The Role of Inflection in Scandinavian Syntax

The Role of Inflection In Scandinavian Syntax OXFORD STUDIES IN COMPARATIVE SYNTAX Richard Kayne, General Editor Prin...

Author: Anders Holmberg | Christer Platzack

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The Role of Inflection In Scandinavian Syntax

OXFORD STUDIES IN COMPARATIVE SYNTAX Richard Kayne, General Editor Principles and Parameters of Syntactic Saturation Gert Webelhuth Verb Movement and Expletive Subjects in the Germanic Languages Sten Vikner Parameters and Functional Heads: Essays in Comparative Syntax Edited by Adriana Belletti and Luigi Rizzi Discourse Configurational Languages Edited by Katalin fi. Kiss Clause Structure and Language Change Edited by Adrian Battye and Ian Roberts Dialect Variation and Parameter Setting: A Study of Belfast English and Standard English Alison Henry Parameters of Slavic Morphosyntax Steven Franks Particles: On the Syntax of Verb-Particle, Triadic and Causative Constructions Marcel den Dikken The Polysynthesis Parameter Mark C. Baker The Role of Inflection in Scandinavian Syntax Anders Holmberg and Christer Platzack


Anders Holmberg Christer Platzack

New York Oxford OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS 1995

Oxford University Press Oxford New York Athens Auckland Bangkok Calcutta Cape Town Dar es Salaam Delhi Florence Hong Kong Istanbul Karachi Kuala Lumpur Madras Madrid Melbourne Mexico City Nairobi Paris Singapore Taipei Tokyo Toronto and associated companies in Berlin Ibadan

Copyright © 1995 by Anders Holmberg and Christer Platzack Published by Oxford University Press, Inc., 200 Madison Avenue, New York, New York 10016 Oxford is a registered trademark of Oxford University Press, Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of Oxford University Press. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Holmberg, Anders. The role of inflection in Scandinavian syntax/ Anders Holmberg, Christer Platzack. p. cm. (Oxford studies in comparative syntax) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-19-506745-2 ISBN 0-19-506746-0 (pbk.) 1. Scandinavian languages—Syntax. 2. Scandinavian languages—Inflection. I. Platzack, Christer, 1943II. Title. III. Series. PD1701.H65 1995 439'.5—dc20 94-43707

9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper

Preface Climbing Mont Real in Montreal a brisk but sunny morning the 23rd of May 1987, Anders suddenly suggested that we should write a book together about Scandinavian syntax. We were both attending the Fourth Workshop on Comparative Germanic Syntax, and for quite a while we had been engaged in a sometimes hot discussion about the proper sentence structure of the Scandinavian languages. In the beginning everything went smoothly: At the Fifth Workshop on Comparative Germanic Syntax in Groningen 1988 we presented a joint paper discussing many of the' facts which are crucial in this book, although many descriptive and explanatory details were unclear at that point. We made further progress during the year, and were able to present an improved version at the GLOW Colloquium in Utrecht 1989. That summer, Richard Kayne offered to publish our forthcoming book in his newly founded series Oxford Studies in Comparative Syntax. For some reason we lost our pace more or less at the same time. Both of us were heavily involved in department duties, Anders in Uppsala and Christer in Lund. The promotion of Anders from Uppsala to Umea did not help to speed up the writing process — on the contrary, living at opposite ends of Sweden made cooperation quite hard. If Richie had not encouraged us and kept on asking when the book should be ready, the project might very well have died at this stage. However, all this is history by now. During the six years we have worked with the book we have got much support and inspiration from many friends and collegues, too numerous for us to mention all here. We have already mentioned Richard Kayne, and we also like to thank Ian Roberts for giving us access to a preliminary version of Roberts (1993). We are especially grateful to Halldor A. Sigurosson and Sten Vikner for detailed comments on a previous version of the book. Halldor also deserves special thanks for being an unusually insightful informant, and for checking all the Icelandic examples. Special thanks also to Peter Svenonius, who proofread the manuscript and checked the English language, suggesting many changes which greatly improved the presentation. We also like to thank Lars-Olof Delsing, Cecilia Falk and Gunlog Josefsson, who all have suggested a lot of improvements. Valuable comments have also been provided by the audiences at the Fifth Workshop on Comparative Germanic Syntax in Groningen 1988, GLOW (Utrecht) in 1989, Reykjavik 1990, Kristiansand 1990, Paris 1991, Diisseldorf 1992 and other venues where we have presented parts of this book. Finally, we want to thank our families, Gitte and Lena and the children Elsa, Jakob, Johan, Jonas, Sara and Siri for their companionship, affection, and encouragement. Lund and Umea, April 21 1993 Anders Holmberg Christer Platzack

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Contents Chapter One: Comparative Scandinavian Syntax

1.1. Introduction 1.1.1. Overview 1.1.2. Scandinavian Syntax 1.2. Theoretical Assumptions 1.2.1. The Theoretical Framework 1.2.2. The Organization of Grammar 1.2.3. Phrase Structure 1.2.4. Functional heads and projections 1.2.5. Finiteness 1.2.6. Predication and the Extended Projection Principle 1.2.7. Government 1.2.8. The Empty Category Principle 1.2.9. Head Movement and the Procrastinate Principle 1.3. Case Theory 1.3.1. Lexical and structural Case-checking 1.3.2. Structural accusative Case and the analysis of the predicate 1.3.3. Lexical Case and the analysis of the predicate 1.3.4. On the nature of m-case

3

5

6 13 13

15 15 18 22 23 25

26 26 28 28 33 36

37

Chapter Two: A General Theory of Sentence Structure, Finiteness, and Nominative Case

