agenthood requirement would mean that, at LF, the argumental subject of the infinitival verb is

< previous page


next page >

< previous page

page_127


proan option that can arise only if the emphatic pronoun receives the role agent. Since the agent is licensed positionally (in virtue of its position in the structure), the infinitival and the causative verb can jointly license pro at LF. In either case, the slight marginality of the EPC might be attributed to the thematic split between patient and agent. Let us consider matters of Case. The EPC appears with two nominatives: the causer and the emphatic pronoun. Since there is only one Infl that can license nominative (the matrix finite Infl), both of the nominatives in the structure will have to be licensed by the same Infl. We can then consider the EPC an instance of multiple nominative Case checking of the type found with serial verbs (Collins 1995). 40 However, it is clear that this option is highly restricted in the grammar of Spanish. In fact, the theoretical interest of the EPC resides precisely in the conditions that make the two nominatives possible. The clitic is attached to Tense, and it will either originate in Tense or reach Tense by movement; in either case, I assume that the clitic ends up incorporated into Tense. Informally, let us say that the clitic lends its number and person features to Tense, and that this is how its associate pro is licensed. At LF, Tense will check the nominative Case of pro via the intervention of the agreement features acquired from the clitic. The causer and the causee are in an equidistant relation once Vc raises and adjoins to v, and the resulting V-complex moves further and adjoins to Tense. Both the causer and the causee will be able to check the nominative Case of T without competition if the nominative Case feature of Tense does not erase when it enters into a checking relation with the causer. However, if this is to be at all possible it is crucial that the emphatic pronoun in the nominative be in the checking domain of the higher Tense where the clitic is. Several of the restrictions of the EPC favor this approach. Let me discuss which ones they are. The nominative Case of the emphatic pronoun needs to be checked. Since there is no reason to assume that the Case feature of the emphatic pronoun is checked before LF, let us assume that its Case is checked at LF. The emphatic pronoun has a Case that matches that of its licenser. It is then possible that the emphatic pronoun uses its licenser for Case checking. Consider the following configuration: (85) Vc ... [vP pro [tv [Infl [Inf-V] [vP yo tv ... ]]]]

< previous page


next page >

< previous page

page_128


Given that the Case-checking domain of the emphatic pronoun is the matrix Tense, we expect the emphatic pronoun to be local to Tense. The required locality between yo and the matrix Infl will be met only if there is no intervening head (i.e., no c-commanding head) that in turn defines a Case-checking domain. This imposes heavy restrictions on the Case licensing of the arguments of the lower verb. The relative distribution of the objects of the embedded infinitival verb with respect to the emphatic pronoun supports this hypothesis. For example, consider the exclusion of the emphatic pronoun in (75b) in this light. Here, the object la ventana ('the window') needs to license its accusative Case against the lower verb. The nominative Case feature of the emphatic pronoun, in turn, needs to be attracted to the matrix Infl in order to be checked. This requires that no DP intervene (in the technical sense) between the emphatic pronoun and the matrix Infl. Null pro, of course, intervenes (assuming the structure in (81)). But pro, like the emphatic nominative pronoun, is nominative; hence, pro also needs to be in the checking domain of the higher Infl. The nominative Case of both pro and the emphatic pronoun will be attracted to the matrix Infl. Then the only manner in which the object of the lower verb can check its accusative Case and still be compatible with the checking needs of the nominative emphatic pronoun is if it incorporates into V. This is clearly allowed, as shown by the grammaticality of the examples in (79). Evidently, multiple Case checking is not an open option for nominative Case in pro-drop Romance (since we do not regularly find more than one nominative in the structure). As a matter of fact, the two nominatives of the EPC under analysis depend crucially on the addition of a first- or a second-person clitic to the matrix Infl. I will assume that the Infl that can enter into more than one Case-checking relation in Spanish has to be "pronominal" in the standard intuitive sense: an Infl with "strong" pronominal features (the type of Infl that licenses pro). Finally, consider the question of why the EPC is only attested in some dialects. The proposed account predicts that the EPC can be attested only in dialects that have the pre-infinitival order of the causative. The EPC involves, crucially, the patient argument of the causative verb. The patient is the argument that is Case-licensed by hacer, and the argument that surfaces in the pre-infinitival order as the causee. As I have already noted, this prediction is correct.

< previous page


next page >

< previous page

page_129


3.10 Conclusion In this chapter I have shown how the environments of abstract and marked accusative discussed in the previous chapter condition basic variants of meaning in periphrastic causatives. As we have seen, the faire-par causative is considerably more constrained in those grammars in which causative 'make' is a Case-licensing verb. Given semantic parameters, we may expect variants of meaning to be insensitive to small, intricate differences in the Case capability of the causative verb; this, however, is not so. Their sensitivity argues against semantic parameters of causative formation. Case, with cross-linguistic differences in the Case properties of verbs, is more adequate for explaining the facts about causative formation and its basic variants of meaning. I have also shown that the syntactic expression of the causee is informative to the structure of periphrastic causatives. The main justification for this claim is the Infl that links marked accusative arguments and agents. The resulting system is extremely tight. Infinitival 'make' causatives in the languages analyzed here involve an embedded IP only in instances in which the causee and the patient argument of 'make' cannot be fused. This suggests that economy principles give preference to the smallest possible structure that is compatible with semantics.

< previous page


next page >

< previous page

page_130


< previous page


next page >

< previous page

page_131


Chapter 4 Case Alternations One of the issues I have considered in the preceding chapters is the Case behavior of morphologically marked objects with single transitive accusative verbs. I begin this chapter by further examining the Case behavior of marked accusatives, this time in the context of ditransitive verbs. Under the approach developed in previous chapters, an object in marked accusative moves outside the VP in the overt syntax. Once the object is raised, its Case feature is licensed in a specifier position of v (to which V has already adjoined). Marked accusatives in ditransitives are potentially more problematic than they are in single transitives simply because the verb has one more object to license: the dative argument. The Case-licensing requirements of datives may vary across languages. The linguistic literature on Spanish is replete with examples of objects preceded by the dative preposition that mysteriously go awry in ditransitives. One of the more interesting sources for examples is Strozer 1976, where a large number of asymmetries concerning ditransitive verbs are pointed out and discussed. Factually, how the dative argument is syntactically expressed is a major factor in the acceptability of examples with morphologically marked accusatives. Lexical datives and marked accusatives are both introduced by the dative preposition (in Spanish and similar languages). Object shift can be an important factor in derivations where marked accusatives and lexical datives co-occur in Romance languages for reasons of Case. I argue that Romance datives have both inherent Case and structural Case. Structural Case must always be checked. Within the theory of feature checking, checking relations are established within checking domains. Under certain conditions, derivations with two identically Case-marked objects (marked accusatives and datives) can be problematic for Case checking if they both are within the same checking domain.

< previous page


next page >

< previous page

page_132


The initial syntactic phenomena I focus on in this chapter are the conditions that permit identical morphology of the two lexical objects ('a-DP a-DP'). I examine the varying acceptability of morphological marking of accusatives with different ditransitive verbs, showing that object raising is crucial in determining whether the two objects can be realized with identical Case morphology. At a minimum, we expect that the several variables that intervene in the phenomenon of marked accusative will influence the syntax of objects in ditransitive structures: the intervention of Affectedness in licensing overt object raising, the correlation that holds between animacy and objects in marked accusative, the original site of clitics with respect to their associates, and the particular Case-checking modalities of different clitic forms. Supporting evidence for the approach is found in the behavior of thirdperson accusative clitics within ditransitive structures, in particular, in interactions between accusative clitics in the third person, and lexical datives. The behavior of accusative clitics in the third person with respect to lexical datives provides support for the analysis of these clitics developed in chapter 2, and gives insights into the nature of dative Case. In a comparative context, I explore a variety of theoretical issues regarding the syntactic realization of the two objects of ditransitives. In the face of the proposed approach to the Spanish data, I make some suggestions for the double-object construction in English. The other main theme of this chapter concerns datives in structures with unaccusative verbs. I first examine the syntax of subject-to-subject raising, comparing English with French and Italian, on the one hand, and with Spanish on the other. I discuss the syntactic interaction between the experiencer argument of raising verbs and the raising of the infinitival subject, showing how a feature-movement analysis of subject raising can derive the desired results for these languages (section 4.2). I make a proposal about clitic doubling of datives, and motivate it in structures of subject raising and of psych verbs. Central to this proposal is the idea that the dative clitic originates in the phrase of its double. Support for the proposed approach is discussed in section 4.3. 4.1 Ditransitives Linguists have arrived at quite different conclusions for each of the theoretical questions posed by ditransitive verbs. The question of how the two objects of a ditransitive are distributed in the VP is of course crucial to

< previous page


next page >

< previous page

page_133


determining the syntax of the objects. In the proposal of Chomsky (1955), adopted by Larson (1988), the indirect object (IO) is lower than the direct object (DO) and forms a constituent with the verb excluding the object. The original distribution of the two objects in VP is all the more pertinent to syntax in view of the alternation that exists in English between 'John gave the money to Mary' and 'John gave Mary the money' (the dative-shift construction). In the latter, the IO appears with no preposition, and comes before the DO. Whether the 'DP DP' order is derived from the 'DP toDP' order (as argued by Larson (1988) and others) or is an original order (as defended by Oehrle (1976), Kayne (1984), Jackendoff (1990), Pesetsky (1995), and others) has been one of the main topics of analysis concerning ditransitives. The other main theoretical thread explored in the literature is the "small clause hypothesis," originally proposed by Kayne (1984) and subsequently adopted and developed by many linguists. Kayne (ibid.) based his proposal on the idea that phrase structure is strictly binary branching. Therefore, the two complements of the ditransitive verb could not be sisters to V. He put forward the view that the IO is always contained within PP, with the DO standing in a subject relation to the PP. In the dative-shift structure, the PP is headed by the null counterpart of the English dative preposition to. Before making a decision concerning the structure of ditransitives, I will introduce some preliminary data that establish the different Case behavior of marked accusatives with single transitive verbs and with ditransitive verbs. 4.1.1 A First Look at Marked Accusative Asymmetries There are many cases where the Case behavior of single and double transitive verbs diverges. The most striking demonstration of this comes from the assignment of marked accusative by single transitives for which marked accusative is, in principle, an option. Verbs such as describir ('describe') can have their (animate indefinite) object in marked accusative or in abstract accusative: (1) Describe (a) un maestro de Zen! describe to a Zen master! 'Describe a Zen master!'

< previous page


next page >

< previous page

page_134


However, marked accusative on the object of this verb is precluded if there is also a lexical dative: (2) Describieron (*a) un maestro de Zen al papa. pro described (to) a Zen master to the Pope 'They described a Zen master to the Pope.' It is natural to attribute the ban against marked accusative in (2) to the lexical dative. The question then arises of how one can accommodate such a ban in the approach to marked accusativity developed in chapter 2. There are facts suggesting that the constraint involved in (2) is syntactic in nature. Strozer (1976) shows that the particular lexical class the verb belongs to matters for the realization of the two objects of ditransitives, as the empirical contrast in (3) illustrates. (3) a. ?Mostré/presenté al alumno al profesor. pro showed/introduced to the student to the teacher 'I showed/introduced the student to the teacher.' b. *Describí al alumno al profesor. pro described to the student to the teacher 'I described the student to the teacher.' Option (3a) is marginal, but it contrasts sharply with example (3b), which is strongly deviant. 1 The impossibility of having marked accusative on the innermost DP of (2) suggests that this DP is unable to raise overtly. This way of thinking about the problem points toward the exclusion of structures that have both the marked accusative and the lexical dative in the same Case-checking domain (in the checking domain of the chain (V, t))2 The syntactic facts at our disposal indicate that object raising is allowed with presentar ('introduce'/'show') in (3a) and disallowed with describir ('describe') in (3b).3 For example, the behavior of prenominal "possessors" in nominals conforms to Anderson's (1977) generalization. Thus, with the derived nominal presentación a pronoun in prenominal position can be understood as the object; however, with descripción it cannot be:

< previous page


next page >

< previous page

page_135


a. [Su presentación t] al público His presentation to the public b. *[Su descripción t] al público His description to the public Whatever the semantic difference between the object of the two verbs in (3) is (presentar ('introduce'/'show') / describir ('describe'), the object does not seem to be able to raise with the former verb. 4 From the start, linguists have noted an interpretive difference between the structure of the two objects ('DP DP') and the structure of the prepositional dative ('to-DP'), illustrated by the contrast between 'They taught Mary linguistics' and 'They taught linguistics to Mary'. The basic observation is that in the double-object configuration there is the implication that Mary really did learn linguistics, while in the configuration with the prepositional dative there is no such implication. The notion of a benefactive involves the concept of Affectedness, as Marantz (1984) observed. Although there has been a tendency to attribute the difference in meaning between the two cases to ¬-theory, some have argued that it should be attributed to Affectedness instead. For the purposes of the present discussion, I assume that in the double-object structure the goal is affected by the action described by the verb. On this view, Affectedness is central to Spanish marked accusatives and to the innermost object of double objects in English. Since Affectedness correlates with a ''designated" position in VP (Hale and Keyser 1992, 1993a; Marantz 1990), in the view adopted here the LF position of the inner object of double-object structures in English and the derived position of Spanish marked accusatives must be the same: a specifier position outside VP. There is some confirming evidence in support of the claim that object raising is central in derivations involving a marked accusative and a lexical dative. Although the two objects in (3a) are morphologically expressed in the same way, the interpretation indicates that the innermost object is the DO and the other object is the IO. Within the framework of my assumptions, (3a) is an instance of overt object raising of the innermost a-DP, that is, the accusative. Evidently, the direct object can raise with some ditransitive verbs but not with others. The marked accusative object raises outside the VP when

< previous page


next page >

< previous page

page_136


the verb is of a certain semantic type. It thus seems that unless the marked accusative object raises outside the VP, the lexical dative cannot be licensed in the structure. 4.1.2 The Case Issues A marked accusative and a lexical dative share a central property, that of being morphologically marked by the dative preposition. The need for object raising in VPs that have both a marked accusative and a lexical dative can be attributed to the conditions that allow a single head to check Case multiple times. Crucially, I assume that both the marked accusative and the lexical dative have a Case feature that needs to be checked. In a feature-movement analysis, a feature enters into a checking relation with its checker (the feature of the head that does the checking) within the checking domain of the head that has the feature. When features match in the checking configuration, they are checked. A Case feature that is checked either deletes or is erased. The Case feature that is checked in configurations with two a-objects is the accusative Case feature of the (di)transitive accusative verb. Therefore, it is important that the Case feature of Spanish (di)transitive accusative verbs be available for two instances of Case checking. Object raising targets a specifier of v. The empirical evidence to be discussed in this chapter strongly suggests that the accusative object of ditransitives can raise, not the dative. When the accusative object raises overtly, the raised object is placed in the minimal domain of v. The dative object, in turn, is in the minimal domain of the chain of V, assuming that V moves and adjoins to v at some point. It is possible that if no overt object raising occurs, either the Case feature of the accusative, or the Case feature of the dative cannot be checked, in violation of the principle of Full Interpretation. With these general considerations as a background, let us proceed to analyze the data. 4.1.2.1 Contrasts due to Case Inflections In subsection 2.7.2.3 I discussed contrasts like the following: (5) a. A quiénes (les) vieron? to who pro (them)DAT-saw? 'Whom did they see?

< previous page


next page >

< previous page

page_137


b. A quiénes (*los) vieron? to who pro (them)Acc-saw? 'Whom did they see? The contrast was attributed to the fact that in (5a) the dative clitic les checks Case independently of its person and other agreement features, whereas in (5b) the accusative clitic los checks Case by entering into agreement with all the formal features of its associate, leaving the wh-feature of the associate inaccessible, hence unable to move and unable to check the wh-feature of the interrogative Q. From this perspective, contrasts such as the following may look surprising: (6) a. ?Lo presentaron a la actriz. pro him-introduced to the actress 'They introduced him to the actress.' b. *Lo describieron a la actriz. pro him-described to the actress 'They described him to the actress.' The combination 'lo + a-DP' is entirely excluded with describir, as shown in (6b), but not with presentar, as shown in (6a). The former verb does not restrict the expression of the direct object (DO) when no indirect object (IO) is present: (7) a. Describieron a Juan con mucho detalle. pro described to Juan in a lot of detail 'They described Juan in great detail.' b. Lo describieron. pro him-described 'They described him.' Although we are no longer dealing with objects that have identical morphology, (6a) is far better than (6b). The problem deepens somewhat when we consider wh-extraction of the IO in examples such as (6a).