2.1. Introduction 2.2. The position of [+F] and the licensing of nominative Case 2.3. Languages with [+F] in Infl. 2.3.1. Introduction 2.3.2. Romance languages 2.3.3. The Kru-languages 2.3.4, Celtic languages 2.3.5. Hungarian 2.3.6. English 2.4. The loss of Verb second in French and English 2.4.1. Introduction 2.4.2. Subject Clitics 2.4.3. Consequences of the change of position for [+F] 2.4.4. The lexicalization of [+F] 2.4.5. The licensing of small pro 2.4.6.Summary 2.5. Conclusions

43 44 51 51 52 56 57 59 61 63 63 63 65 65 67 68 69

Chapter Three: Verb Second Languages, Root-Embedded Asymmetries, Root Phenomena in Embedded Clauses, and Long Distance Reflexives

3.1. Introduction. 3.2. A unified account of Verb second. 3.3. The word order of subordinate clauses.

71 72 76

viii

Contents

3.4. Root phenomena in embedded clauses 3.4.1. Introduction 3.4.2. The C-recursion analysis 3.4.3. EMC and the role of Agr 3.4.4. The interpretation of embedded main clauses 3.4.5. Conclusion 3.5. Long distance reflexives 3.5.1. Introduction 3.5.2. The finiteness chain 3.5.3. Predicted properties of LDC 3.6. Conclusions

77 77 79 82 85 86 87 87 90 94 98

Chapter Four: Null Subjects, Small pro and the Role of Agr 4.1. Introduction .99 4.1.1. The ISc. vs. MSc. difference 4.2. Expletive subjects in the Scandinavian languages 4.3. The theory of small pro. 4.3.1. Introduction 4.3.2. Licensing condition of small pro 4.3.3. The identification of pro 4.3.4. Summary and conclusion 4.4 Non-nominative elements in Spec-IP: Oblique subjects 4.5. Stylistic Fronting 4.6. Diachronic support

102 103 104 104 105 107 111 112 115 121

Chapter Five: The Role of Agr and the Licensing of Nominative DPs within VP

5.1. Introduction 5.2. The licensing of nominative Case 5.3. Nominative DP in the complement of V 5.4. Nominative in Spec-VP 5.4.1. Introduction 5.4.2. The proper head government requirement on overt DPs 5.4.3. Further consequences of the different status of Spec-VP in MSc.and ISc. 5.5. Indirect Licensing via a chain of heads 5.6. Concluding remarks Chapter Six: Object Shift 6.1. Introduction 6.2. Object shift is movement of pronoun or DP 6.3. The nature of Object shift: A-movement, A-bar movement, Head movement or PF-movement? 6.3.1. Object shift is not A-bar movement 6.3.2. Object shift is not (standard) A-movement 6.3.3. Object shift is not a PF-rule

125 127 129 131 131 132 136 137 139

141 143 145 145 147 150

Contents

6.3.4. Object shift is not movement to Spec-AgrO 6.3.5. Object shift is not cliticization 6.3.6. A note on long Object shift in Swedish 6.4. Explaining the mixed character of Object shift 6.5. The role of Case in Object shift 6.5.1. Why do shifted pronouns and DPs land in the leftmost periphery of the predicate? 6.5.2. Why is shifting obligatory with weak pronouns but optional with full DPs? 6.5.3. Why is shifting possible only when the main verb has moved to I? 6.5.4. Why are only weak pronouns shifted in MSc., while any definite DP can be shifted in Icelandic? 6.5.5. An exception: dative objects 6.5.6. Case in Faroese, the Case of strong pronouns, and the structure of DP 6.5.7. Why are indefinite noun phrases not shifted? 6.6. Implications of Object shift for the analysis of the sentence.

Chapter Seven: The Double Object Construction 7.1. Introduction

ix

152 153 156 157 160 161 162

165 168 172 172 176 177

185

7.2. Differences between Icelandic and MSc. as regards the DOC 7.3. The analysis of triadic verb constructions 7.3.1. The DOC 7.3.2. The to-construction 7.4. Case in the DOC in MSc 7.5. Case in the DOC in Icelandic: lexical selection 7.6. Accounting for the differences between MSc. and ISc 7.6.1. Free benefactives 7.6.2. The to-construction 7.6.3. Inversion 7.6.4. Ottosson's objections 7.6.5. The passivization asymmetry 7.6.6. DO passives in Norwegian and Swedish

194 196 199 201 201 204 205 211 215 217

Chapter Eight: Conclusions

223

References

227

Index of languages

241

Index of names

243

Index of subjects

247

187 190




Chapter One: Comparative Scandinavian Syntax 1.1.

Introduction

Syntactically the Scandinavian languages fall into two groups, one comprising Icelandic, Old Scandinavian, and Faroese, the other comprising modern Danish, Norwegian, and Swedish. Between these two groups there is a number of syntactic differences involving a wide variety of syntactic constructions. These differences are the principal subject matter of this book. The claim which we will try to substantiate is that these syntactic differences can all be derived from a more fundamental difference between the two groups of languages regarding the system of inflections: The languages in the former group have a rich system of subject-verb agreement morphology and case morphology while the languages in the latter group have no subject-verb agreement morphology and a highly impoverished system of case morphology. The main purpose of this book is to construct a theory of the role that agreement and case morphology play in the syntax of the Scandinavian languages, and by extension in Universal Grammar. Let us take an example: In the unmarked word order of a finite clause in Icelandic, the subject is followed by the finite verb or auxiliary, which in turn is followed by adverbs and other clausal constituents including non-finite verb forms, as in (1.1): (1.1)

Eg held aS hann hafi Ieiki8 nmtiu leiki. I think that he has played ninety games

(Icelandic)

However, under certain conditions an adverb or a non-finite verb form may precede the finite verb or auxiliary. This construction is known as Stylistic Fronting. In the example (1.2) (from Jonsson (1991)) the nonfinite main verb precedes the finite auxiliary verb: (1.2)

maourinn sem leikiS hefur nfuti'u leiki the-man that played has ninety games "the man who has played ninety games"

(Icelandic)

This construction is also found in Old Scandinavian and Faroese. None of the languages in the other group (Danish, Norwegian, and Swedish) allow Stylistic Fronting, except in a few frozen expressions. We exemplify this with Swedish:

The Role of Inflection in Scandinavian Syntax

4

(1.3)

a. b.

mannen som bar spelat nittio spel. the-man that has played ninety games *mannen som spelat har nittio spel the-man that played has ninety games

(Swedish)

We will argue (in chapter 4) that the construction in (1.2) involves (a) movement of the finite verb or auxiliary to I(NFL), the node hosting tense and certain other sentential operators, and (b) movement and cliticization of the non-finite verb form to (the left of) I. The reason that Swedish does not have Stylistic Fronting is primarily that Swedish does not have movement of the finite verb or auxiliary to I in the relevant constructions, namely certain types of embedded clauses. Simplifying somewhat, V to I movement is triggered by the presence of verbal inflections, in particular subject-verb agreement (this will be discussed in great detail in due course). Swedish has no subject verb agreement, hence no V to I movement. In the absence of lexical material (a verb) in I, there can be no cliticization of a non-finite verb form to I. Thus the absence of Stylistic Fronting in Swedish is a consequence of the absence of subject-verb agreement morphology. One indication that Stylistic Fronting is really dependent on the presence of subject-verb agreement is that the construction is found only in languages/dialects which have subject-verb agreement, and is not found in any language/dialect without agreement or with very impoverished agreement (such as English). Another indication is that the construction seems to have disappeared from Swedish, Danish, and Norwegian about the same time as subject-verb agreement disappeared, i.e. roughly 1400-1600 (see chapter 4). However, showing that two grammatical properties are related is one thing, showing just how they are related is another thing. The example above may also serve to illustrate that this requires a theoretical, formal framework, often based on highly theory-specific and controversial assumptions. The framework we assume is the Principles-and-Parameters approach to syntax, first outlined in Chomsky (1981), and developed in subsequent works by Chomsky and many other linguists. To deal with the facts we are interested in, we have to assume a particular version of this general theory of language, where some parts are widely accepted while other parts are more controversial. In this perspective the present work is an argument for a particular theory of language, within the Principles-andParameters framework, based on linguistic facts primarily from the Scandinavian languages.

Comparative Scandinavian Syntax 1.1.1.

5

Overview

Following a suggestion by Haugen (1976:23) we will henceforth refer to Icelandic, Faroese and Old Scandinavian collectively as Insular Scandinavian, abbreviated ISc., and to modern Swedish, Danish, and Norwegian as Mainland Scandinavian, abbreviated MSc. The Scandinavian languages are particularly well-suited for parametric studies. They are closely related, having started to diverge roughly a thousand years ago. In many respects these languages are no more different than dialects of a single language may be: notice e.g. that the MSc. languages are mutually comprehensible, and that it is more a matter of lexicon and pronunciation than syntactic structure that makes the ISc. languages hard to understand for mainland Scandinavians. However, whereas we usually do not have good syntactic descriptions of different dialects of the same language, the fact that the Scandinavian languages are national languages has led to the unusual situation that these highly similar languages are fairly well described, even syntactically. Furthermore, the older stages of these languages are documented, an uninterrupted record extending back about seven hundred years.1 In sum this situation makes the Scandinavian languages an almost ideal testing ground for parametric hypotheses: Since the languages are so closely related the syntactic differences found among them are presumably not due to a lot of different parameters interacting in ways we can only guess. On the contrary, there are reasons to believe that the differences are due to variation in the settings of a small number of parameters. What we try to do in the present work is isolate these parameters and study them in detail. Insofar as we succeed, we have contributed not only to the theory of Scandinavian syntax but more generally to the theory of parametrized principles in Universal Grammar (UG). The results of this study should therefore be of interest both to Scandinavianists and to theoretical grammarians. The present chapter outlines the specific background for the study, giving both an overview of the syntax of the Scandinavian languages and a clarification of our theoretical assumptions in some of the more controversial parts of the theory. The main purpose of chapters two to five is to map out the role played by subject-verb agreement, and the main purpose of chapters six and seven to map out the role of case morphology, for interScandinavian syntactic variation. Since these languages are Verb Second languages, i.e. languages where at most one constituent may precede the finite verb in main clauses, we start in chapter two with a discussion of the parameter responsible for this specific word order: in particular, we will claim that whereas many languages have verb movement to 1°, the

1 This holds true of Icelandic, Danish, and Swedish. We do not have comparable records of Norwegian and Faroese.

6


head of the functional category directly dominating VP, the property common to all verb second languages is verb movement to C°, the head of a functional category directly dominating IP. Chapter three contains a discussion of subordinate clause word order in Scandinavian. In ISc. the tensed verb must always precede sentence adverbials and the negation word in subordinate clauses, whereas in MSc. the tensed verb must follow these types of adverbials. As we will show, this difference is a direct consequence of the presence of Agr (the subject-verb agreement category) in ISc. in contrast to the absence of Agr in MSc. In this chapter we will also demonstrate that the presence of Agr is responsible for the greater range of main clause word orders in embedded clauses found in ISc., and furthermore is a necessary (but not sufficient) prerequisite for the occurrence of Long Distance Reflexives. In chapter four we demonstrate the role of Agr in constructions with empty subjects in finite clauses, a construction type found in ISc. but not in MSc. It is also shown that certain other construction types found in ISc. but not in MSc. ultimately can be traced back to the presence of Agr, namely the possibility of using oblique subjects and the construction called Stylistic Fronting, which was exemplified above in (1.2). Chapter five is concerned with the licensing of nominative arguments in VP. There are more possible positions for nominative arguments within VP in ISc. than in MSc.: as we will show in this chapter, this difference is a consequence of the presence of Agr in ISc. and its absence in MSc. Chapter six deals with the movement rule known as Object Shift. Properties of Object Shift will be shown to provide crucial evidence for certain aspects of our description of the Scandinavian sentence, in particular aspects having to do with case and the role of case morphology. Chapter seven deals with the double object construction in the Scandinavian languages. A number of differences between ISc. and MSc. as regards this construction will be explained as effects of the presence or absence of case morphology. Finally, chapter eight contains some additional comments and speculations regarding the role of inflection in the syntax of the Scandinavian languages. 1.1.2. Scandinavian Syntax The Scandinavian languages, i.e. Danish, Faroese, Icelandic, Norwegian, and Swedish, constitute a branch of the Germanic language family, generally referred to as North Germanic. From a syntactic point of view, these languages have many properties in common with the closely related West Germanic languages. They have two inflectionally