< previous page


next page >

< previous page

page_138


(8) *A quién lo presentaron? to whom pro to himACC-introduced? 'To whom did they introduce?' In view of what I have said so far concerning the contrast between (3a) (= mostré/presenté al alumno al profesor 'I showed/introduced the student to the teacher') and (3b) (*Describí al alumno al profesor 'I described the student to the teacher'), the asymmetry between (6a) and (8) is unexpected. Given, however, that accusative third-person clitics check their Case by agreement in all of their formal features, it is reasonable to relate the ill-formedness of (6b) and (8) to the accusative clitic. Let us consider first the derivation of (6b). Object raising is found with certain verbs and not with others. The ditransitive verb describir does not allow overt object raising. This is suggested by the ill-formedness of (9b). (9) a. Nos describieron al policia. pro to us-described to the police officer 'They described us to the police officer.' b. *Nos describieron a nosotros al policía. pro to us -described to us to the police officer 'They described us to the police officer.' Although (9a) is possible, (9b) is not. In (9b), a pronoun in marked accusative cannot "double" the first-person plural clitic nos. As I noted in chapter 2, stressed object pronouns generally raise outside VP in Spanish and in many other languages. 5 The distinction between (9a) and (9b) suggests that something goes wrong in derivations in which both the accusative and the lexical dative remain inside the VP. In the case of (6b), the accusative clitic is housed in v; however, the accusative clitic is not the argument, pro is. The derivation of (6b) has both pro and the lexical dative inside VP. This assumption has straightforward consequences. Both the accusative and the dative complement must check their structural Case against V.6 It is thus crucial that the structural Case feature of V be available for two different instances of Case checking: for pro (the DO linked to the third-person ac-

< previous page


next page >

< previous page

page_139


cusative clitic) and for the lexical dative. What sort of Case-checking mode is available in the structure depends in part on how each complement can check its Case. The derivation of sentence (9a) presents no problem because first-person clitics check their Case separately from their other formal features. However, the derivation of (6b) potentially does. Due to the fact that the Case-checking modality of lo implicates the clitic's formal features as a unit, the structural Case feature of V may not be available for checking the Case of the lexical dative. This intuition is reinforced by the interpretation allowed for (6b) in certain dialects. In Southern Cone Spanish, marked accusatives can double the third-person accusative lo. Provided that the clitic and the lexical dative agree in person, number, and gender, the accusative clitic in this dialect can be taken to double the lexical dative. 7 However, in the intended interpretation, (namely as a sequence of two different q-marked objects) (6b) is excluded across dialects. The key aspect of the analysis of (6b), as elsewhere in this chapter when discussing problematic sequences of lo and a lexical dative, resides in the form of Case checking of the accusative clitic. In the cases I have discussed in chapter 2, the Case-checking modality of the accusative clitic lo affects the syntax of its associate: the double. However, even when the accusative clitic does not double an object, its presence can be problematic in a structure of double objects. In (6b), for instance, the combination of lo and the lexical dative is not possible. Here the conflict may reside in the complex [[lo-v]v], to which V will raise and adjoin at some point. The Case-checking modality of the clitic lo may affect V, the head that contains the accusative-Case feature (and perhaps also v, the functional head that intervenes in the Case checking of the accusative verb) whenever Case checking of the accusative and of the dative occurs at LF (that is, when no overt raising occurs in the structure). If lexical datives have a Case feature that needs to be checked, it will be crucial that the Case feature of V can be checked twice, since it is needed for the accusative and also for the dative. Given that the clitic implicates all its formal features as a Case checker, it is possible that this form of feature checking amounts to having the accusative (pro) incorporated into V, making it impossible for the lexical dative to check its Case. Whatever the details of this intuitive account are, the general approach seems quite plausible. The particular Case-checking requirement of the Spanish third-person accusative clitic is also responsible for the strong deviance of the interrogative example (8). Let us next discuss (8).

< previous page


next page >

< previous page

page_140


Despite its not being an instance of clitic doubling, the analysis of (8) is similar to the analysis of the clitic-doubling example in (5b). In the wh-movement of a quién to the specifier of the matrix Q, a quién encounters the accusative clitic lo and is forced to enter into a Case-checking relation with the clitic. Due to the particular checking modality of third-person accusative clitics, when a quién enters into Case checking with the clitic, its wh-feature can no longer enter into a checking relation with the matrix Q, which has a strong wh-feature that has to be checked prior to LF. Notice that in (8) the wh-phrase functions as the IO, and the clitic as the DO. The analysis suggested for (8) makes one tacit assumption; namely, that neither the clitic nor the wh-phrase has had its Case feature checked at the time they cross. On the surface, the clitic and the wh-phrase do not have the same Case. The clitic is clearly accusative, and the wh-phrase is dative. Datives in Spanish have a structural Case feature, but they also bear inherent Case, as datives do in English and many other languages (see 4.1.3). (That some inherently Casemarked arguments also have structural Case has been argued by Holmberg and Platzack (1995) explicitly for Scandinavian languages.) The feature-checking analysis of (8) relies on the Minimal Link Condition. Chomsky (1995, subsection 4.5.6) proposes that K attracts a only if there is no ß, ß closer to K than a, such that K attracts ß. At some stage in the derivation, the computational system yields the following: (10)

(The relative position of the two objects in VP is irrelevant.) The matrix Q has a strong wh-feature. Q must search for the closer category that has a wh-feature, namely, a quién. Assuming that the accusative clitic is an inflectional category associated with v, a quién will undergo object raising to the outer specifier of v (the inner specifier being filled by the subject), entering into Case checking with the clitic. This instance of checking is forced by the MLC. Once the wh-object enters into Case checking with the accusative clitic, its wh-feature can no longer be attracted to Q. There is further empirical evidence in support of this way of thinking about the ill-formedness of (8). When the accusative clitic is first or second instead of third person, the derivation is entirely unproblematic 8:

< previous page


next page >

< previous page

page_141


(11) a. A quién te presentaron? to whom pro to you-introduced? 'To whom did they introduce you?' b. A quién nos presentaron? to whom pro to us-introduced? 'To whom did they introduce us?' Although (8) is sharply deviant, the two examples in (11) are perfect. To derive the appropriate distinctions between (8) and (11), it suffices to assume that first- and second-person clitics check their Case independently of their person and number features. (The forms of object clitics in first and second person are the same for accusatives and datives.) Further empirical evidence in support of the analysis suggested for (8) comes from doubling clitics. Lexical datives in Spanish can be doubled by dative clitics rather freely. As we will see, the dative clitic has a "saving" role in the derivation of (8) and in many other problematic structures involving lexical datives (see Strozer 1976). Compare (8) with the following: (12) A quién se lo presentaron? To whom pro to himDAT-himACC-introduce? 'To whom did they introduce him?' In (12), the clitic se stands for the dative clitic, and doubles the wh-phrase a quién. Severe deviance is obtained in (8), but (12) is perfect. Since the derivation of (12), but not that of (8), has a doubling clitic for the wh-phrase, the difference between (8) and (12) has to reside in the dative clitic. 9 Furthermore, since I have attributed the deviance of (8) to Case theory, the dative clitic must contribute with a Case feature to meet the Case requirements of the derivation of (8). Intuitively, what seems to happen in (12) is that the dative clitic somehow protects the wh-object (the IO) from having to check Case against the accusative clitic on its way to Q. In principle, this result can be achieved in one of two ways. One possibility is that the two objects of the ditransitive verb are distributed in two different shells. The dative clitic could be housed

< previous page


next page >

< previous page

page_142


in the v of the lower v-VP configuration, and the accusative clitic could be housed in the higher v: (13)

If (13) is the right structure, the lexical dative and V form a unit that excludes the DO, along the lines proposed by Chomsky (1955), and Larson (1988) for the double-object constructions in English. Q will attract the wh-feature of the wh-object, as before. The wh-object will raise to the specifier of the lower v-VP first, checking its structural Case against le, the dative clitic. Since Case can delete upon checking, the wh-phrase will have no Case feature to check after this first instance of Case checking, and the fatal step of Case checking with the accusative clitic will then be avoided. As a result, (12) is not deviant, but (8) is. The treatment of clitics as inflections makes it possible to distinguish between levels of VP structure. However, the analysis I have just suggested regarding the contrast between (8) and (12) faces several problems. First, we must assume that only one v is involved in configurations that have no dative clitic. Although this does not necessarily constitute a problem, it forces us into the assumption that an object clitic always signals a v. If there are two object clitics, the structure will contain two v-VP structures; if there is only one object clitic, the structure will contain only one v. 10 There are a great number of syntactic contexts in which a dative clitic is obligatory. Many of these contexts involve unaccusative verbs, the class of verbs for which postulation of a v is more doubtful. Furthermore, the theoretical issue that bears on the derivations we are discussing is clearly Case. Even though v plays a crucial role in checking the Case of objects, V is the head that has structural Case. For all these reasons, it is unlikely that the dative and the accusative clitics each signal a different v. The doubling possibilities are by no means the same for accusatives and datives.11

< previous page


next page >

< previous page

page_143


I would like to offer an alternative approach to the dative clitic based on the idea that this clitic does not originate in v. The dative clitic comes from within the structure that houses the lexical dative. 12 The dative preposition can be assumed to be similar to v. I would like to make the proposal that the dative preposition can be viewed as a functional head that, like v, can have a D-feature. In my view, the analyses of Kayne (1984) and Pesetsky (1995) concerning datives and other related structures come close to this assumption. Consider the following structure as a candidate for clitic doubling of datives: (14)

Here the dative preposition heads the structure. Like v, p has a D-feature, and the dative clitic le is to p what the accusative clitic lo is to v. Dative clitics in the Romance languages have a D-feature, a Case feature (either structural accusative or structural dative), and some agreement features: person and number features. Assuming (14), the structural Case feature of le must enter into Case checking. The lexical dative has inherent Case. Thanks to le (se in (12)), the derivation of (12) incurs no MLC violation. The wh-dative does not have to enter into a Case-checking relation with the accusative clitic, either because its doubling clitic le checks the Case feature of the wh-phrase internally to the dative phrase, or because the dative clitic encodes the Case feature otherwise in the lexical dative. Since the problematic Case feature that forces the wh-object in (8) to enter into Case checking with lo in (8) is now gone, the crossing of the wh-phrase over the clitic lo has no consequences.13 A large number of further empirical contrasts can be captured by this analysis. Consider the following minimal pair: (15) a. Se lo devolví al bibliotecario. pro to him-it-returned to the librarian 'I returned it to the librarian.'

< previous page


next page >

< previous page

page_144


b. *Lo devolví al bibliotecario. pro it-returned to the librarian 'I returned it to the librarian.' In (15a) there is a dative clitic; in (15b), there is no dative clitic. The crucial empirical fact about (15b) is that the DO must be interpreted as an inanimate, as in the gloss, but it cannot be. The problematic interaction between accusatives and datives I am discussing for Spanish does not arise in French or in Italian. French and Italian are unproblematic: (16) a. Je l'ai rendu(e) à la bibliotecaire. I it-have returned to the librarian b. lo lo ho datto alla bibliotecaria. I it-have given to the librarian Unlike (15b), the French and Italian sentences in (16) are fine. This could be either because the accusative third-person clitic in the grammars of these languages checks its Case separately from its person, gender, and number features or because the feature composition of the dative P is different for Spanish than for French and Italian. Descriptively, a third-person accusative clitic in Spanish yields ill-formedness with all verbs, in all dialects, when combined with a lexical dative. It is important to emphasize that combinations of third-person accusative clitics and lexical datives yield strong deviance with all verbs, no matter their semantic class. For example, the following are excluded: (17) *Lo dieron al profesor. pro it-gave to the teacher 'They gave it to the teacher.' (18) *Lo describieron al profesor. pro it-described to the teacher 'They described it to the teacher.'

< previous page


next page >

< previous page

page_145


There are dialects of Spanish in which (15b), (17), and (18) are perfectly acceptable, but not with the intended interpretation. So long as the accusative clitic and the lexical phrase agree in gender, number, and person, Southern Cone Spanish permits a reading of the sentence in which the accusative clitic doubles the lexical a-DP. Thus, with the awkward meaning of 'I returned him, the librarian,' (15b) is in fine in that dialect. This fact simply reflects the checking relation established between the argument and the third-person accusative clitic. Under this reading, the argument is a DO in marked accusative, and the accusative clitic is its Case inflection. Crucially, though, the interpretation under which the clitic and the a-DP are two different grammatical objects (DO and IO) is ruled out. The crucial fact that causes the derivation of (15b) and similar cases to fail resides in the combination of two factors having to do with Case; one relates to the lexical dative, and the other relates to the accusative clitic. In the derivation of (15b), the lexical dative has a structural Case feature that must be checked. On the other hand, the accusative clitic lo with an inanimate interpretation also needs to check its Case. The theory of feature movement can exclude (15b) by invoking the Case-checking modality of Spanish third person accusative clitics, and by assuming that the inanimate clitic lo is the argument, not pro. In other words, I am proposing that Spanish lo is linked to pro when interpreted as animate but not when interpreted as inanimate (an idea that should be derived from the person feature of clitics). The ill-formedness of (15b), (17) and (18) now follows from Case-checking. Move F cannot raise isolated features. The Case-checking of the inanimate accusative clitic is incompatible with the Case-checking of the lexical dative because the clitic involves all the formal features of v (and V) in its checking. A conflict in the person features of lo and the Case feature of the lexical dative arises: the person feature associated to the Case feature of the lexical dative is ''animate," but the person feature of lo is "inanimate." No matter how this observation should be formally captured in the grammar, the theory of feature movement predicts a clash between the person feature of the lexical dative and the person feature of the accusative clitic. Although details remain to be filled in, the preceding analysis succeeds in capturing the fact that the dative clitic that doubles a lexical dative rescues all the problematic structures I have analyzed that involve the accusative third-person clitic.

< previous page


next page >

< previous page

page_146


There is a parallel between the doubling-clitic structure proposed in (14) and the v-VP configuration of transitive accusative verbs that houses the accusative clitic. The crucial aspect of this parallel concerns the dative preposition, which I have argued is a functional head that has a D-feature. Objects in both marked accusative and dative are DPs rather than PPs. Brancadell (1992), who reviews the behavior of Romance datives extensively, concludes that lexical datives are NPs (DPs, in the present framework). 14 Most arguments that have been provided in the literature in defense of the DP status of Romance datives are built around their asymmetric behavior with respect to straightforward PPs.15 This is true for binding and cliticization. A lexical dative can be a binder in Italian (Rizzi 1986b, 1988; Giorgi 1985), and also in Spanish (Demonte 1987, 1988; Suñer 1988). The following two examples, the first from Italian and the second from Spanish, illustrate binding with datives16: (19) Gianni descrisse se stesso a Maria. 'Gianni described himself to Maria.' (20) La terapia psicoanalítica le devolvió la confianza en si misma a Maria. the therapy psychoanalytic to her-brought-back the confidence in herself to Maria 'Psychotherapy returned self-confidence to Maria.' Rizzi (1988), observing that the forms of prepositional clitics (unlike the forms of dative clitics) are invariant, reasons that the dative preposition a in Italian is a Case marker rather than a "true" preposition. A similar point was made by Strozer (1976) on the basis of Spanish. The parallel I have established between v and the dative preposition allows for a partial unification of clitic doubling for marked accusatives and lexical datives. This is a welcome result. That clitic doubling of accusatives and clitic doubling of datives display different properties is familiar from the work of Fernandez-Soriano (1989), Franco (1993), and other Spanish syntacticians. My claim is that instances of doubling involving the accusative third-person clitic lo(s), la(s) display the properties that are symptomatic of overt object raising, but instances of doubling involving datives proper (indirect objects) do not. Given this, accusatives doubled by an accusative clitic will be raised outside VP, but datives doubled by a dative clitic will not.