Comparative Scandinavian Syntax

7

expressed tenses, present and past; passive is expressed with the past participle in combination with an auxiliary meaning 'become' or 'be'^; they have prepositions, not postpositions; there are determiners to express the definite meaning of nouns.^ Like English they are VOlanguages. Like German and Dutch they are Verb Second languages, have weak and strong adjective inflection, and allow existential constructions (there-insertion) not only with ergative verbs, but with intransitive verbs as well. These properties are illustrated with Swedish examples in (1.4). (1.4) a. Han koper boken / Han kopta boken. (present/past) he buys book-the / he bought book-the b. Boken blev said igar. (passive) book-the became sold yesterday c. Han sitter pa stolen /*stolen pa. (prepositions) he sits on chair-the / chair-the on d. Den svarta katten ISg p& trappan. (determiner) the black cat-the lay on stairs-the e. Han har kopt boken. (VO) he has bought book-the f. Katten a'r svart / den svarta katten (strong/weak adjectives) cat-the is black / the black cat-the g. Det hade ringt en man fran Umea. (existential with intr. verb) it/there had phoned a man from Umea

In certain respects the Scandinavian languages differ syntactically from the other Germanic languages. The use of a definite article suffixed to the noun is illustrated several times in (1.4).4 Some aspects of the internal structure of the noun phrase will be discussed in chapter 6, especially 6.5.6. Apart from this we will not have much to say on this topic, but see Taraldsen (1990), Holmberg ed. (1992), Delsing (1991 and especially 1993), and Studia Linguistica 47, 2 (theme issue on determiners and adjectives) for some recent views. Another property which has received much attention (consider e.g. the papers in Engdahl & Ejerhed (1982)) is the fact that Scandinavian is surprisingly liberal with respect to wh-movement and topicalization out of structural 2 Alternatively, passive can be expressed with an inflectional ending -s(t), the use of which varies within the Scandinavian laniruatres. 3 In addition the noun has a definite form, expressed by an inflectional ending; see below. 4 As shown in (1.1 d,t), the existence of both a preposed article and a suffixed one often leads to a double definite construction in Swedish. Such double definiteness is also characteristic of Norwegian and Faroese: see Delsini? 09931. 5 Many scholars working on the structure of the noun phrase now agree that this phrase when used as an argument is embedded under a functional category D (determiner), so that ordinary argument noun phrases are more correctly analyzed as DPs. Following this line of thought, we will use DP and not NP when referring to noun phrases in this book, unless we refer to the real NP occurring in the complement of D or to predicative noun phrases.

8


islands: in (1.5) we give Swedish examples showing extraction from an embedded question (1.5a), a relative clause (1.5b), and a noun complement clause, (1.5c): (1.5)

a. b. c.

Vilken bok ftigade du vem som hade kopt? which book asked you who that had bought Blommor kanner jag en man som saljer. flowers know I a man who sells "I know a man who sells flowers." Den ha'r boken gillar jag inte tanken pa att hon skulle this here book like I not thought-the on that she should ha last. have read "I don't like the thought that she has read this book."

The example (1.5c) also illustrates the possibility of using prepositions in front of £##£-clauses, characteristic of all the Scandinavian languages. Although the Scandinavian languages are very similar, syntactically as well as in other respects, a closer study reveals several (usually minor) differences between them. As mentioned, from a syntactic point of view, the Scandinavian languages can be divided in two main groups: the Mainland Scandinavian (MSc.), consisting of modern Danish, Norwegian, and Swedish, and Insular Scandinavian (ISc.), consisting of modern Icelandic and modern Faroese^ as well as of all old Scandinavian languages (roughly the medieval variants) and at least one dialect on the Scandinavian mainland, namely the Swedish dialect spoken in Alvdalen in Dalecarlia in central Sweden.? The ISc. languages are typical representatives of so-called synthetic languages, having a fairly rich system of agreement morphology as well as case morphology. In comparison, the MSc. languages are more analytic: apart from the adnominal genitive they have no case morphology, except on pronouns where there is a minimal, binary case system, and they have no subject-verb agreement at all. These things are illustrated in (1.6) and (1.7), where the case and agreement-endings are italicized:8 6 The status of Faroese in this classification is not uncontroversial. We return to this issue

hplnw. 7 This classification of the Scandinavian languages differs from the traditional one, mainly based on phonological criteria, according to which Swedish, Danish and parts of Norwegian constitute East Scandinavian, whereas other parts of Norwegian together with Faroese and Icelandic constitute West Scandinavian. There is no doubt at all that all of Norwegian (today) falls together with the other Mainland Scandinavian languages as regards syntax and morphology. 8 Scandinavian orthography differs in some respect from the orthography used for English. Besides the five regular vowel symbols of the Latin alphabet (a e i a u) we find four umlaut vowels: /eel (spelled /»'/ in Swedish), lei (spelled ISI in Swedish and Icelandic), I HI (not used in Icelandic), and lyl (^German u). The consonant symbols are those of the Latin alphabet with the addition of Icelandic / p / (pronounced like English voiceless Ithl, and Icelandic and Faroese /3/, pronounced in Icelandic as English voiced /thf).

Comparative Scandinavian Syntax (1.6)

a. b.

(1.7)

a. b.

9

ViS elskww Olaf, en Olafwr elsk/zr okkur ekki. (Ice.) we love-lpl Olaf-acc, but Olaf-nom love-3sg. us not Vi 'dlsltum Olaf, man Olafer alslw ikke os. (OSw.) we love-lpl.Olaf-acc, but Olaf-nom love-3sg not us Vi elsker Olof, men Olof elsker ikke os. Vi alskar Olof, men Olof alskar inte oss. we love Olof, but Olof loves not us

(Da.) (Sw.)

It would be misleading, though, to characterize the MSc. languages as analytic on a par with, say, Chinese or even English, in view of the fact that the MSc. languages have a fairly rich system of NP-internal agreement, and exhibit certain other forms of inflection not found in for instance English, including subject agreement on predicative adjectives and a synthetic passive. The total absence of subject-verb agreement is, however, surely one of the most "exotic" properties of the MSc. languages. In Western and Central Europe there is, as far as we know, no other language with this property, and apparently it is fairly uncommon globally. In Mallinson and Blake's (1981) investigation of 100 languages "spread fairly evenly across genetic and typological groupings" 26 languages lacked verb agreement.9 About half of the 26 languages are East Asian (Sino-Tibetan, Austro-Asiatic, Korean, Japanese). Outside this region, where lack of agreement morphology appears to be a prominent areal feature, lack of verb agreement is a very rare phenomenon (see Mallinson and Blake (1981: 132ff.)). To give the reader an idea of the richness of inflectional oppositions in ISc., some examples of subject-verb agreement and case inflection in Icelandic are given in (1.8) and (1.9):

9 They list English among the languages which lack verb agreement. This is correct in a

sense, since, as we will discuss in chapter 2, verb agreement in English is not just morphologically but also syntactically weak. However, in MSc. verb agreement is absolutely null. Even the verb corresponding to be, which in English has a more articulated agreement paradigm than other verbs, is uninflected for agreement in MSc.

10


(1.8)

Verbal inflection in Icelandic Pres. indie

Pres. indie

Pres. subjun.

Pres. subjun.

Past indie.

Past indie.

Past subjun.

Past subjun.

Sg. 1. tek Sg. 2 tekur Sg. 3. tekur

segi segir segir

taki takir taki

segi segir segi

tdk tokst tok

sagBi sag3 ir sagSi

xki taekir taski

seg3i seg3 ir seg3i

PL 1. PI. 2 PI. 3.

segjum segi3 segja 'say'

tokum segjum taki8 segi3 taki segi

tokum tokuS toku

s6'g3um S6g3u3 s6g3u

tsekjum taekjuS taskju

seg3um seg3u3 seg3u

(1.9)

tokum takiS taka 'take'

Case inflection in Icelandic (indefinite, strong declension) Masc.

pi. gnom. hest-ur hest-ar hest-a ace. hest dat. hest-i hest-um gen. hest-s hest-a 'horse' s

Neut.

Fern. s

gnal nal nal nal-ar 'needle'

pi. nal-ar nal-ar nal-um nal -a

s

gborS bor3 boi§-i borS -s 'table'

pi. bor5 borS bor5-um borB-a

As we will show in this book, the major syntactic differences between ISc. and MSc. can be described as the effect of two parameters, involving the morphological differences regarding subject-verb agreement and morphological case illustrated above. A presentation of some of these syntactic differences is given in (1.10): in parentheses we indicate in which chapter a certain difference is discussed. Here, as throughout the book, we will illustrate ISc. properties mostly with Icelandic examples, and MSc. properties mostly with Swedish examples. 10 (1.10) a.

In subordinate clauses, ISc. has the tensed verb preceding sentence adverbs, whereas MSc. has the tensed verb following sentence adverbs (chapter 3). Ice. a3 Jon haf3 i raunverulega keypt bokina that John had actually bought the-book Sw. att John faktiskt hade kopt boken. that John actually had bought the-book

10 On differences within the two major groups of Scandinavian languages, see Barnes (1986, 1987) on some differences between Faroese and Icelandic, Platzack (1986b) and Vikner (1987) on differences between Swedish and Danish, and Taraldsen (1991a) and Platzack (1992) on Swedish, Danish, and Norwegian.


11

b.

ISc., but not MSc., has Long Distance Reflexives, i.e. a reflexive in a subordinate clause bound by the subject of the matrix clause (chapter 3). Ice. Jonj segir a3 Maria elski sigi / hannj. John says that Mary loves (subj.) REFL / him Sw. Johnj sa'ger att Maria alskar *sigj / honomj. John says that Mary loves REFL / him

c.

ISc., but not MSc., accepts null expletives in tensed clauses (chapter 4). Ice. I gaer var (*pa6) dansaS a skipinu. yesterday was it danced on the-ship Sw. Ig5r dansades *(det) pa skeppet. yesterday was-danced it on the-ship

d.

ISc., but not MSc., accepts non-nominative subjects (chapter 4). Ice. Hana vantar peninga. her (ace.) lacks money (ace.) Sw. *Henne saknar pengar her lacks money

e.

ISc., but not MSc., has Stylistic Fronting, which is a fronting of heads and light adverbs and particles (chapter 4). Ice. konan sern kosin var forseti the-woman that elected was president "the woman who was elected president" Sw. *kvinnan som vald blev till president the-woman that elected was to president

f.

ISc., but not MSc., may have both an expletive and an overt subject in the same clause (chapter 5). Ice. I>a3 hafa sennilega margir menn komi3 hingaS i dag. there have probably many men come here today Sw. *Det har sannolikt manga man kommit hit idag. there has probably many men come here today

g.