< previous page


next page >

< previous page

page_147


One might explore the possibility that what underlies doubling of accusatives is a structure basically identical to the one depicted in (14) for datives: (21)

If v has a D-feature, the D-feature of v could first attract the clitic to raise to a specifier of the v-VP configuration; once the clitic is raised, the clitic itself could attract the double to raise. The first instance of Move F would be motivated by the D-feature of v, but the trigger of the second instance of movement would be by the strong D-feature of the accusative clitic. However, within the framework of my present assumptions, this approach may be problematic. Since third-person accusative clitics check all their features as a unit, it is not clear to me whether these clitics can enter into checking, first with the D-feature of v, and then with the D-feature of the dative preposition. In addition, this derivation may be less economical than its alternative, namely the derivation in which the accusative clitic merges with v, and only the marked accusative raises. Although the two seemingly distinct clitic doubling phenomena could receive a unified analysis in these terms, for the reasons I just have given, their unification may not be such a good idea. Here I leave the matter undecided. 4.1.3 Dative Shift in English My discussion has assumed that the dative preposition can be a functional head. In this subsection, I will base an analysis of the double-object construction in English on this assumption. The literature on double-object structures, especially after Kayne 1984, assumes that differences in the Case properties of the dative preposition

< previous page


next page >

< previous page

page_148


are responsible for the different behavior of datives in the Romance and Germanic languages. Following this tradition, I will attempt to derive the main cross-linguistic differences of the double-object construction in the two groups of languages from morphological aspects of the dative preposition. Evidence discussed by Barss and Lasnik (1986) suggests that double-object structures such as give Mary the keys have their innermost object asymmetrically c-commanding the outer object. As is well known, in the analysis of doubleobject verbs such as give the keys to Mary proposed by Larson (1988), the dative object raises overtly to a specifier position which is higher than the accusative object, yielding the order give Mary the keys. The approach I develop adopts the VP-shell structure of double-object-taking verbs, proposed by Chomsky (1995) and others on the basis of Larson's configuration, but with one modification. In the analysis I develop, the dative argument is in the specifier, not of v, but of p, a null dative preposition. I establish a parallel between v and the dative preposition, arguing that p, like v, has a D-feature, and can be the locus of Case checking. I thus make use of Kayne's (1984) and Pesetsky's (1995) proposal that double-object structures involve a null dative preposition (labeled G by Pesetsky). Spanish marked accusatives and the phenomenon of dative shift in English share a number of significant properties. I suggested in chapter 2 that some of these properties should be linked to morphological features of the v that attract the object to move overtly to one of its specifiers, and that other properties should be treated in terms of the resulting configuration. Along these lines, one may treat the properties of double-object structures as a consequence of the "trigger" of dative shift. Consider animacy. Just as animacy restricts the phenomenon of overt object raising of Spanish accusatives, so animacy restricts the phenomenon of dative shift in English. Jackendoff(1990) comments on the fact that the innermost DP in the doubleobject construction must be the intended possessor of the second (a restriction that does not obtain in the variant with to), and remarks that this property is probably attributable to the fact that the innermost DP has to be animate; hence, John sent Bill the package is possible, but John sent Spain the package is not possible. In chapter 2 I conjectured that either accusative objects enter into agreement with an "animate" feature in v, or that the raised object receives a secondary

< previous page


next page >

< previous page

page_149


agentive role in its derived position, and that this limits overt object raising to "animates." It seems plausible that whatever restricts overt object raising in Spanish to animates also restricts dative shift to animates in English. Another element that Spanish marked accusatives and English double objects have in common is the thematic interpretation of the subject of the predicate. Pinker (1989) observes that the verbs that take double-object argument structure are verbs of causation. This aspect of their lexical meaning is also shared by the verbs that take objects in marked accusative (see Pesetsky 1995 for discussion and details). Making a similar point, Hale and Keyser (1995) observe that the subject of double-object structures is generally an agent; they comment on examples (initially discussed in Oehrle 1976) such as Nixon gave a book to Mailer, in the sense of Nixon's causing Mailer to have a book (because the interview with him was so juicy), pointing out that for many speakers the sentence the interview gave Mailer a book is fine but the interview gave a book to Mailer is not. The fact that dative shift in English, like the phenomenon of overt object raising in Spanish, imposes a thematic constraint on the subject may be rooted in the same fact. Other semantic effects common to both phenomena suggest the same thing. For example, the ability of ditransitive verbs in English to license dative shift is contingent upon Affectedness, a fact noted by many authors. The following minimal pair illustrates this property: (22) a. *I described Mary my students / I described my students to Mary. b. I showed Mary my students / I showed my students to Mary. The verb describe, which does not allow dative shift, belongs to the "non-affected" class, whereas the verb show, which allows dative shift, belongs to the "affected" class. As was discussed at length in chapter 2, object raising in Spanish is also sensitive to Affectedness. I would like to briefly suggest an analysis of dative shift built around properties of the dative preposition. I will attribute the differences between the phenomenon of Spanish marked accusatives and the phenomenon of English dative shift to morphological differences of the dative preposition.

< previous page


next page >

< previous page

page_150


At some point of the derivation, dative shift structures will have the following form: (23)

As shown in this diagram, the structure has three layers of VP. Ura (1996) and others have proposed a three-layer VP for ditransitive structures. The only innovative aspect of (23) is that the intervening shell is headed by a null dative preposition instead of a v. The plausibility of the structure in (23) is enhanced by the role played by the dative clitic in Spanish ditransitive structures. Building on an observation by Strozer (1976), Demonte (1994) makes the generalization that the semantics that accompanies dative shift in English (i.e., that the inner object be interpreted as the possessor of the second; that it be affected; and that the predicate have an eventive reading) corresponds in Spanish to sentences with the dative clitic (whether the lexical dative appears overtly or not). Given the structure I have proposed for dative clitics in (14), the derivation of English sentences with dative shift and the derivation of Spanish ditransitives with the dative clitic will be minimally different; instead of (23), Spanish has the following structure:

< previous page


next page >

< previous page

page_151


(24)

The central difference between Spanish and English lies in the features of the dative preposition. Datives in English can appear with no preposition, whereas in the Romance languages the dative preposition is obligatory. This is, plausibly, because in Romance languages the dative preposition encodes the accusative Case feature of the inherently Casemarked dative. In Spanish, the structural Case feature of Romance datives can be checked by v, or, in the absence of v, by the dative clitic, whose Case I assume is structural (putting aside dialectal variation in this area). 17 When a dative clitic is present, the clitic takes over the Case role of the dative preposition, and the argumental dative can then be pro. (I return to these Case issues in the next sections.) In English, the situation appears to be the reverse. The preposition to stands for inherent Case (or it assigns inherent Case, as argued by Kayne (1985)); the DP, in turn, can bear a structural Case feature. Hence, to can be omitted only when the structure has an appropriate functional head that can check structural dative Case. I assume this head is p. I now turn to other derivations in which dative complements introduce problems for a feature-movement analysis. 4.2 Subject-to-Subject Raising Verbs like seem can take an IP and a to-dative complement. In English, the phenomenon of subject-to-subject raising shows that a dative com-

< previous page


next page >

< previous page

page_152


plement does not bar the infinitival verb from raising to the matrix subject position: (25) The talk seemed to the linguists [t to be very good] Under the feature-movement analysis, the nominative Case feature of the matrix Tense, its D-feature, or both attract the infinitival subject to T. Given that the infinitival subject and the matrix T have a D-feature and a Case feature that match, feature checking succeeds, and the infinitival subject is Case licensed by the matrix T. From the perspective of the theory of feature movement, however, the derivation of (25) should not yield a well-formed sentence. This is so because the infinitival subject crosses over the dative complement of seem to the matrix T, yielding a seemingly problematic violation of the MLC. This state of affairs does not hold in many other languages. As is discussed in subsection 4.5.6 of Chomsky 1995, there is substantial superficial diversity among languages concerning derivations in which a subject raises crossing over a dative complement. For instance, in French the dative complement bars subject raising: (26) *Jean semble à Marie [t avoir du talent] 'Jean seems to Marie to have talent.' The same holds in Italian, as the following example from Rizzi 1982 attests: (27) *?Gianni sembra a Piero [t non fare il suo devere] 'Gianni seems to Piero not to do his duty.' There is no general agreement among linguists as to whether the structure of unaccusative verbs involves a v. One central assumption I have made in 3.4.1 is that the VP configuration of unaccusatives lacks a v. Building on this idea and on my earlier assumption about the dative preposition to, I suggest the following derivation for English:

< previous page


next page >

< previous page

page_153


(28)

The gist of this proposal is the idea that the dative complement of seem originates in the inner specifier of Tense and is thematically licensed by V outside VP once V moves and adjoins to T, in the manner of subjects. Thus, I am making the assumption that the dative complement of seem merges directly with T. Plausibly, the experiencer of seem and similar verbs are not within VP because they are optional arguments of V (I return to this issue later in this section). Assuming (28), the derivation of sentence (25) does not raise questions for the MLC. The matrix Tense does not ccommand the dative. Given that the matrix T does not c-command the dative, the to-dative does not qualify as closer to the matrix T than the infinitival subject, and T can attract the subject of IP. In the MLC, "closer" is defined in terms of c-command (Chomsky 1995, 4.5.6). The dative complement of seem does not bar raising to subject, for the same reason that a subject does not bar raising of the object to the outer specifier of v in the following: (29)

< previous page


next page >

< previous page

page_154


Why is the structure (28) not appropriate for French and Italian? Clearly, an MLC analysis of (26) and (27) is desirable. Something must then prevent datives in French and Italian from filling the inner specifier of T. In the present context, it is interesting to note that not all datives in French and Italian bar subject raising. In particular, the clitic realization of the dative complement does not 18: (30) a. Pierre me semble être malade. Pierre to me-seems to be sick 'Pierre seems to me to be sick.' b. Gianni non gli sembra fare il suo devere. Gianni non to-him-seems do his duty 'Gianni does not seem to him to do his duty.' I will adopt Kayne's (1985) suggestion that dative clitics in Romance languages have inherent Case, but I will restrict it to French and Italian. Therefore, although configuration (28) may not be appropriate for prepositional datives, it may be appropriate for clitics. In the next subsection I will discuss how (26) and (27) can be derived from the present perspective. Before doing so, though, I will present and discuss the derivation of subject-to-subject raising in Spanish and other languages in which datives can appear doubled by a clitic. 4.2.1 Spanish In Spanish, though not in French or Italian, subject-to-subject raising is barred in structures containing the dative clitic19: (31) *La charla les pareció ser muy buena. the talk to them-seemed to be very good 'The talk seemed to them to be very good.' Importantly, in Spanish and in the other Romance languages that have clitic doubling of datives (Catalan, Galician, and Romanian), a lexical dative with verbs such as seem requires a doubling clitic:20

< previous page


next page >

< previous page

page_155


(32) *(Les) pareció a los lingüistas que la charla había sido muy buena. pro (to them)-seemed to the linguists that the talk had been very good 'It seemed to the linguists that the talk was very good.' In these languages, a dative always bars subject raising. The sharp deviance of (31) or (33a) below is clearly related to the dative complement, since (33b) is fine. (33) a. *La charla les pareció a los lingüistas ser muy buena. the talk to them-seemed to the linguists to be very good 'The talk seemed to the linguists to be very good.' b. La charla pareció ser muy buena. the talk seemed to be very good 'The talk seemed to be very good.' In my discussion of dative clitics, I propose that clitic doubling of datives instantiates the following structure: (34)

I have assumed that datives in Spanish and similar languages have a structural Case feature. Although the Case feature of datives can be checked in structures with transitive accusative verbs, it cannot be checked in structures involving an unaccusative verb. A common assumption about unaccusative verbs such as seem is that they lack structural Case. The dative clitic provides the structure with the Case feature required to check the structural Case feature of the dative complement. I propose the following structure for unaccusative verbs such as parecer when the experiencer argument is present:

< previous page


next page >

< previous page

page_156


(35)

This is analogous to the structure of transitive accusative verbs, except that Merge joins VP and p rather than VP and v. The dative clitic has Case and a D-feature. The structural Case feature of the clitic checks the Case feature of its associate (the double) in combination with p and V. At some point, V will raise and adjoin to p, thematically licensing the dative as subjects are generally licensed (see Perlmutter 1984). The view that the experiencer of raising verbs is not an internal argument of the verb will receive further support from the facts of psych verbs. In light of (35), I will now discuss the blocking effect of the dative complement in the derivation of subject raising in Spanish. Move F must be able to attract the Case feature and the D-feature of the infinitival subject to the matrix T. This will be possible if the closer DP to matrix T is the infinitival subject. Given the configuration (35), the closer DP to matrix T is the dative, not the infinitival subject. The Case feature of the dative is either dative or accusative, but it is not nominative. In the derivation of subject-to-subject raising, any structure with a dative argument in Spanish and similar languages will violate the MLC. The nominative is c-commanded by the dative, and is separated from the matrix T by the head p, to which V will adjoin at some point. Hence, the dative is closer to the matrix T than the nominative. The MLC prohibits the matrix T from attracting the nominative. Given that the nominative Case feature of the infinitival subject cannot be attracted, the nominative Case of T and the nominative Case of the infinitival subject remain. Since Case isInterpretable, the resulting derivation violates the Principle of Full Interpretation at the interface levels. According to Chomsky

< previous page


next page >

< previous page

page_157


(1995, subsection 4.10.3), the derivation is canceled if features mismatch. Although it is not clear to me whether a Case feature can attract the ''wrong" Case feature, still the Case feature of the dative argument cannot be checked by T, because it is not nominative. Hence, the MLC excludes subject-to-subject raising when seem takes an experiencer argument. 21 From the perspective of the present analysis, (26) and (27) can be excluded along the same lines. Thus, (35) is valid for French and Italian. On this assumption, the aspect of the analysis that separates Spanish from those other Romance languages is that Spanish lexical datives cannot be in the inner specifier of p unless the dative clitic is present. This suggests that, as I have argued all along, the feature composition of the dative preposition is the locus of the parametric variation found in the area of datives across languages. Let me summarize the results: I have assumed that the dative preposition to expresses inherent Case in English. Therefore, a to-dative in English can merge directly with T, and, in the inner specifier of T, the dative will not bar raising to subject. In the Romance languages, however, the feature composition of the dative preposition yields a more complex situation. On the one hand, in French and Italian the lexical dative has structural and inherent Case, but the dative clitic has only inherent Case. The motivation for this assumption is based on the asymmetric results obtained in these two languages in the derivation of subject-to-subject raising over a dative argument: raising of the subject over a dative is allowed with clitics but not with a-DPs. I assume that in French and Italian the dative preposition has a structural Case feature. This assumption is central to the derivation of this asymmetry. Hence, dative clitics in French and Italian can merge with T. Lexical datives (a-DPs), however, cannot merge with T. With respect to the derivation of subject-to-subject raising, French and Italian will then be like English for clitics and like Spanish for non-clitics. When the dative argument is realized as a-DP, subject-to-subject raising over the dative will be excluded by the MLC, along the lines discussed for Spanish. When the dative argument is a clitic, the derivation of subject-to-subject raising will proceed as in English and hence will not be problematic for the MLC.22 Spanish, on the other hand, excludes subject raising with both clitics and non-clitics. The same holds in all other cliticdoubling languages of the Romance family. This indicates that neither clitics nor lexical a-DPs

< previous page


next page >

< previous page

page_158


in Spanish can merge with T. If a dative, a clitic, or a non-clitic, merges with T in Spanish, a conflict will arise between the nominative Case of T and the Case of the dative. Therefore, Spanish excludes the option proposed for English, namely (28), forcing the option depicted in (35). Whereas the derivation of (35) succeeds in licensing a dative with a raising verb, it excludes raising of the infinitival subject to the matrix T, for the reasons I have detailed. Spanish a-DPs (both accusatives and datives) need an appropriate head that can check their structural Case feature. This head can be either the v of transitive accusative structures or a clitic, but not the null p. With unaccusative verbs, the only possible licensing head is the clitic, since I restrict the functional head v to accusatives. If these observations are on the right track, Spanish can be expected to have "doubling" clitics for objects introduced by the dative preposition, but not French or Italian. In chapter 2 I attributed the restricted distribution of accusative doubling clitics in the grammar of Spanish to the idea that the dative P of accusatives is a syntactic head in some dialects but not in others. But the present analysis makes it possible to look at the question from the perspective of the feature composition of the dative preposition. It is possible that the dative preposition of accusative objects has agreement features in some dialects but not in others. The doubling of accusatives, as in Bésalo a tu hermano kiss-him to your brother 'Kiss your brother', will then be limited to grammars in which the accusative clitic lo can check the Case feature of the dative preposition by "strong" agreement, which is the standard mode of Case checking for third-person accusative clitics. As has been discussed throughout this book, accusative clitics have a form of Case checking that involves all the formal features of the clitic as a unit. Some dialects may treat the dative preposition uniformly; others may not. 4.3 The Features of Clitics Grammars that have accusative objects marked by the dative preposition do not behave uniformly with respect to doubling clitics. Some allow a doubling clitic in the accusative; others allow no clitic; and still others allow a clitic in the dative. In chapter 2 I suggested that the factor underlying these contrasts concerns the dative preposition. I conjectured that the dative preposition is a syntactic head in some grammars and the

< previous page


next page >

< previous page

page_159


spelling out of a Case feature in others. I would now like to discuss this suggestion in light of some Case variation in the domain of psych verbs. 4.3.1 Case Variability and Overt Object Raising The experiencer subject of psych verbs such as gustar ('like') can appear in the nominative or in the dative. In grammars in which marked accusatives can appear with no clitic or with the dative clitic (le), the experiencer subject has to be in the dative. 22 Consider the following Peninsular Spanish example: (36) Le gustas tú. pro to herDAT-please you 'She likes you.' In grammars in which the marked accusative can be doubled by the accusative clitic (lo), the experiencer subject can be in the nominative. The following is an example from Southern Cone Spanish: (37) Ella gusta de vos. she likes of you 'She likes you.' Furthermore, in some of the dialects that permit the Case array nominative\genitive, the nominative Case is dependent on the animacy of the theme. If the theme is animate, the theme can be in the genitive and the experiencer can be in the nominative, as in (37); if the theme is inanimate, the theme has to be in the nominative, and the experiencer has to be in the dative as shown in (38): (38) a. *Gustan del libroGEN. pro like of the book 'They like the book.' b. Les gusta el libroNOM. pro to them-like the book 'They like the book.'