ISc., but not MSc., allows extraposition of the subject of a transitive verb (chapter 5). Ice. &aS munu kaupa pessa bok margir studentar. there will buy this book many students Sw. *Det skall kopa den har boken manga studenter. there will buy this the-book many students

12

The Role of Inflection in Scandinavian Syntax h.

ISc., but not MSc., may have Object Shift of nonpronominal DPs (chapter 6). Ice. Jon keypti ekki bokina./Jon keypti bokina ekki. Sw. John kopte inte boken./ *John kopte boken inte. J. bought not the-book / J. bought the-book not

i.

Msc, but not ISc, may have either a double object complement or an NP+PP complement with verbs of the give-chss (chapter 7). Ice. Eg gaf Joni bok. / *Eg gaf bok til Jons. Sw. Jag gav John en bok. / Jag gav en bok till John. I gave John (a) book / I gave (a) book to John

j.

MSc., but not ISc., freely allows insertion of a benefactive with verbs denoting production or acquisition (chapter 7). Ice. Eg baka5i (??FrfSu) koku. I baked Fri3a (a) cake Sw. Jag bakade (Frida) en kaka. I baked Frida a cake

The position of Faroese in the ISc./MSc. dichotomy is unclear. Morphologically Faroese is an ISc. language in that it has both subjectverb agreement and case morphology, although the paradigms are simpler than in Icelandic and Old Scandinavian. Syntactically Faroese may be considered a hybrid language, exhibiting a particular mix of ISc. and MSc. properties. Thus Faroese is like MSc. at least with respect to (a), (g), and (h), but like ISc with respect to (b), (c), (d), and (e), with some variation between written and spoken language and perhaps between older and younger speakers. From Michael Barnes (1986, 1987, 1992, and personal communication) we have got the impression that there are two varieties of Faroese, a modern variety which syntactically belongs in the MSc. camp, and an old-fashioned variety which belongs in the ISc camp, at least with regard to the properties which we claim crucially involve Agr. With regard to properties which crucially involve case morphology the older, ISc.-like system seems to have receded even more. Thus we might include "old-fashioned Faroese" among the ISc. languages, at least as long as we are talking about Agr-related phenomena. However, to be on the safe side we shall from now on take the class of ISc. languages not to include Faroese, but rather regard Faroese as constituting a third group of Scandinavian languages. The implication is that the case and agreement morphology which Faroese displays is a weaker kind of case morphology than that displayed by Icelandic and OSc. We return to the issue of Faroese in section 1.3.4, and in chapters 6 and 7.

Comparative Scandinavian Syntax 1.2.

Theoretical Assumptions

1.2.1.

The Theoretical Frame-work

13

As mentioned above, the present study of syntactic differences between the Scandinavian languages is conducted within the theoretical framework of the Principles and Parameters approach to syntax. This approach attempts to characterize that part of the human language faculty which is responsible for our knowledge of the syntactic possibilities of our mother tongue. It is assumed that grammar is a module of the human mental system, and that it develops like other human mental faculties such as vision and cognition: the principles determining the outer bounds of the faculty are present in the genetic code, and the specific "knowledge" that we arrive at is determined as a combination of the inborn principles and the environment. It is not obvious from the outset that all human languages are varieties of the same innate capacity: after all, there are four thousand or so different languages spoken today, 11 and if we also count the older stages of these languages and languages that have died out, this figure can surely be multiplied by ten. On the other hand, there are many facts that point in the direction of a common genetic basis for all human languages: language is a faculty only found among human beings, no language seems to be more easy or more difficult to acquire than any other language, the learning of the first language proceeds in the same way for children learning quite distinct languages, the early developmental stages of languages (languages spoken by small children around two years of age) are structurally much more alike than later stages, and so on. As mentioned, the innate grammar (or Universal Grammar, UG, as it is often called) is said to contain principles determining the outer bounds of human languages. To account for the variety among languages, the possibility is left open that some of these principles are parametrized, i.e. we will find examples of the principle in every human language, but the languages may differ with respect to the particular manifestation of the principle. Thus, whereas it is assumed that the phrases of every human language arc constructed according to the X-bar Theory, which states that all phrases are projections of a head (i.e. endocentric in nature) and that all branching is binary, the position of the head within the phrase is not universally determined, but something the child has to figure out given exposure to a particular language; see 1.3.2. below. This parameter seems to be set rather earlyr' compare the

11-The exact number is obviously dependent on where one draws the borderline between "language" and "dialect". 12 The opposite opinion is presented in Ouhalla (1991), who claims that the order of the verb and the direct object inside VP is relatively free in early developmental stages. Data from early Swedish which we have access to do not support Ouhalla: e.g. Lange & Larsson

14


word orders of the following utterances of a Swedish and a German child of about 22 months of age: (1.11) a. b.

mamma laga sa'tet. (Early Swedish: Lange & Larsson 1973)) mommy mend seat ich schaufel haben. (Early German: Clahsen 1989) I spade have

The order of the verb and the object is different. This is due to the fact that the German verb follows its complement, whereas the Swedish verb precedes its complement. It has been proposed by Borer (1984) and Chomsky (1991) that every parameter must be related to some morphological factor: i.e., there must be overt, morphological cues in the language which help the child to set a particular parameter in a certain way. The data we will present in this book are compatible with this hypothesis: as we will show, the two morphological differences studied, i.e. subject-verb agreement and morphological case, have important syntactic consequences. It is probably true that the effects of case morphology in syntax are better known, or at least are often thought to be better known, than the effects of agreement morphology. One of the most widely accepted and time-worn typological generalizations (going back at least to Sapir (1921)) is that languages with case morphology have freer word order than languages without case morphology. In the light of this generalization it is perhaps not surprising to find that ISc., due to its case morphology, has certain constructions which are absent in MSc. However, as we will show in this book, the effects of case morphology in the syntax of the Scandinavian languages are on the whole quite restricted. Furthermore, case morphology may play a part in barring certain constructions, so that MSc., due to the absence of case morphology, has constructions which are absent in ISc. As we will show, the presence or absence of Agr, reflected in the presence or absence of agreement morphology, is, on the whole, a more important parameter in Scandinavian, with a greater range of syntactic consequences than presence or absence of case morphology, affecting the word order of subordinate clauses, the possibility of having null subjects and the position of arguments within the predicate, among other things. In this case, too, the effects cannot be generalized as "free versus rigid word order", since, although presence of Agr is sometimes crucial for permitting certain constructions, absence of Agr can sometimes play the same role. The net effect is that ISc. word order is