< previous page


next page >

< previous page

page_160


The Case array we see in (37) and (38) is very similar to the Case array displayed by Hungarian possessors, discussed by Szabolcsi (1981, 1983) and by Kayne (1993). In the analyses of Szabolcsi and Kayne, a D or a P is crucially implicated in the properties of the construction. In the structure that is commonly attributed to psych predicates such as gustar, the two arguments of the verb are within a single VP, with the experiencer in a position higher than the theme (Belletti and Rizzi 1988): (39) [[V NP] Experiencer] Let us first focus on (36), the only choice for Peninsular Spanish. The experiencer has to be in the dative, with the dative clitic appearing obligatorily: (40) (A los alumnos) *(les) gusta el libroNOM. (to the students) pro (to them)-like the book 'The students like the book.' I suggest that (36) instantiates the following partial derivation: (41)

One important fact bearing on this proposal is that T appears to be able to attract (covertly) the nominative Case feature of the theme in spite of the fact that the dative clitic is obligatorily part of the structure. This result sharply contrasts with the facts discussed above for the derivation of subject-to-subject raising over a dative experiencer. In subjectraising structures, the dative clitic is required and always bars subject raising. That the dative clitic in (40) causes no interference with the nominative is

< previous page


next page >

< previous page

page_161


expected if the experiencer argument of psych verbs is an object and the experiencer of raising verbs such as seem is a subject, as I assume they are. In terms of the MLC, the nominative feature can be attracted with no violation in the derivation (41), but not in the derivation of subject raising over the dative. Let us now focus on (37). As shown, the nominative option for the experiencer is contingent upon the theme's being animate. This suggests that the theme undergoes overt object raising. Two theoretical issues arise at this point, one having to do with the genitive and one having to do with the nominative. Genitive is an inherent Case. In general, inherently Case-marked arguments do not have to check their Case feature. Nonetheless, we must assume that the genitive is attracted by a D-feature and raises overtly. What is the functional head that attracts the genitive to move, and what feature does the attracting? I have restricted the functional head v to transitive accusative verbs. All the evidence I have analyzed up to this point accords with this assumption, a fact that reinforces the assumption. I want to suggest that the functional head that attracts the genitive to move is T rather than v, and that the feature that attracts the object to raise is a D-feature. This seems quite plausible, although the explanation for the animacy restriction of object raising remains unclear (unless we postulate a null P intervening between VP and T). If the Dfeature of T attracts the genitive, the genitive will raise to the inner specifier of T, and enter into association with the Dfeature of T, as required by the Extended Projection Principle. Given that genitive is an inherent Case, the genitive argument does not need to check Case. This permits the nominative Case of T to attract the nominative Case feature of the second object covertly. In sum, option (37) instantiates a derivation in which T checks its D-feature separately from its Case feature (by two different instances of feature checking). T attracts an inherently Case-marked argument to its inner specifier overtly, and attracts the nominative Case feature of the second argument of the verb and checks this Case covertly. Finally, I will address the question of the feature composition of clitics with respect to the facts of this subsection. We have seen that the nominative choice for the experiencer of the verb gustar is limited to dialects that allow an accusative clitic to double the marked accusative object. Since I am equating doubling clitics with functional heads, I conclude that the Case-licensing head of marked accusa-

< previous page


next page >

< previous page

page_162


tives in grammars with doubling clitics in accusative is a head with rich agreement features: the agreement features associated with finite T, or the accusative clitic. What is not clear is whether this is possible because the dative preposition that appears with accusative objects has agreement features or because the dative preposition is altogether absent from the computation. I think the latter assumption is more plausible. 4.3.2 On the Absence of Structurally Non-Case-Marked Clitics The thesis I have been exploring is that doubling clitics are Case-marked inflections. As it turns out, the absence of structurally non-Case-marked doubling clitics extends to the entire clitic system in Spanish. French and Italian have, in addition to accusative and dative clitics, prepositional clitics, a locative (French y; Italian ci), and a genitive clitic (French en, Italian ne). According to Kayne (1975), both y and en are pro-PPs-a view which is supported by a large body of data. Kayne (ibid.) observes that y corresponds either to verbal or adjectival complements of the form a-NP or to locative adverbials. The following examples correspond to Kayne's (137): (42) a. J'y repondrai volontiers, à tes questions. I'll gladly answer them, your questions. b. Il y pense souvent, à cette fille. He thinks of her often, that girl. c. Elle y a rencontré Jean, à Paris. She met Jean there, in Paris Modern Spanish uses the accusative clitic for (42a) (Las (ACC) responderé, tus preguntas) and cannot use a clitic for either (42b) (cf. Piensa en ella con frecuencia) or (42c) (Conoció a Juan alli). It seems likely that prepositional clitics are the structurally non-Case-marked forms of the clitic system. Consider the following French examples involving the clitic en. This clitic can have a genitive value (a and b) or a partitive value (c).

< previous page


next page >

< previous page

page_163


(43) a. Marie en connait l'auteur. 23 Mary knows the author of it b. Elle m'en semble capable.24 'She seems to be capable of it' c. Beaucoup en sont gatées, de pommes.25 'Many of-them are rotten, of these apples.' Neither nouns nor adjectives license structural Case. Therefore, we must consider the genitive clitic a -Case clitic, where the feature [Case] is restricted to structural Case. The clitic in (43) will bear inherent Case (Chomsky 1981, 1986a).26 Catalan has clitic doubling with datives, although not with accusatives. Still, Catalan has prepositional clitics: the oblique hi/i/ and the genitive en/n/. According to Bonet (1991), the Catalan oblique clitic hi/i can do the work of a dative clitic with inanimate reference (like French y; see (44a)), can have a locative value (see (44b)), can stand for an adjective (as in the inchoative construction (44c)), and can also stand for a PP, as in (44d). (44) a. No hi he donat cops, a la taula. not CL have given hits, to the table 'I didn't knock on the table.' b. Hi aniré demà, a Sabadell. CL will go tomorrow, to Sabadell 'I will go to Sabadell tomorrow.' c. No és cinic, pero s'hi tornarà. not is cynical, but self-CL will become 'He is not cynical, but he will become (cynical).' d. Amb la Roser, hi parlaré demà. with the Roser, CL will talk tomorrow 'I will talk to Roser tomorrow.'

< previous page


next page >

< previous page

page_164


Bonet observes that the genitive clitic en can stand for indefinite objects, for complements of quantifiers, and for some PPs: (45) a. De pomes, no en vull. of apples, not CL want 'I don't want (apples).' b. De pomes, en vull tres. of apples, CL want three 'I want three apples.' c. Que n'han parlat, de mi? that CL have talked, of me? 'Did they talk about me?' Bonet argues that the clitic en receives the same syntactic Case, although its morphology is genitive. Furthermore, she advances the view (crediting Marantz) that the syntax generates the same clitics for all languages, and that in some cases certain clitics fail to be mapped onto the morphology. The picture that has emerged from the preceding discussion of the Spanish data is rather different: Not all languages have the same clitics. Modern Spanish, in particular, seems to lack prepositional clitics. Establishing the possibilities around two sets of features, agreement and Case, the system yields the following four choices: (46) i. D = [+Agr, +Case] ii. D = [+Agr, -Case] iii. D = [-Agr, +Case] iv. D = [-Agr, -Case] Of these four options, only (i) is attested in Spanish. Option (i) corresponds to the accusative and the dative clitic.

< previous page


next page >

< previous page

page_165


It seems that the determining factor in the disappearance of prepositional clitics in Spanish relates specifically to marked accusative. This appears particularly plausible in view of the fact that Catalan, which lacks marked accusative, has both prepositional clitics and clitic doubling of datives. One suggestion for what seems a parameter shift is that the grammar of Spanish eliminated all clitics with inherent Case in favor of clitics with structural Case.

< previous page


next page >

< previous page

page_i

next page > Page i


< previous page


next page >

< previous page

page_167


Chapter 5 Conclusion Linguistic theory has generally been concerned more with clausal subjects than with verbal objects. Clausal subjects tend to reveal syntactic and semantic properties of the entire clause and to influence the organization of the argument structure of the predicate. The study of subjects has evolved around the properties of functional categoriesparticularly Inflection and its components Tense and Agr. The principles of Universal Grammar permit some variation in the feature composition of functional categories; hence, functional categories are the locus of parametric variation. For this reason, investigation of phenomena that are language-particular relies heavily on the properties of functional elements. In this monograph I have studied a class of verbal objects that displays syntactic and semantic properties that are typical of subjects. They are objects of accusative verbs morphologically marked with the dative preposition (or postposition), attested in Spanish, Hindi, and other languages. The morphological marking of these objects is dependent on aspects internal to the clause, the predicate, the verb, and the nominal. I have sought to find a common denominator that unites these properties in the functional categories that are more closely associated with objects. In recent years the functional category v has been postulated for (di)transitive accusative verbs by Chomsky and others on the basis of a proposal made by Larson (1988) in the domain of datives. The main syntactic property of accusative objects marked with the dative preposition is that they undergo overt object raising, a phenomenon familiar from work done on Scandinavian languages. Although I initially concentrated on objects of accusative verbs, datives turned out to be more interesting. The theoretical issues that datives introduce with unaccusatives helped me to shape the investigation of both datives and accusatives marked by the dative preposition. Questions

< previous page


next page >

< previous page

page_168


about the status of v in the structure of unaccusative verbs led me to propose that p, the dative preposition, is a functional category that displays variation in its feature structure. Thus, I believe that the dative preposition should be treated on a par with T and v, both with respect to the D feature for T and v (Chomsky 1995) and with respect to agreement features. From a syntactic perspective, the way I approach the dative preposition allows for a treatment of clitic doubling, particularly for datives, in which both the dative clitic and its double are parts of a phrase headed by a null dative preposition. The closest precedents of my attributing a functional status to the dative preposition are Kayne 1984 and Pesetsky 1995. My analyses of datives and of accusatives marked by the dative preposition rely crucially on the feature-movement analysis of the Minimalist Program discussed in Chomsky 1992, in Chomsky 1994, and mainly in Chomsky 1995.

< previous page


next page >

< previous page

page_169


Notes Chapter 2 1. I use the term 'cause' for the subject of verbs such as emborrachar ('make-cause someone to get drunk'): El vino emborrachó a varios invitados the wine made to several guests drunk 'The wine made several guests drunk.' See Pesetsky 1995 for a detailed discussion of this notion (in his terms, 'Causer'). Distinctions between agent and cause play a role in the phenomenon of marked accusativity, as will be seen later in this chapter and in chapter 3. 2. Verkuyl (1972) discusses the bearing of the ''specificity" of objects on Aspect in a different context. 3. The discussion here is based on subsection 2.2.3 of Dowty 1979. Dowty credits the literature on generative semantics (particularly Binnick 1969) for observing possible scope ambiguities between activities and accomplishments. 4. There is no consensus in the literature as to whether telicity is a property of the sentence or of the predicate. Depraeterre (1995) takes telicity to be a property of the sentence as a whole. 5. A few verbs, including seguir ('follow'), preceder ('precede'), and mandar ('command'), fall outside my generalizations about morphological marking of accusative objects. Marked accusative with these verbs applies to all objects, independent of their lexical and semantic class (e.g., it is not restricted by animacy or the specificity of the nominal). However, these verbs have a specific interpretation when they yield marked accusative. The verbal meaning that gives rise to marked accusativity involves some sort of hierarchical evaluation of the subject and the object, either in place or in time. Take, for example, seguir ('follow'). With this verb, the Case marker on the object is precluded when the subject is animate, and obligatory when the subject is non-animate: (i) Sigo (*a) tu argumento. pro follow your argument 'I follow your argument.' (ii) El día sigue *(a) la noche. 'The day follows the night.'

< previous page


next page >

< previous page

page_170


Only in (ii) does the verb imply sequential order. (I am indebted to H. Ferguson for supplying this observation). These facts show the sensibility of the general process that overt marking exhibits with respect to subjects, and they suggest that the overtly Case-marked object of these verbs is purely morphological in the sense that it does not imply overt object raising. (See Zubizarreta 1994.) 6. See Bittner and Hale 1996 for some recent explorations and developments. 7. The term "quirky" was introduced by Levin and Simpson (1981) for Icelandic "subjects." Generally speaking, quirky subjects appear lexically marked and are considered to be internal arguments with inherent Case. 8. Mahajan (1990) discusses Case marking by '-ko' with respect to agreement in Hindi. He shows that these arguments allow overt agreement, a fact which suggests that (at least sometimes) the '-ko' marker is not syntactically present. 9. I abstract away from the possibility that haber is compositionally complex, along the lines of Kayne's 1993 proposal for English have. For discussion on the internal structure of Spanish haber in a different context, see Bosque and Torrego 1995. 10. Source: Andrews 1990, p. 179. 11. Source: Zaenen, Maling, and Thráinsson 1985. 12. This claim is made by Jaeggli (1986b), who cites the following example: En la fiesta fue presentada (*a) Maria por su padre at the party was introduced Maria by her father 'At the party Maria was introduced by her father.' 13. According to Mohanan (1990), a similar situation holds in Marathi (see Joshi 1987). 14. It is also an open question how variation in the overt marking of accusative should be accounted for in the grammar. Small parametric differences between grammars could, of course, yield widely different results. The resolution of these topics goes beyond my present goals. 15. On this issue see Torrego 1995a. 16. Distinctions of this sort are discussed extensively in chapter 3 in the context of syntactic causatives. 17. Surprisingly, matar ('kill') does not behave as a verb affecting the object: Mataron (a) un guerrillero 'They killed a guerilla'. The verb kill passes as the paradigmatic case of causative (i.e., 'cause to die'), but it fails to pass some causativity tests in Standard Arabic (Fassi Fehri 1987). 18. Agentivity does not distinguish statives from non-statives. See Levin and Rappaport Hovav 1995 for an extensive discussion of this issue. 19. I have not found reliable data from other languages concerning the relationship between agentivity and marked accusative in statives. 20. There are nominals in abstract accusative that, nonetheless, allow the use of the imperative and of the progressive with conocer ('know'): Conoce la ciudad! (Get) to know the city!

< previous page


next page >

< previous page

page_171


Está conociendo la ciudad. She is (getting) to know the city. I ignore them here. (See Chvany 1995.) 21. The discussion here is based on subsection 2.2.2 of Dowty 1979. Dowty comments extensively on the distinction between states and activities and the literature dealing with it. 22. "Quirky" Case-marked subjects ("dative subjects") are attested in Romance languages (Belletti and Rizzi 1988; Masullo 1992, 1993). 23. This characterization may turn out to be too narrow depending on how verbs such as seguir ('follow') and others introduced in footnote 5 in this chapter should be treated. 24. I omit some arguments that have no relevance here. I have simplified the ranking. 25. In principle this view leaves open the possibility that, if a given predicate of the telic class were to take two arguments, both qualifying as agents, the argument that could appear in quirky Case would be the agent. I do not know if this option is attested in natural language. 26. For "small clauses" it is considerably more difficult to determine why their "subject" appears in marked accusative, in some cases, obligatorily. The verb considerar ('consider'), for example, forces the Case marker on the "subject" of the ''small clause": Todos consideraban *(a) un amigo un genio All considered (to) a friend a genius. With tener ('have'), the marker is optional: Tienen (a) un hijo en Berkeley pro have a son in Berkeley. For a discussion bearing on this issue, see Raposo and Uriagereka 1993. Under the present approach, "small clauses" must be conceived as complex predicates, along the lines of Di Sciullo and Williams 1987, but the task of testing this involves more careful consideration of a number of factors than I am prepared to undertake in this chapter. 27. I claim that dative in Romance is an inherent Case, but I assume that it also has structural case. See chapter 4 for a discussion. 28. I postpone discussion of how to characterize the two classes of marked accusatives. 29. The Case marker a on the object tends to be either impossible or optional for derived nominals describing an action that does not affect the object, as can be seen in the following examples: Su visión del/*al soldado his vision of/to the soldier Su búsqueda del/*al soldado his search of/to the soldier Su amor a/de Dios his love of/to God An exhaustive list of the possibilities for Case marking of objects of nominals cannot be given, in part because some of the choices involve gerunds and in part

< previous page


next page >

< previous page

page_172


because there are many lexical idiosyncrasies (cf. Su beso *de/a la Virgen His kiss of/to the Virgin). 30. This is not true of odio ('hatred'). The object of this nominal requires (or highly prefers) the dative preposition: ??el odio de los militares the hatred of the military el odio a los militares the hatred to the military 31. In principle, we can appeal to the idea that the marked accusative (or the lexical dative) has structural Case in addition to inherent Case. However, this is no solution. Once the marked accusative raises to a specifier of vP, we must allow for its structural Case feature to be checked in this position. This must be so, since otherwise we cannot explain the lesser deviance of wh-genitive extraction out of marked accusatives whose Case particle is not the expression of inherent case: ?El chico del que han visto [a varias hermanas t] ayer The guy of whom they have seen [to several sisters] yesterday. I am therefore concluding that an inherent Case feature may bar movement of another inherent Case feature. 32. The distribution of adverbs, negation, and so forth is commonly used to test whether objects raise overtly and where. The absence of reliable criteria to determine differences in word order bearing on object raising may have to do with doubling clitics. Take the relative order of auxiliaries and subjects. The subject, rather than the object, appears between Aux and a participle: Habrá ese dictador matado a mucha gente inocente? will-have that dictator executed to many innocent people? Will that dictator have executed many innocent people? ???Habrá a mucha genta inocente matado ese dictador? will-have to many innocent people executed that dictator? 'Will that dictator have executed many innocent people?' Still, this type of evidence is quite inconclusive. The subject could have raised to the specifier of Tense, and we must also assume that the participle has raised to some head above v and lower than Tense (presumably the auxiliary habrá has raised to Tense). Moreover, the relative order of the object and the subject obtains regardless of the Case marking of the object: Habrán esos soldados visto un tanque? will-have those soldiers seen a tank? 'Will those soldiers have seen a tank?' ???Habrán un tanque visto esos soldados? will-have a tank seen those soldiers? For discussion and proposals on what might trigger word-order patterns, see Zubizarreta 1994. 33. For a recent discussion of ECM in the Romance languages, see Ormazábal 1994.

< previous page


next page >

< previous page

page_173


34. Thanks to R. Kayne for pointing this out to me. 35. See also Ruwet 1982. 36. There is a very large literature on animacy, which I am not prepared to discuss. See Comrie 1981 and the sources cited therein. 37. "Actors display a certain capacity of autonomy" (Jackendoff 1983, p. 181). Jackendoff (ibid., p. 180) characterizes 'actor' as follows: "An [EVENT] that is also an [ACTION] involves a character with a special rolethe one who is performing the [ACTION]. We will call this character the [ACTOR]." 38. Source: Luján 1977. 39. All other inanimates bearing the dative preposition in Luján 1977 are amenable to this characterization (once the verbs seguir, preceder, and mandar are exempted). For an overview of the Case marking of accusatives see Lois 1982. 40. For an opposing view see Mohanan 1990. 41. See Emonds 1985 for a discussion of the role of the determiner with respect to inflectional Case. 42. As one might expect, the presence or absence of the Case marker with proper names depends on a number of psychological and stylistic factors, which I will leave entirely undiscussed. In fact, there are a large variety of morphological factors such as the number and gender of the proper noun influencing the choice of marked accusative; I refer the reader to Pensado 1995. Thus the necessary constraint cannot be a semantic constraint, and overt object raising cannot be entirely semantic either. 43. In Hindi, according to Mohanan (1990), the objects that appear marked with -ko are generally animate. But an inanimate can be so marked as long as it is definite. 44. A number of the idiosyncrasies regulating the morphological Case-marking process of objects concern the determiner of the object per se. For instance, the dative preposition suits the object in (i) much better than that in (ii): (i) Voy a contestar (a) tu carta mañana. pro going to answer to your letter tomorrow (ii) Voy a contestar (??a) la carta mañana. pro going to answer (to) the letter tomorrow. If the locus of the animacy feature is D, Case idiosyncrasies of the type shown here can be explained by resorting to the morphological features of D. In (i) above, the prenominal possessor is second person, and this appears to be all that is needed for the object to have the morphology of inherently agentive nominals. Other factors having to do with how inanimates are perceived help make the morphology of agentive nominals acceptable with inanimates. Thus, marked accusative is tolerated better on the object in La gente quemó a la bandera 'People burned the flag" than on the object of La gente quemó a la ropa "People burned the clothing'.

< previous page


next page >

< previous page

page_174


45. Massey also discusses affected objects and other syntactic processes of relevance for the issues I discuss here. See her work for details. 46. To my knowledge, the wh-facts of this section also hold in Modern Greek. 47. I am much indebted to M. Español-Echevarria for this observation. 48. The proposal that the wh-determiner cuál in (53) reaches Comp independently of the formal features of the null head of the partitive phrase necessitates a principled theory of pied-piping. However, I must leave this task for future research. 49. Romanian, another clitic-doubling language, exhibits a much richer system of interactions between types of whphrases and doubling clitics (Dobrovie-Sorin 1990). I leave the Romanian system undiscussed. 50. For justification of this assumption, see Bosque and Moreno 1984 and Torrego 1996. 51. I distinguish this case from others in which the accusative clitic doubles an argumental object, as it is characteristic of the Spanish dialects spoken in the Southern Cone. 52. For clitics doubling indirect objects, this claim will be given theoretical justification in chapter 4. 53. Comrie (1981) gives an example that illustrates four Case possibilities for Spanish direct objects: El director busca el carro / al empleado / a un empleado / un empleado. The manager is looking for the car / to the clerk / to a (certain) clerk / a clerk. Notice that his example corresponds to a "non-affected" object. 54. See Reuland and ter Meulen 1987, Belletti 1988, and the references cited in these works. 55. Rivero (1977) establishes a correlation between the indicative and the subjunctive mood of restrictive relatives that have an indefinite as head. She shows that in the indicative the indefinite must bear a, and in the subjunctive the indefinite cannot bear a: Busco *(a) un secretario que me redacta (IND) las cartas. Busco (*a) un secretario que me redacte (SUBJ) las cartas. Rivero notes that the subjunctive correlates with the non-specific choice of the indefinite, and the indicative with the specific. 56. Alguien ('someone/'anyone') and nadie ('nobody'/'no one') appear in there-be contexts: (i) a. No hay nadie. 'There is nobody/no one.' b. Aqui hay alguien. 'Here there is someone.' Yet they require the Case marking of specific objects:

< previous page


next page >

< previous page

page_175


(ii) a. No veo/busco *(a) nadie. pro not-see/look for anybody 'I do not see/look for anybody.' b. Veo/busco *(a) alguien. pro see/look for (to) someone 'I see/look for someone.' (Recall that the verbs in (ii) do not otherwise impose the dative preposition on indefinites (Veo/busco (a) un amigo I see/look for (to) a friend). Thus, alguien and nadie behave as non-specific in there-be contexts, but they require the Case marking of specific objects. The behavior just shown for alguien and nadie is duplicated by the wh-phrase quién ('who'). Quién yields well-formed there-be sentences: (iii) Quién había? 'Who was there?' Nonetheless, quién requires the Case marking of "specifics": (iv) *(A) quién viste? (To) whom did you see? 'Whom did you see?' In discussing English 'who', Heim (1987) suggests that it can be used with the meaning 'what persons'. This seems to be right for Spanish quién also, since (iii) can best be answered with a plural (Había gente de todo tipo 'there were all kinds of people'). Following Heim, I assume that quién introduces a 'kind' variable in there-be sentences, whereas in (iv) it introduces a semantically individual variable; in the former case the variable is non-specific and in the latter specific. Like who in Heim's analysis, perhaps alguien and nadie are semantically interpreted as individual variables at LF. I leave this issue open. 57. I thank J. Uriagereka for discussion that led me to these data. 58. For a relevant discussion of Romanian, see Dobrovie-Sorin 1990. Chapter 3 1. I am ignoring Li's (1990) revisions of Baker's movement theory, which do not alter the points of Alsina's article. 2. For the moment I ignore the restrictions of the faire-par causative that I will discuss later in this chapter for Spanish. 3. In both French and Italian, the only possible distribution of the causee is postverbal. To abbreviate, only French examples are given: *Jean a fait Marie partir. (Rouveret and Vergnaud 1980) 'Jean had Marie leave.'

< previous page


next page >

< previous page

page_176


*Marie a fait Jean travailler. 'Marie made Jean work.' Various attempts have been made to derive this order, none of them satisfactorily, in my opinion. 4. The pre-infinitival order with make is attested in a great variety of Spanish dialects, in Galician, and, more restrictively, in Catalan. For Catalan, there seems to be common agreement on this point as to transitive verbs, and less so as to intransitives. Rightly or not, I assume that Catalan has the pre-infinitival order with embedded transitives and does not have it with embedded intransitives. Syntactic differences between the two classes of verbs also arise in some dialects of Spanish. 5. I am indebted to J. Fodor for bringing the comparison between the hacer-causative and the object-control verb 'force' to my attention. 6. See chapter 2 above. The analogy between the two verbs is not complete. Unlike the accusative Case-marking verb quemar ('burn'), hacer does not license accusative on its patient in addition to inherent Case. In the grammars under consideration, hacer licenses the structural Case component of the dative. This is likely to be due to the functional head that merges with the VP headed by hacer. In chapter 4 I will propose that dative verbs are associated to a null dative preposition rather than with v. 7. The examples in (14) are taken from Fabra 1966 (p. 66). Catalan speakers vary regarding the exclusion of the dative preposition with accusatives; some tolerate them with some verbs, whereas others reject it with all of them. I disregard these and other similar refinements concerning Catalan data. 8. The only exception I know of is Williams 1994. 9. See Bordelois 1975, Rivas 1977, and Zubizarreta 1987. 10. The problematic status of the faire-par in certain dialects of Spanish is mentioned in Moore 1991 and discussed in Treviño 1994. I know of no explicit proposals concerning the specific constraints of this causative. 11. I am indebted to an anonymous reviewer for this observation. 12. Goodall (1984) explicitly defends the claim that the Case of the object of faire-par is licensed by the complex verb (faire-V). In support of this, Goodall notes that in French an object clitic appears only on the complex verb and not on the embedded verb: Marie l'a fait manger. *Marie a fait le manger. 'Marie had it eaten.' A number of theoretical questions hinges on the validity of this assumption, but the reasoning seems correct. For a discussion of related matters pertaining to clitics and their parametrization, see Haverkort 1993. 13. The property that a dative verb such as causative hacer can check structural accusative against a lexical dative is, in many Spanish dialects, a property that many verbs have in common with hacer, as is expected. The Case manifested in the corresponding object clitic pronouns highlight this fact: Lo (acc.)/le (dat.)

< previous page


next page >

< previous page

page_177


telefonearon 'They telephoned him'. Although in this chapter I illustrate "dative" structures with v, as in (21), in chapter 4 I will argue that a null p, rather than v, may be the functional category associated to the dative verb. 14. The morphological Case of the clitic (accusative or dative) does not matter here. If the dialect permits it, the clitic can be in either. 15. Reflexive clitics have a very special status in the faire-par causative, as is well known. See Kayne 1975 and 1989b for a detailed study of their behavior in French causatives. 16. In Kayne's theory of participial agreement, the object (of unaccusative verbs and passives) enters into the [Spec, Agro] position on its way to the subject position to license nominative Case, triggering agreement with the participle. Operator movement, though, does not trigger agreement with the participle in the dialects discussed by Kayne. See subsection 4.7.3 of Chomsky 1995 for a discussion and references. 17. See Parsons 1990 for discussion and debate of this type of analysis. 18. For discussion of this point, see Moore 1991, Guasti 1992, and Treviño 1994. 19. Bordelois (1988) provides a similar contrast for Spanish: Hizo destruir la ciudad por los soldados. pro made destroy the city by the soldiers *Hizo ver la ciudad por los turistas. pro made see the city by the tourists 20. See Otero 1986 and Mendikoetxea 1992. This is restricted to certain dialects. 21. I owe this observation to L. Saenz. 22. Dialects that disallow a by-phrase with impersonal se (variants of Castilian Spanish and many others) can be thought in terms of the inability of se to have a Case feature. Since I do not have further data bearing on the differences between the relevant dialects, I leave the issue open. 23. Thanks to E. Benedicto, R. Coll-Telletxea, C. Piera, and L. Saenz for confirming judgments on Peninsular Spanish for this section, and to M. Depiante for the corresponding judgments on Argentinian Spanish. 24. I will not attempt here to characterize loísmo theoretically. 25. See Rosen 1990 on complex-predicate formation and related matters. 26. It has often been suggested in the literature that verbs have to be in the c-command domain of an Infl. This has motivated incorporation of V to the causative verb in a number of approaches (see, e.g., Roberts 1987 and Li 1990). I will not attempt to recast this approach in terms of Attract, nor will I deal with this aspect of causative formation here. For reasons that will become clear in 4.1.2, I assume inanimate lo is the argument (rather than pro.) 27. The mnemonic REFLEX is valid for the stressed reflexive and for argumental se.

< previous page


next page >

< previous page

page_178


28. There are two main ways to implement this account: with se as the causee and with pro as the causee. I leave the details of the analysis open. The whole topic of reflexives in Spanish needs to be studied in great detail; for a start, see Torrego 1995b. 29. The deviance of the example persists if the causee precedes the prepositional complement: ??Juan se hizo pensar a si mismo en el problema. Juan self-made think to himself about the problem. 30. There are many subtleties in the syntax and semantics of object-control verbs, which I put aside here. For an extended discussion of them, see Larson 1991 and references cited therein. 31. One would expect that a similar situation holds of object control verbs in Hindi, since both datives and accusatives appear with the marker -ko. But these sentences are fine, according to my Hindi informants. It is not clear to me why Hindi does not pattern with Spanish on this issue. Perhaps the conditions of overt raising in Hindi vary slightly from those in Spanish. I leave the issue open, pending further investigation. I am indebted to G. Mathur for discussion of Hindi data. 32. I am grateful to R. Kayne for pointing out to me differences among their types. 33. The preposition a is also a directional preposition, a fact possibly related to this construction; see Emonds 1985. 34. Here I am disregarding the pre-infinitival order obtained with intransitives. 35. For discussion of so-called emphatic pronouns in Spanish, see Piera 1989. 36. The emphatic pronouns that double object clitics (cases such as Me hizo enfadar a mi to me-made get angry to me) have a different syntax, judging from the fact that none of the restrictions that hold of the EPC hold of the me-a mi sequence. 37. Still, it is not entirely clear why the third-person clitic le, which is morphologically dative, does not license the emphatic pronoun in the nominative. A plausible hypothesis is that first- and second-person clitics-perhaps because their forms are not inflected for Case (the same forms are used for accusative and dative)-can incorporate to Tense as agreement features, whereas le cannot. 38. The idea that ordinary predicates have a position for events in addition to positions assigned by overt arguments is originally due to Davidson (1967). This idea has been developed by numerous linguists; see, e.g., Parsons 1990 and references cited therein. 39. I leave open the exact nature of the lower Infl (perhaps an aspectual head). See de Miguel 1990 and Barbosa 1995 for discussions of the potential empirical effects of an aspectual head in the grammar of Spanish. 40. I thank an anonymous reviewer for this observation.