(1973), who study the syntactic development of a Swedish girl between 20 and 25 months of age, report a total of 40 instances of utterances with the order verb-object in their recordings, but not a single case of the order object-verb.

15


not significantly freer than MSc. word order, in spite of all the inflectional morphology. * •* 1.2.2. The Organization of Grammar Within the theoretical framework that we are adopting, a grammar is an explicit theory of the mapping between form and meaning. This mapping is taken to involve four levels of representation: D-structure, Logical Form, Phonetic Form, and the mediating level of S-structure. These levels are related as shown in (1.12): (1.12)

Organization of Grammar D-structure S-structure Phonetic Form

Logical Form

The four levels of representation are related by means of the general rule Affect Alpha, the essence of which is that any element may be moved, added or deleted, as long as the result complies with the licensing conditions which hold at each level. In addition, the Projection Principle (Chomsky 1981:36, 38) constrains the mapping from one level to another. According to this principle, the lexical properties of an element, including its thematic grid, must be maintained at every syntactic level, thus such properties are not allowed to be changed in the grammatical derivation. 1.2.3.

Phrase Structure

With Chomsky (1986a,b) we assume that functional categories like I, C, and D have the same phrase structural properties as the lexical categories N, V, A and P 14 , i.e both functional and lexical categories head full'* Interestingly MSc. seems to be freer than ISc., or at least freer than Icelandic, with regard to wh-movement, topicalization, and other "unbounded movement" constructions. Thus, according to Halldor A. SigurQsson (p.c.) Icelandic is not nearly as liberal with respect to wh-extraction from structural islands as the MSc. languages are (as described in Engdahl & Ejerhed (1982)). We shall not deal with differences having to do with "the whmodule" in this work, mainly since we cannot see how they could be related the Case and Agr parameters. "* As will be discussed in section 1.3. below, we consider prepositions to be both lexical and functional in nature, thus giving a representation in grammar of the double uses of prepositions as elements with intrinsic meaning (i) and elements with just a grammatical function (ii): (i) the book under the table

16


fledged projections which conform to the schema in (1.13); since we are abstracting away from linear order, we use set notation here to indicate that the order in which the elements are presented is irrelevant. XP represents the maximal projection of the head X°, i.e. the maximal phrase headed by X°. As is evident from (1.13), every phrase contains two levels above X°; furthermore, binary branching is assumed at every level. (1.13) a.

XP = {a, X'}

b.

X' = {b, I0}

(a is referred to as the Specifier of XP, henceforth Spec-XP) (b is referred to as the Complement of X, henceforth X-Comp)

With respect to linear order, UG makes two options available in each case: Specifier - X' or X' - Specifier, and Complement - Head or Head - Complement. Assuming with Chomsky (1986a) that the D-structure of a sentence is projected from the lexicon in such a way that the subcategorization information of a head is interpreted in X-bar terms, it follows that a verb will project a structure containing information about its thematic roles, and nothing more. Consider the elaboration of this idea in Speas (1990:33-56). Following much recent work we assume that the external argument (the "subject") is base-generated within the predicate. The exact position of the external argument within the predicate is a controversial issue. The issue is, mainly, whether the subject is basegenerated in Spec-VP or as an adjunct to VP (see discussion and references in Speas (1990)). The description we assume is close to the one advocated by Speas (1990) but not identical to it. We will argue that the external argument is base-generated as a specifier in the predicate; however, the position is not Spec-VP but the specifier position projected by a predicate-internal head containing information about voice, among other things. Aspects of sentence structure which are not provided by the verb must be provided by other information in the lexicon. In particular this means that elements which are base-generated as adjuncts to some category must be specified in the lexicon in such a way that this adjunction follows automatically. For instance, we assume that sentence adverbs are adjoined to the predicate in the Scandinavian languages. Hence these adverbs must carry lexical information which makes such an adjunction possible. In this connection it is important to notice that the negation word has the same distribution as sentence adverbials in Scandinavian. In particular there is no evidence for analyzing the negation word as the head of a NegP intervening between the I-projection and the V(ii) the destruction of the city

17


projection, in the manner of Pollock (1989). Thus, we claim that Scandinavian has the structure in (1.14a), and not the structure in (1.14b), which is the structure assigned to English and French in Pollock's paper.

IP

(1.14) a. Spec

I1

I

VP VP

NegP

Neg'

Spec

Neg

b.

IP I'

Snec

I

NegP

Neg'

Spec

Neg

VP

That the negation is situated as in (1.14a) and not as in (l.Hb) is shown most clearly by the fact that it can be topicalized in all the Scandinavian languages except Danish: (1.15) a. b.

Inte vet jag var hon bor. not know I where she lives Ekki veit eg hver hun byr. not now I where she lives

(Sw.) (Ice.)

A possible way to assimilate facts like (1.15) with the structure (1.14b) would be to say that the visible negation in Scandinavian is the specifier of a NegP with an empty head, as proposed in Ouhalla (1990). ' However, since we have no independent support for such an analysis, we will stick to the description in (1.14a) for the rest of this book, treating negations and sentence adverbials alike: NegP is adjoined to VP like ordinary sentence adverbials. '' Given such a description, the absence of topicalized negations in Danish could be taken to indicate that the negation is the head of NegP in Danish. However, contrary to the facts, such a description suggests that the presence of a negation in Danish should interfere with verb raising, preventing verb second in negated phrases.