< previous page


next page >

< previous page

page_179


Chapter 4 1. Thanks are due to I. Bosque and C. Piera for letting me note, initially, that the behavior of ditransitives in this respect is not uniform. 2. I assume, at this point, that the two objects of the ditransitive verb are distributed within a single VP. Later in this chapter I will discuss various movement phenomena that will require a more refined analysis of the structure of ditransitives. 3. The Spanish verb presentar ('introduce') can also mean 'to show' (mostrar), as is reflected in the gloss given for (3a). Unfortunately, in English these two verbs behave differently with respect to dative shift ('show' allows dative shift much more easily than 'introduce'). To simplify the presentation, I give the gloss that matches the English syntax. According to an anonymous reader, Affectedness is not the relevant criterion separating the accusative marking of presentar ('introduce') and describir ('describe'). I ignore this semantic matter here, but I adopt the view that Affectedness constrains object raising in Spanish. 4. In his 1995 Fall lectures, Chomsky considered the possibility that the grammar precludes more than one Casechecking operation per head within a single Case-checking domain. This would mean, for example, that both nominative and accusative could not be checked in a T with a V raised to it. It is not clear to me whether this would cause failure of Case checking altogether or failure of Case checking of the Case of only one of the arguments. In the phenomenon of a-DPs under discussion, the Case of the two arguments is (plausibly) the same Case (aside from the fact that the dative also bears inherent Case). Chomsky's suggestion seems to me to enhance the plausibility of my present approach even more. 5. The accusative object of the verb describir can be in marked accusative (see example (1)). This fact suggests that this verb allows overt object raising as a single transitive and not as a ditransitive. It may be possible to take the impossibility of overt object raising when two objects are part of the derivation to be due to the MLC. This, however, would require that the dative be closer to v than the accusative. I leave open the question of why the derivation of some ditransitive verbs prevent the accusative object from raising overtly. 6. The dative preposition a in some way licenses the partial accusativity of the dative, since datives need to check structural Case, accusative or structural dative. 7. On the agreement relation between the clitic and its double, see Suñer 1988. On pro-identification, see Benedicto 1993. 8. For discussions of syntactic contrasts between first- and second-person clitics and third-person clitics, see Kayne 1975, Bonet 1991, and Uriagereka 1995. These works are also good sources for references. 9. The fact that the form of the dative clitic can be se rather than le in certain clitic-sequences may or may not be syntactically significant. I have ignored this question entirely. 10. The analysis I propose later for the licensing of datives with raising verbs such as parecer ('seem') and psych verbs rests plausibility on the idea that each clitic

< previous page


next page >

< previous page

page_180


signals a different v. I ignore matters concerning the placement of clitics entirely, but they could be relevant. See Kayne 1989b, and Uriagereka 1995 for discussion. 11. I leave open exactly why clitic doubling of accusatives is more restrictive. 12. In 4.2 I discuss the nature of dative Case in the non-clitic-doubling languages of the Romance family. See Kayne (1984) for a suggestion that in French dative clitics have inherent Case. See, also, Emonds 1985 and den Dikken 1991/1995. 13. Although I assume that verbs in Spanish can check accusative Case twice (at least in the dialects of Peninsular Spanish), Spanish is not a "double accusative language"; it lacks the passives of indirect objects and other structures that are characteristic of such languages (Baker 1988). 14. Others, in turn, have assumed that datives in Spanish are PPs. The now-familiar mixed nature of datives in Spanish is one of the main topics of this chapter. 15. See Jaeggli 1981. Jaeggli also proposed that lexical datives in French are NPs (DPs, in the present framework). 16. To my knowledge, neither French nor Italian has overt object raising, although the question has not been discussed in the published literature. 17. The Case exhibited by Spanish possessors is genitive, never (as in French) dative: compare Spanish el libro de/*a ella and French le livre à elle (lit. the book of her). The exclusion of dative Case in the expression of possessors in the nominal system may be related to the fact that datives in the verbal system (like marked accusatives) are associated with a structural Case feature. 18. Kayne (1994) notes that French has object-control structures of the following type: (i) II me semble avoir mal compris. it seems to-have wrong understood 'It seems to me that I (must) have misunderstood. ' Kayne's main claim is that the dative object of sembler has moved to subject position. Spanish has a similar structure: (ii) Me parece haber comprendido mal. I will not take up the question of object-control verbs. Plausibly, the clitic me in this structure has incorporated into V, and, at LF, the features of its associate pro are licensed in the nominative by the matrix T. Although superficially the control obtained here is object control, in fact (i) and (ii) are instances of subject control. 19. The data of this section were first discussed in Torrego 1989. 20. This may hold also of Modern Greek. I am not sure. 21. The preceding analysis of the banning effect of the dative clitic for subject-to-subject raising in Spanish may be valid for other syntactic contexts as well, to judge from the discussions in Mendikoetxea and Battye 1990 and Mendikoetxea 1992.

< previous page


next page >

< previous page

page_181


22. I am not sure about the geographical extension of this Case phenomenon. 23. Source: Haik 1982. 24. Source: Kayne 1975. 25. Source: Haik 1982. 26. On this topic see Elliot 1986, Bartra 1987, and other literature cited in Bonet 1991.

< previous page


next page >

< previous page

page_i

next page > Page i


< previous page


next page >

< previous page

page_183


References Aissen, Judith. 1974. The Syntax of Causative Constructions. Ph.D. dissertation, Harvard University (Garland, 1979). Alsina, Alex. 1992. On the Argument Structure of Causatives. Linguistic Inquiry 23: 517-555. Anderson, Mona. 1977. Transformations in Noun Phrases. Manuscript, University of Connecticut, Storrs. Andrews, Anders. 1990. The VP Complement Analysis in Modern Icelandic. In Modern Icelandic Syntax, ed. J. Maling and A. Zaenen (Academic Press). Aoun, Joseph. 1982. The Formal Nature of Anaphoric Relations. Ph.D. dissertation, Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Baker, Mark. 1988. Incorporation. A Theory of Grammatical Function Changing. University of Chicago Press. Baker, Mark, Kyle Johson, and Ian Roberts. 1989. Passive Arguments Raised. Linguistic Inquiry 20: 219-252. Barbosa, Pilar. 1995. Null Subjects. Ph.D. dissertation, Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Barss, Andrew, and Howard Lasnik. 1986. A Note on Anaphora and Double Objects. Linguistic Inquiry 17: 347-354. Bartra, Anna. 1987. Encara n'hi ha més (entorn de en i alguns SNs genitius). Llengua i Literature 2: 377-427. Belletti, Adriana. 1982. Morphological Passive and PRO-drop: The Impersonal Construction in Italian. Journal of Linguistic Research 2, no. 4: 1-33. Belletti, Adriana. 1988. The Case of Unaccusatives. Linguistic Inquiry 19: 1-34. Belletti, Adriana, and Luigi Rizzi. 1988. Psych-verbs and Theta-theory. Natural Language and Linguistic Theory 6: 291-352. Bello, Andrés. 1847. Gramática de la lengua castellana (Editorial Sopena, Buenos Aires, 1964). Benedicto, Elena. 1993. AGR, Five-features and V-Movement: Identifying pro. In Functional Projections, ed. E. Benedicto and J. Runner (University of Massachusetts, Amherst).

< previous page


next page >

< previous page

page_184


Benincà, Paula, ed. 1989. Dialect Variation and the Theory of Grammar. Foris. Binnick, Robert. 1969. Studies in the Derivation of Predicative Structures. Ph.D. dissertation, University of Chicago. Bittner, Maria, and Ken Hale. 1996. The Structural Determination of Case and Agreement. Linguistic Inquiry 27: 1-68. Bonet, Eulàlia. 1991. Morphology after Syntax: Pronominal Clitics in Romance. Ph.D. dissertation, Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Bonet Farran, Neus. 1989. Aspects of Complex Predicate Formation in Romance. Ph.D. dissertation, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. Bordelois, Yvonne. 1975. The Grammar of Spanish Causative Complements. Ph.D. dissertation, Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Bordelois, Yvonne. 1988. Causatives: From Lexicon to Syntax. Natural Language and Linguistic Theory 6: 57-93. Borer, Hagit. 1984. Parametric Syntax. Foris. Borer, Hagit. 1986. The Syntax of Pronominal Clitics (Syntax and Semantics 19). Academic Press. Bosque, Ignacio, and Juan-Carlos Moreno. 1984. A Condition on Quantifiers in Logical Form. Linguistic Inquiry 15: 164-167. Bosque, Ignacio, and Esther Torrego. 1995. On Spanish haber and Tense. In Proceedings of the Conference Langages et Grammaire 1 (Université de Paris VIII). Brancadell, Albert. 1992. A Study of Lexical and Non-Lexical Datives. Ph.D. dissertation, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. Bures, Anton. 1993. There Is an Argument for an LF Cycle Here. In The Role of the Cycle in Linguistics Theory (Chicago Linguistic Society). Burzio, Luigi. 1981. Italian Syntax: A Government and Binding Approach. Ph.D. dissertation, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (Reidel, 1986). Carlson, Gregory. 1978. Reference to Kinds in English. Indiana University Linguistics Club. Chierchia, Gennaro. 1996. Reference to Kinds and the Romance Partitive. Paper presented at Going Romance 10, Utrecht. Chomsky, Noam. 1955. The Logical Structure of Linguistic Theory. Manuscript, Harvard University (Plenum, 1975; University of Chicago Press, 1985). Chomsky, Noam. 1957. Syntactic Structures. Mouton. Chomsky, Noam. 1981. Lectures on Government and Binding. Foris. Chomsky, Noam. 1986a. Barriers. MIT Press. Chomsky, Noam. 1986b. Knowledge of Language. Praeger. Chomsky, Noam. 1991. Some Notes on Economy of Derivation and Representation. In Principles and Parameters in Comparative Grammar, ed. R. Freidin (MIT Press).

< previous page


next page >

< previous page

page_185


Chomsky, Noam. 1992. A Minimalist Program for Linguistic Theory. MIT Occasional Papers in Linguistics, no. 1. Also in The View from Building 20, ed. K. Hale and S. Keyser (MIT Press, 1993). Chomsky, Noam. 1994. Bare Phrase Structure. MIT Occasional Papers in Linguistics, no. 5. Also in Government and Binding Theory and the Minimalist Program, ed. G. Webelhuth (Blackwell, 1995). Chomsky, Noam. 1995. The Minimalist Program. MIT Press. Chomsky, Noam, and Howard Lasnik. 1993. Principles and Parameters Theory. In Syntax, ed. J. Jacobs et al. (Walter de Gruyter). Chvany, Catherine V. 1995. Deconstructing Agents and Subjects. Paper presented at Harvard Slavic Linguistics Colloquium. Cinque, Guglielmo. 1990. Types of A-Dependencies. MIT Press. Collins, Chris. 1995. Serial Verb Constructions and the Theory of Multiple Feature Checking. Manuscript, Cornell University. Collins, Chris. 1997. Local Economy. MIT Press. Comrie, Bernard. 1976. Aspect. Cambridge University Press. Comrie, Bernard. 1981. Language Universals and Linguistic Typology. University of Chicago Press. Comrie, Bernard. 1985. Causative Verb Formation and other Verb-Deriving Morphology. In Language Typology and Syntactic Description, ed. T. Shopen (Cambridge University Press). Davidson, Donald. 1967. The Logical Form of Action Sentences. In The Logic of Decision and Action, ed. N. Rescher (Pittsburgh University Press). Declerck, Renaat. 1989. Boundedness and the Structure of Situations. Leuvense Bijdragen 78: 275-308. de Miguel, Elena. 1990. El Aspecto Verbal en la Gramática Generativa del español. Ph.D. dissertation, Universidad Autónoma, Madrid. Demonte, Violeta. 1987. C-command, Prepositions, and Predication. Linguistic Inquiry 18: 147-157. Demonte, Violeta. 1988. Remarks on Secondary Predicates: C-command, Extraction, and Reanalysis. Linguistic Review 6: 1-39. Demonte, Violeta. 1994. La ditransitividad en español: Léxico y sintaxis. In Gramática del español, ed. V. Demonte (Colegio de México). den Dikken, Marcel. 1991. Particles and the Dative Alternation. In Proceedings of the Second Leiden Conference for Junior Linguists. den Dikken, Marcel. 1995. Particles: On the Syntax of Verb-Particle, Triadic, and Causative Constructions. Oxford University Press. Depraeterre, Ilse. 1995. On the Necessity of Distinguishing between (Un)boundedness and (A)telicity. Linguistics and Philosophy 18: 1-19. Diesing, Molly. 1992. Indefinites. MIT Press.

< previous page


next page >

< previous page

page_186


Di Sciullo, Ann Marie, and Edwin Williams. 1987. On the Definition of Word. MIT Press. Dobrovie-Sorin, Carmen. 1990. Clitic Doubling, Wh-Movement, and Quantification in Romanian. Linguistic Inquiry 21: 317-550. Dowty, David R. 1979. Word Meaning and Montague Grammar. Reidel. Dowty, David R. 1991. Thematic Proto-Roles and Argument Selection. Language 67: 547-619 Elliot, W. Neil. 1986. On the Derivation of en-Clitics. In The Syntax of Pronominal Clitics (Syntax and Semantics 19), ed. H. Borer (Academic Press). Emonds, Joseph. 1985. A Unified Theory of Syntactic Categories. Foris. Enç, Murvet. 1991. The Semantics of Specificity. Linguistic Inquiry 22: 1-25. Fabra, Pompeu. 1966. Gramática Catalana. Teide. Fassi Fehri, Abdelkader. 1987. Anti-causatives in Arabic, Causativity and Affectedness. Lexicon Project Working Papers 15. Fernández-Soriano, Olga. 1989. Rección y Ligamiento en Español: Aspectos del Parámetro del Sujeto Nulo. Ph.D. dissertation, Universidad Autónoma, Madrid. Fradejas, Pilar. 1984. Sur le se impersonnel. Manuscript, Université de Paris VIII. Franco, Jon. 1993. On Object Agreement in Spanish. Ph.D. dissertation, University of Southern California. Garey, Howard. 1957. Verbal Aspect in French. Language 33, no. 2: 91-110. Giorgi, Alessandra. 1985. The Proper Notion of C-command and the Binding Theory: Evidence from NPs. In Proceedings of NELS 16. Goodall, Grant. 1984. Parallel Structures in Syntax. Ph.D. dissertation, University of California, San Diego. Grimshaw, Jane. 1982. On the Lexical Representation of Romance Reflexive Clitics. In The Mental Representation of Grammatical Relations, ed. J. Bresnan (MIT Press). Grimshaw, Jane. 1990. Argument Structure. MIT Press. Grimshaw, Jane, and Steve Vikner. 1989. Obligatory Adjuncts and the Structure of Events. In Knowledge and Language, volume 2, ed. E. Reuland and W. Abraham (Kluwer, 1993). Guasti, Maria Teresa. 1990. The faire-par construction in Romance and Germanic. In Proceedings of the West Conference on Formal Linguistics, ed. A. Halpern (CLSI Publications, distributed by Cambridge University Press). Guasti, Maria Teresa. 1992. Causative and Perception Verbs. Ph.D. dissertation, Université de Genève. Guasti, Maria Teresa. 1996. Semantic Restrictions in Romance Causatives and the Incorporation Approach. Linguistic Inquiry 27: 294-313. Haik, Isabel. 1982. On Clitic en in French. Journal of Linguistic Research 2: 6387.

< previous page


next page >

< previous page

page_187


Hale, Ken, and Samuel Jay Keyser. 1988. Explaining and Constraining the English Middle. Lexicon Project Working Papers 24. Hale, Ken, and Samuel Jay Keyser. 1991. On the Syntax of Argument Structure. Center for Cognitive Science, MIT. Hale, Ken, and Samuel Jay Keyser 1992. The Syntactic Character of Thematic Structure. In Thematic Structure, ed. I. Roca. Foris. Hale, Ken, and Samuel Jay Keyser. 1993a. On Argument Structure and the Lexical Expression of Syntactic Relations. In Hale and Keyser 1993b. Hale, Ken, and Samuel Jay Keyser. 1993b. The View from Building 20. MIT Press. Hale, Ken, and Samuel Jay Keyser. 1995. On the Double Object Construction. Manuscript, MIT. Harris, James. 1995. There is no imperative paradigm in Spanish. In Issues in the Phonology and Morphology of the Major Iberian Languages, ed. F. Martinez-Gil and A. Morales-Front (Georgetown University Press). Haverkort, Marco. 1993. Clitics and Parametrization. European Science Foundation. Heim, Irene. 1982. The Semantics of Definite and Indefinite Noun Phrases. Ph.D. dissertation, University of Massachusetts, Amherst. Heim, Irene. 1987. Where Does the Definiteness Restriction Apply? Evidence from the Definiteness of Variables. In The Representation of (In)definiteness, ed. E. Reuland and A. ter Meulen (MIT Press). Hitahara, Hisatsugu. 1997. Elementary Operations and Optimal Derivations. MIT Press. Hoekstra, Teun, and Ian Roberts. 1993. Middle Constructions. In Knowledge and Language, volume 2, ed. E. Reuland and W. Abraham (Kluwer). Holmberg, Anders. 1986. Word Order and Syntactic Features in the Scandinavian Languages and English. Ph.D. dissertation, University of Stockholm. Holmberg, Anders, and Christer Platzack. 1995. The Role of Inflection in Scandinavian Syntax. Oxford University Press. Jackendoff, Ray. 1972. Semantic Interpretation and Generative Grammar. MIT Press. Jackendoff, Ray. 1983. Semantics and Cognition. MIT Press. Jackendoff, Ray. 1990. Semantic Structures. MIT Press. Jackendoff, Ray. 1993. The Combinatorial Structure of Thought: The Family of Causative Concepts. In Knowledge and Language, volume 2, ed. E. Reuland and W. Abraham (Kluwer) Jaeggli, Oswaldo. 1981. Topics in Romance Syntax. Foris. Jaeggli, Oswaldo. 1986a. Three Issues in the Theory of Clitics: Case, Doubled NPs, and Extraction. In The Syntax of Pronominal Clitics (Syntax and Semantics 19), ed. H. Borer (Academic Press).

< previous page


next page >

< previous page

page_188


Jaeggli, Oswaldo. 1986b. Passive. Linguistic Inquiry 17: 587-622. Jake, Janice L. 1983. Grammatical Relations in Imbabura Quechua. Ph.D. dissertation, University of Illinois (Garland, 1985). Jonas, Dianne. 1995. The TP Parameter in Scandinavian Syntax. In Goteborg Working Papers in Linguistics, ed. C. Hedlund and A. Holmberg (University of Goteborg). Jonas, Dianne, and Jonathan D. Bobaljik. 1993. Specs for Subjects: The Role of TP in Icelandic. MIT Working Papers in Linguistics 18:59-98. Jones, Charles. 1985. Agent, Patient, and Control into Purpose Clauses. In On Causatives and Agentivity (Chicago Linguistic Society). Joshi, S. 1987. Logical Subject in Marathi Grammar. Paper presented at South Asian Language Analysis Conference, Cornell University. Kayne, Richard S. 1975. French Syntax. The Transformational Cycle. MIT Press. Kayne, Richard S. 1984. Connectedness and Binary Branching. Foris. Kayne, Richard S. 1985. L'accord du participe passé en français et en italien. Modéles linguistiques 7: 73-89. Kayne, Richard S. 1986. Participles, Agreement, Auxiliaries, Si/Se, and PRO. Paper presented at March Workshop on Comparative Grammar, Princeton University. Kayne, Richard S. 1989a. Facets of Past Participle Agreement in Romance. In Dialect Variation and the Theory of Grammar, ed. P. Benincà. Foris. Kayne, Richard S. 1989b. Null Subjects and Clitic Climbing. In The Null Subject Parameter, ed. O. Jaeggli and K. Safir (Foris). Kayne, Richard S. 1991. Romance Clitics, Verb Movement and PRO. Linguistic Inquiry 22: 647-686. Kayne, Richard S. 1993. Toward a Modular Theory of Auxiliary Selection. Studia Linguistica 47. 3-31. Kayne, Richard S. 1994. The Antisymmetry of Syntax. MIT Press. Kamp, J. A. W. 1981. A Theory of Truth and Semantic Representation. In Formal Methods in the Study of Language, ed. J. Groenendijk et al. (Mathematical Centre, Amsterdam). Koizumi, Masa, 1995. Phrase Structure in Minimalist Syntax. Ph.D. dissertation, Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Laka, Itziar. 1990. Negation in Syntax: On the Nature of Functional Categories and Projections. Ph.D. dissertation, Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Lakoff, George, 1966. Stative Adjectives and Verbs in English. In Mathematical Linguistics and Automatic Translation, ed. A. G. Oettinger (Harvard University Press). Lapesa, Rafael. 1968. Sobre los orígenes y evolución del leísmo, laísmo y loísmo. In Festschrift Walther von Wartburg (Max Niemeyer, Tübingen). Larson, Richard. 1988. On the Double Object Construction. Linguistic Inquiry 19: 335-391.

< previous page


next page >

< previous page

page_189


Larson, Richard. 1991. Promise and the Theory of Control, Linguistic Inquiry 22: 103-139. Lasnik, Howard. 1992. Case and Expletives: Notes toward a Parametric Account. Linguistic Inquiry 23: 381-405. Levin, Beth, and Malka Rappaport Hovav. 1995. Unaccusatives. At the SyntaxLexical Semantics Interface. MIT Press. Levin, Beth, and Jane Simpson. 1981. Quirky Case and the Structure of Icelandic Lexical Entries. In Papers from the Seventeenth Regional Meeting (Chicago Linguistic Society). Li, Yafei 1990. X°-Binding and Verb Incorporation. Linguistic Inquiry 21: 399426. Lois, Ximena. 1982. Sur l'accusatif prepositionnel. Memoire de Maitrise, Université de Paris VIII. Luján, Marta. 1977. Direct objects Nouns and the Preposition a in Spanish. Texas Linguistic Forum 10: 30-52. Mahajan, Anoop. 1990. The A/A-bar Distinction and Movement Theory. Ph.D. dissertation, Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Marantz, Alex. 1984. On the Nature of Grammatical Relations. MIT Press. Marantz, Alex. 1990. Implications of Asymmetries in Double Object Constructions. Manuscript, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. Marantz, Alex. 1991. Case and Licensing. In Proceedings of ESCOL '91 (DMLL). Massey, Victoria Walker. 1991. Compositionality and Constituency in Albanian. Ph.D. dissertation, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. Masullo, Pascual J. 1992. Quirky datives in Spanish and the non-nominative subject parameter. MIT Working Papers in Linguistics 16: 89-103. Masullo, Pascual J. 1993. Two types of quirky subjects: Spanish versus Icelandic. Proceedings of NELS 23: 303-317. McCloskey, James, and Peter Sells. 1988. Control and A-Chains in Modern Irish. Natural Language and Linguistic Theory 6: 143-189. Mendikoetxea, Amaya. 1992. On the Nature of Agreement: The Syntax of Arb se in Spanish. Ph.D. dissertation, University of York. Mendikoetxea, Amaya, and A. C. Battye. 1990. Arbitrary se/si in Transitive Contexts: A Comparative Study. Rivista di Grammatica Generativa 15: 161-195. Milsark, Gerry. 1974. Existential Sentences in English. Ph.D. dissertation, Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Mohanan, Tara Warrier. 1990. Arguments in Hindi. Ph.D. dissertation, Stanford University. Moore, John C. 1991. Reduced Constructions in Spanish. Ph.D. dissertation, University of California. Santa Cruz.

< previous page


next page >

< previous page

page_190


Oehrle, Richard T. 1976. The Grammatical Status of the English Dative Alternation. Ph.D. dissertation, Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Ormázabal, Javier. 1994. PRO, Null Case and the Interpretation of Complements. Proceedings of NELS 1: 475-489. Otero, Carlos. 1986. Arbitrary Subjects in Finite Clauses. In Generative Studies in Spanish Syntax, ed. Y. Bordelois et al. Foris. Parodi, Claudia. 1995. Participle Agreement and Object Shift in Old Spanish: A Minimalist Theory Approach. In Evolution and Revolution in Linguistic Theory, ed. H. Campos and P. Kempchinsky (Georgetown University Press). Parsons, Terence. 1990. Events in the Semantics of English. MIT Press. Pensado, Carmen (ed.). 1995. El complemento directo preposicional. Visor Libros. Perlmutter, David. 1978. Impersonal Passives and the Unaccusative Hypothesis. In Proceedings of the Fourth Annual Meeting of the Berkeley Linguistics Society. Perlmutter, David. 1984. Working 1s and Inversion in Italian, Japanese and Quechua. In Studies in Relational Grammar 2, ed. D. Perlmutter and C. Rosen (University of Chicago Press). Pesetsky, David. 1995. Zero Syntax: Experiencers and Cascades. MIT Press. Piera, Carlos. 1989. Sobre la estructura de las cláusulas de infinitivo. In Sintaxis de las lenguas románicas, ed. V. Demonte and M. Fernández. (Ediciones el Arquero). Pinker, Steven. 1989. Learnability and Cognition: The Acquisition of Argument Structures. MIT Press. Pollock, Jean-Yves. 1985. On Case and the Syntax of Infinitives in French. In Grammatical Representation, ed. Guéron et al. (Foris). Pollock, Jean-Yves. 1989. Verb Movement, Universal Grammar, and the Structure of IP. Linguistic Inquiry 20: 365424. Raposo, Eduardo. 1989. Prepositional Infinitival Constructions in European Portuguese. In The Null Subject Parameter, ed. O. Jaeggli and K. Safir (Foris). Raposo, Eduardo, and Juan Uriagereka. 1990. Long-Distance Case Assignment. Linguistic Inquiry 21: 505-537. Raposo, Eduardo, and Juan Uriagereka. 1993. Two Types of Small Clauses. Paper presented at GLOW Colloquium, University of Lund. Reuland, Eric J., and Alice G. B. ter Meulen. 1987. The Representation of (In)definiteness. MIT Press. Rizzi, Luigi. 1982. Issues in Italian Syntax. Foris. Rizzi, Luigi. 1986a. On Chain Formation. In The Syntax of Pronominal Clitics (Syntax and Semantics 19), ed. H. Borer (Academic Press). Rizzi, Luigi. 1986b. Null Objects in Italian and the Theory of pro. Linguistic Inquiry 17: 501-557. Rizzi, Luigi. 1988. I1 Sintagma Preposizionale. In Grande Gramatica Italiana di Consultazione, ed. L. Renzi (II Lulino, Bologna).

< previous page


next page >

< previous page

page_191


Rizzi, Luigi. 1990. Relativized Minimality. MIT Press. Rivas, Alberto. 1977. A Theory of Clitics. Ph.D. dissertation, Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Rivero, Maria Luisa. 1977. Specificity and Existence: A Reply. Language 53: 70-85. Roberts, Ian. 1987. The Representation of Implicit and Dethematized Subjects. Foris. Rochette, Anne. 1988. Semantic and Syntactic Aspects of Romance Complementation. Ph.D. dissertation, Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Rosen, Sara. 1990. Argument Structure and Complex Predicates. Garland. Rouveret, Alain, and Jean-Roger Vergnaud. 1980. Specifying Reference to the Subject: French Causatives and Conditions on Representations. Linguistic Inquiry 11: 97-202. Ruwet, Nicolas. 1982. Grammaire des insultes et autres études. Editions du Seuil. Saksena, Anuradha. 1980. The Affected Agent. Language 56: 812-826. Saksena, Anuradha. 1982. Topics in the Analysis of Causatives. University of California Press. Shibatani, Masayoshi. 1976. Causativization. In Syntax and Semantics, ed. M. Shibatani (Academic Press). Smith, Carlota S. 1991. The Parameter of Aspect. Kluwer. Sportiche, Dominique. In progress. Clitic Constructions. Stowell, T. 1981. Origins of Phrase Structure. Ph.D. dissertation, Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Strozer, Judith R. 1976. Clitics in Spanish. Ph.D. dissertation, University of California, Los Angeles. Suñer, Margarita. 1988. The Role of Agreement in Clitic-Doubled Constructions. Natural Language and Linguistic Theory 6: 391-434. Szabolcsi, Ana. 1981. The Possessive Construction in Hungarian: A Configurational Theory in a Non-Configurational Language. Acta Linguistica Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae 31. Szabolcsi, Ana. 1983. The Possessor that Ran Away from Home. Linguistic Review 3: 89-102. Taraldsen, T. 1983. Parametric Variation in Phrase Structure: A Case Study. Ph.D. dissertation, University of Tromsf. Tenny, Carol L. 1994. Aspectual Roles and the Syntax-Semantics Interface. Kluwer. Thráinsson, Hoskuldur. 1993. On the Structure of Infinitival Complements. Harvard Working Papers in Linguistics 3: 181-213. Torrego, Esther. 1989. Experiencers and Raising Verbs. Paper presented at the April Second Princeton Conference. In Current Issues in Comparative Grammar, ed. R. Freidin (Kluwer, 1996).

< previous page


next page >

< previous page

page_192


Torrego, Esther. 1995a. On the Nature of Clitic Doubling. In Evolution and Revolution in Linguistic Theory, ed. H. Campos and P. Kempchinsky (Georgetown University Press). Torrego, Esther. 1995b. From Argumental to non-Argumental Pronouns: Spanish Doubled Reflexives. Probus 7: 221241. Torrego, Esther. 1996. On Quantifier Float in Control Clauses. Linguistic Inquiry 27: 111-126. Travis, Lisa. 1992. Inner Aspect and the Structure of VP. Manuscript, McGill University. Treviño, Esthela. 1994. Las causativas del español con complemento infinitivo. Colegio de México. Ura, Hiroyuki. 1993. On Feature-checking for wh-traces. MIT Working Papers in Linguistics 18: 243-280. Ura, Hiroyuki. 1994. Varieties of Raising and the Feature-Based Bare Phrase Structure Theory. MIT Occasional Papers in Linguistics, no. 7. Ura, Hiroyuki. 1996. Multiple Theory Checking: A Theory of Grammatical Function Splitting. Ph.D. dissertation, Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Uriagereka, Juan. 1988. On Government. Ph.D. dissertation, University of Connecticut. Uriagereka, Juan. 1994. Specificity and the name Constraint. University of Maryland Working Papers in Linguistics 1: 47-65. Uriagereka, Juan. 1995. Aspects of the Syntax of Clitic Placement in Western Romance. Linguistic Inquiry 26: 79-123. Vendler, Zeno. 1967. Linguistics in Philosophy. Cornell University Press. Verkuyl, Henk J. 1972. On the Compositional Nature of the Aspects. Reidel. Watanabe, Akira. 1993. Agr-based Case Theory and its Interaction with the A-bar System. Ph.D. dissertation, Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Watanabe, Akira. 1996. Case Absorption and Wh-agreement. Kluwer. Wehrli, Erik. 1986. On Some Properties of French Clitic se. In The Syntax of Pronominal Clitics (Syntax and Semantics 19), ed. H. Borer (Academic Press). Williams, Edwin. 1974. Rule Ordering in Syntax. Ph.D. dissertation, Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Williams, Edwin. 1979. The French Causative Construction. Manuscript, University of Massachusetts, Amherst. Williams, Edwin. 1980. Predication. Linguistic Inquiry 11: 208-238. Williams, Edwin. 1981. Argument Structure and Morphology. Linguistic Review 1: 81-114. Williams, Edwin. 1983. Against Small Clauses. Linguistic Inquiry 14: 287-308. Williams, Edwin. 1994. Thematic Structure in Syntax. MIT Press.

< previous page


next page >

< previous page

page_193


Zubizarreta, M.-L. 1985. The Relation between Morphophonology and Morphosyntax: The Case of Romance Causatives. Linguistic Inquiry 16: 247-289. Zubizarreta, M.-L. 1987. Levels of Representation in the Lexicon and in the Syntax. Foris. Zubizarreta, M.-L. 1994. El orden de palabras en español y el caso nominativo. In Gramática del Español, ed. V. Demonte. Colegio de México. Zaenen, Annie, Joan Maling, and Hoskulder Thráinsson. 1985. Case and Grammatical Functions: The Icelandic Passive. Natural Language and Linguistic Theory 3: 441-483.

< previous page


next page >

< previous page

page_i

next page > Page i


< previous page


next page >

< previous page

page_195


Index A a (Spanish dative preposition), 13, 24-27, 118 as Case-marker of accusative Case, 7, 9, 24-25 cross-linguistic variation of, 26-27 in definites and indefinites, 17, 40, 66-71 in double objects, 9, 133-136 grammatical status of, 27, 71-72 in nominals, 38-40 verb class and, 17-18, 27-34, 39-40 Accomplishment, 96-100 ''Actor," 55 Affectedness, 6, 18-20, 36, 42, 98-99, 102, 118, 122, 127, 134-136 Agent arguments and causatives, 82-84, 86, 90, 97-98, 100, 106, 108, 112, 126-127 licensing of, 6, 15-16, 30-35, 56 in passives, 50-51 in purpose clauses, 115 and quirky (lexical) Case-marking, 15, 22, 27-36 with stative verbs, 22 Agreement, 63-65, 118-128, 164. See also Functional categories Aissen, Judith, 74 Albanian, 17, 26, 58-59 Alsina, Alex, 10, 76-78, 87, 90, 116 Anderson, Mona, 18, 134 Animacy, 16 bearing of, 16-17, 55-56, 66-67, 82-84, 100-105, 143-149, 159-161 and "long" movement, 56 and nominals, 40-41 and proper names, 55 Aoun, Joseph, 64 Aspect, 15, 17-18, 20-23, 96-100. See also Telicity Attract, 44 B Baker, Mark, 7, 51, 71, 74-76, 80, 88, 90 Bare Phrase Structure, 5-6, 19 Belletti, Adriana, 99, 100 Bello, Andrès, 112 Bittner, Maria, 43 Bonet, Eulalia, 163-164 Bonet Farran, 97

Bordelois, Ivonne, 86-88, 109, 112 Borer, Hagit, 8, 58, 64 Brancadell, Albert, 146 Burzio, Luigi, 27, 74, 88, 97 C Case abstract accusative, 7, 14-15, 23, 27-28 in causatives, 10, 76, 81-95, 100-105 "dependent," 10, 53 morphological, 1-2, 7, 9, 17, 23-43, 55, 159-162 nominative, 7, 14, 23, 47, 49, 118-128, 152-154, 156 structural vs. inherent, 1, 6-9, 23-25, 28-29, 36-38, 42-45, 86 (see also Checking) Case-markers. See a; -ko Case-marking exceptional, 7, 9-10, 15, 52-54, 75 quirky (lexical), 1, 42, 53, 113 Catalan, 10, 57, 73, 78, 85, 95, 97-98, 117, 154, 163-164 Causatives, 10, 74-78, 100-105 accusative Case in, 82-83, 100-105 clitics in, 81, 91-93, 100-106 hacer, 78-79, 82-88, 90, 96-102, 107 Cause, vs. Agent, 84, 90, 96-99 Chains, 54, 119, 126-128, 134 Checking, 2-4, 43-45, 49-50, 54-64, 94, 104-105, 136-147 Chichewa, 76-77 Chierchia, Gennaro, 62

< previous page


next page >

< previous page

page_196


Chomsky, Noam, 2, 3-6, 10, 13-17, 19, 23, 31, 36, 38, 42-44, 46-47, 56, 60, 65, 75, 94, 100, 107, 115, 140, 148, 152, 157, 167-168 Cinque, Guglielmo, 62 Clitics, 2, 10, 51, 56-57, 164 and agreement, 4, 14, 16-17, 58-64, 94, 138-145 and Case, 5, 9, 16, 58-64, 85, 136-141, 144-146, 162-164 doubling, 4, 8, 10, 14, 26, 46, 57-65, 71-72, 118-126, 143-146, 154-156, 158-162 "impersonal se," 99-100 inherently Case-marked, 154, 157, 162-165 lo (inanimate), 91, 100-105, 144-145 and left dislocation, 62-63 and negative phrases. See Negation and person, 63, 120-121, 139-141 reflexive, 92-93, 105-108 and v. See Functional Categories and wh-phrases. See wh-phrases Collins, Chris, 5 Complex predicates, 8, 10, 75, 87, 102, 106, 112, 124 Comrie, Bernard, 15, 74 D Dative and Case, 7-9, 23-24, 28, 36, 39, 41, 85- 87, 118, 136-147 categorial status of, 26 as preposition, 7-9, 11, 13, 16, 24-25, 41, 85, 113-117, 143, 147-148 Declerck, Renaat, 21 de Miguel, Elena, 99 Demonte, Violeta, 146, 150 den Dikken, Marcel, 74 Depraeterre, Ilse, 21 Di Sciullo, Anna Maria, 74 Diesing, Molly, 14-15, 17, 21, 56 Double objects. See a; Dative Dowty, David, 2, 18, 20, 81 E English datives in, 19, 147-149, 151 nominative and accusative Case in, 7 progressive stative in, 23, 31 subject raising in, 151-152 Enç, Murvet, 15, 17, 21, 56, 66, 68 Experiencer. See Psych-predicates; Raising verbs Extended Projection Principle, 161 F Features, 2-5, 16, 45, 118-128, 145, 156-158 Fernández-Soriano, Olga, 146

Fradejas, Pilar, 99 Franco, Jon, 146 French, 10, 52, 57, 60, 79, 94, 144, 152, 154, 157, 162 Full Interpretation, 3 Functional categories, 2-3, 167 a, 113-117 Agro, 2, 16-17, 23, 59-60 Aspectual head. See Aspect Infl, 6, 10, 53, 75, 117, 124 p, 9, 11, 133, 143, 147-151, 155-158 Tense, 2, 10, 14, 16, 101-104, 152-157, 159-162 v, 2, 10, 13-21, 24, 51, 57, 64-65, 139, 142, 152, 167 G Galician, 154 Germanic, 1, 56 Giorgi, Alexandra, 146 Greek, 17, 61-62, 71 Grimshaw, Jane, 1, 34-35, 39, 53, 92 Guasti, Maria Teresa, 74, 77, 79, 96, 98-99 H Hale, Ken, 2, 13, 19, 25, 31, 36, 43, 99, 135, 149 Harris, James, 115 Hindi, 13, 15-16, 25, 28-29, 55, 78, 167 Holmberg, Anders, 1, 8 I Icelandic, 1, 28, 34 Imbabura Quechua, 50 Irish, 123 Italian, 51, 57, 119, 144, 146, 152, 154 J Jackendoff, Ray, 18, 30, 55, 133, 148 Jaeggli, Oswaldo, 14, 58 Jake, Janice, 50 K Kayne, Richard, 2, 9, 52, 54, 57, 60, 74, 88, 92, 94, 104, 133, 143, 147-148, 151, 154, 160, 162, 168 Keyser, Samuel Jay, 1, 13, 19, 25, 31, 36, 99, 135, 149 Kitahara, Hisatsugu, 5 -ko. See Hindi Koizumi, Masa, 45 L Laka, Itziar, 115 Larson, Richard, 133, 148, 167 Levin, Beth, 96, 115 Li, Yafei, 74, 76 Luján, Marta, 55

M Mahajan, Anoop, 15 Marantz, Alex, 10, 16, 19, 30, 36, 56, 74, 99, 135

< previous page


next page >

< previous page

page_197 Page 197

Marked accusative. See Case; Object marking McCloskey, James, 123 Merge, 5, 19 Milsark, Gerry, 67 Minimal Link Condition, 5, 11, 140-143, 161 Chomsky's definition of, 44 and clitic movement, 101-105 and movement of object "doubled" by clitic, 60, 128, 143 in raising constructions, 151-157 in wh-extraction from within nominals, 42-45 Mohanan, Tara, 13, 28-29, 55 Moore, John, 82 Move F, 3-5, 43-44, 58-62, 147. See also Pied-piping Movement. See also Attract Object, 1-2, 15-20, 46-47 from within a-objects, 8, 37-38, 41-45 in causatives, 87, 93, 100-104 in subject-to-subject raising, 151-158 of verb, 1-2, 6 N Negation, 61 Nominative. See Case O Object marking, 1, 10, 13, 15, 17-23, 27-36, 54-56 Oehrle, Richard, 133, 149 Operator, 62, 70 P Passives, 28-29, 47-49, 51, 96-100, 110, 114 Perception verbs, 83 Perlmutter, David, 27, 156 Pesetsky, David, 9, 32, 84, 98, 116, 133, 143, 148-149, 168 Pied-piping, 3, 38, 43, 58-59 Pinker, Steven, 149 Platzack, Christer, 8 Pollock, Jean-Yves, 54 Portuguese, 114, 119 pro, 57, 62-64, 89, 119, 122, 127-128, 138, 145, 151 PRO, 111, 119-120, 123 Procrastinate, 47-51, 94, 99 Pronouns, 46, 105-108, 146 Psych-predicates, 84, 159-161 R

Raising verbs. See Unaccusatives; Movement Raposo, Eduardo, 114 Rappaport Hovav, Malka, 96, 115 Rizzi, Luigi, 53, 89-90, 146, 152 Rochette, Anne, 74 Romance languages, 2-3, 10, 24, 73, 151. See also names of languages Romanian, 154 Rouveret, Alain, 74 S Saksena, Anuradha, 7 Scandinavian, 2, 6, 8 Sells, Peter, 123 Shibatani, Masayoshi, 81 Small clauses, 8, 10, 53, 69, 75, 87, 106, 108, 123, 133 Smith, Carlota, 31 Specificity, 14-15, 20, 52, 66-71 Specifiers, multiple, 5-6, 16, 43, 45-46 Sportiche, Dominique, 57 Statives, 20, 22-23, 31-34 Strozer, Judith, 81, 131, 134, 141, 146, 150 Suñer, Margarita, 61, 146 Szabolcsi, Ana, 160 T Taraldsen, Tarald, 74, 88 Telicity, 15, 17, 20-22. See also Aspect Tenny, Carold, 18 Tense. See Functional Categories Theta (Ø), 7, 24, 42, 46, 88-89, 135 Theta role, 2, 51, 100 Torrego, Esther, 63, 92 Travis, Lisa, 15, 19 Treviño, Esthela, 80, 82, 84 Turkish, 15, 68 U Unaccusatives, 8, 27, 65, 100-105, 155, 160-161, 168 Unspecified Object Deletion, 90 Ura, Hiroyuki, 6, 45, 47, 150 Uriagereka, Juan, 57, 62, 104 v. See Functional Categories V Vendler, Zeno, 1-2, 20, 96 Verkuyl, Henk, 9, 20 Vikner, Sten, 96

VP shells, 2, 14-16, 45-47, 100, 141-142, 147-151 W Watanabe, Akira, 51 Wehrli, Erik, 92 wh -feature, 3-4, 38, 44, 54, 59-60, 62, 137, 140 wh-movement, 37-38, 41, 43-45, 58-62, 70-71, 93-95, 136-147 Williams, Edwin, 8, 35, 74, 77, 97 Z Zubizarreta, Maria-Luisa, 51, 74, 88

< previous page


The Dependencies of Objects (Linguistic Inquiry Monographs, 34)

Indefinites (Linguistic Inquiry Monographs)

Barriers (Linguistic Inquiry Monographs)

The Syntax of Words (Linguistic Inquiry Monographs)

The Antisymmetry of Syntax (Linguistic Inquiry Monographs)

Provocative Syntax (Linguistic Inquiry Monographs)

Uttering Trees (Linguistic Inquiry Monographs)

Local Economy (Linguistic Inquiry Monographs)

Provocative Syntax (Linguistic Inquiry Monographs)

Distributed Reduplication (Linguistic Inquiry Monographs)

Dynamic Antisymmetry (Linguistic Inquiry Monographs)

Syntax of Scope (Linguistic Inquiry Monographs, 21)

Asymmetry in Morphology (Linguistic Inquiry Monographs)

Introducing Arguments (Linguistic Inquiry Monographs, 49)

Locality in Vowel Harmony (Linguistic Inquiry Monographs)

Anaphora and Language Design (Linguistic Inquiry Monographs)

Indices and Identity (Linguistic Inquiry Monographs)

Asymmetry in Morphology (Linguistic Inquiry Monographs)

Introducing Arguments (Linguistic Inquiry Monographs, 49)

Economy and Semantic Interpretation (Linguistic Inquiry Monographs)

Introducing Arguments (Linguistic Inquiry Monographs, 49)

Indices and Identity (Linguistic Inquiry Monographs)

Restriction and Saturation (Linguistic Inquiry Monographs)

The Architecture of the Language Faculty (Linguistic Inquiry Monographs)

The Architecture of the Language Faculty (Linguistic Inquiry Monographs)

On the Nature of Grammatical Relations (Linguistic Inquiry Monographs, 10)

The Syntax of (In)dependence (Linguistic Inquiry Monographs)

On the Nature of Grammatical Relations (Linguistic Inquiry Monographs)

The Locative Syntax of Experiencers (Linguistic Inquiry Monographs)

The Locative Syntax of Experiencers (Linguistic Inquiry Monographs, 53)

Prolegomenon to a Theory of Argument Structure (Linguistic Inquiry Monographs)

The Dependencies of Objects (Linguistic Inquiry Monographs, 34)

Indefinites (Linguistic Inquiry Monographs)

Barriers (Linguistic Inquiry Monographs)

The Syntax of Words (Linguistic Inquiry Monographs)

The Antisymmetry of Syntax (Linguistic Inquiry Monographs)

Provocative Syntax (Linguistic Inquiry Monographs)

Uttering Trees (Linguistic Inquiry Monographs)

Local Economy (Linguistic Inquiry Monographs)

Provocative Syntax (Linguistic Inquiry Monographs)

Distributed Reduplication (Linguistic Inquiry Monographs)

Dynamic Antisymmetry (Linguistic Inquiry Monographs)

Syntax of Scope (Linguistic Inquiry Monographs, 21)

Asymmetry in Morphology (Linguistic Inquiry Monographs)

Introducing Arguments (Linguistic Inquiry Monographs, 49)

Locality in Vowel Harmony (Linguistic Inquiry Monographs)

Anaphora and Language Design (Linguistic Inquiry Monographs)

Indices and Identity (Linguistic Inquiry Monographs)

Asymmetry in Morphology (Linguistic Inquiry Monographs)

Introducing Arguments (Linguistic Inquiry Monographs, 49)

Economy and Semantic Interpretation (Linguistic Inquiry Monographs)

Introducing Arguments (Linguistic Inquiry Monographs, 49)

Indices and Identity (Linguistic Inquiry Monographs)

Restriction and Saturation (Linguistic Inquiry Monographs)

The Architecture of the Language Faculty (Linguistic Inquiry Monographs)

The Architecture of the Language Faculty (Linguistic Inquiry Monographs)

On the Nature of Grammatical Relations (Linguistic Inquiry Monographs, 10)

The Syntax of (In)dependence (Linguistic Inquiry Monographs)

On the Nature of Grammatical Relations (Linguistic Inquiry Monographs)

The Locative Syntax of Experiencers (Linguistic Inquiry Monographs)

The Locative Syntax of Experiencers (Linguistic Inquiry Monographs, 53)

Prolegomenon to a Theory of Argument Structure (Linguistic Inquiry Monographs)

Recommend Documents