18


Although the predicate contains all the thematic information of its head V, a sentence cannot consist solely of a V-projection. In our conception a sentence differs from a V-projection in containing information about how the abstract situation characterized by the verb and its arguments corresponds to situations in the real world. The representation of this information in the grammar is provided by the functional categories I, C, and D. 1.2.4. Functional beads and projections

We do not assume the sort of Split-I analysis advocated by Pollock (1989), and now widely assumed for many languages. According to the Split-I analysis the traditional I(NFL) is split into two or more heads, notably Tense and Agr, each with their own projection. (1.16) represents the structure of the traditional S or IP proposed by Belletti (1990) for Romance as well as for English: AgrP

(1.16)

Agr'

NP

TP

AST T

VP

The reason that we do not assume this type of description is primarily that we do not seem to get any clear empirical gains from it, for the syntactic phenomena we are dealing with. In particular, the sort of adverb placement phenomena which Pollock's analysis of French and English is primarily based on are not found in Scandinavian. 1" 16 Pollock (1989) noted that infinitival forms of the verb may precede some adverbs but not others in French as well as in English, although this applies only to have and be in English. (i) a. II ne parle pas I'italien. he ne speaks not Italian b. *Ne parler pas I'italien (apr£s cinq ans d'etude denote un manque de don pour les langues). ne speak not Italian after five years of study denotes a lack of gift for languages c. Ne parler a peine I'italien (apres...) ne speak hardly Italian (after...) This is accounted for if there are several sentential heads to which the verb can move, one preceding pas and the other preceding adverbs like a peine. In finite clauses the verb moves to the higher sentential head position, in infinitivals (optionally) to the lower one. In Scandinavian we have found no contrasts of this sort. Thus in MSc. all types of predicate adjuncts (adverbs as well as certain types of phrasal adverbials) which precede the verb in infinitival constructions also precede the verb in finite constructions. There is no evidence of "short" vs. "long verb movement" in MSc. It also does not matter whether the verb is an auxiliary verb or main verb (unlike the situation in English). In ISc. the situation is more complicated, since there is verb movement across sentential adverbs in embedded finite as well as in certain infinitival constructions (PRO-infinitivals) but arguably not in some other infmitival.s (see Holmberg (1986: 154ff, SigurSsson (1988:49ff!)). However, there is no evidence as far as we know that the verb movement which occurs in infinitival

19


We also have some objections on theoretical and conceptual grounds against the notion of Agr as a sentential head (while we support the analysis of T as a sentential head). To begin with, under any analysis Agr is a nominal category, encoding nominal features such as person, number, and case. Consequently the projection of Agr should be a nominal category, too, i.e. a form of NP. The prediction is that we should find sentences, notably bare, complementizerless, but finite (hence putatively Agr-headed) sentences in positions where nominal categories occur, subject to conditions similar to those on other nominal categories, with regard to case, theta-roles and so on. But although sentences do occur as arguments, under conditions which are similar (though not identical) to those of nominal arguments, this crucially requires a "nominal" complementizer (in English that) at the head of the sentence. For instance, in Scandinavian sentences can occur as complements of prepositions (unlike the situation in English), but this requires that the sentence be headed by a complementizer. (1.17)

Jag a'r saker pa *(att) [Johan a'r tillrackligt stark]. I am sure of that Johan is enough strong

(Swe)

The need for a complementizer whenever a sentence occurs as an argument indicates that the bare sentence is not a nominal category, and hence is not able to perform functions characteristic of nominal categories.1'' Second, if Agr is the head of the sentence we would expect heads taking sentential complements to select properties of Agr. One of the most compelling arguments for analyzing a category a as the head of a phrase P is if (3 is selected with respect to features of a. Now sentences are selected according to whether they are finite or infinitival (e.g. think selects a finite sentence, try selects an infinitival sentence). Sentences are also selected with respect to mood in some languages; e.g. the verb esperer 'hope' selects subjunctive mood in French. In a sense tense values can also be selected; thus in English a main clause past tense requires past tense in the embedded clause (John said that he ivas/*is ill, where present tense is possible only as a form of direct report). However, there is no head in any language which we have heard of which would select a sentence with respect to features of Agr, such as second person, or plural, or feminine. There is, for instance, no verb which would accept a sentential complement only in case Agr (hence the constructions is shorter than the verb movement in finite embedded clauses; hence there is no direct evidence of multiple sentential head positions (between C and VP) corresponding to the evidence provided by the French data in (i). ' See Holmberg (1986) for a discussion of the categorial status of sentences. One might hypothesise that the complementizer corresponds to D, and thus the bare sentence would correspond to (predicative) NP, hence would not be expected to occur in argument positions. However, a bare finite sentence is e q u a l l y impossible in predicative NP positions.

20


subject) is second person plural. There is not a single construction, as far as we are aware, where the features of Agr matter for the distribution of the sentence. In conclusion, while analyzing finiteness, tense, and mood as head features of sentences seems well motivated, there is no corresponding motivation in the case of Agr. Rouveret (1991) has argued, strictly on empirical grounds, that Agr in Welsh is not a projecting head but has to be adjoined to a projecting functional head which, in the case of subject-verb agreement, he takes to be an abstract head encoding finiteness. This, we suggest, is the case universally for Agr: it is an inherently maximal functional head which is adjoined to (or perhaps incorporated in) a projecting functional head. We have thus reduced the number of sentential functional projections by at least two, compared with Pollock (1989), by analyzing neither Agr nor (Scandinavian) Neg as heads of sentential projections. We do, however, postulate a "new" functional projecting head, namely a head encoding voice. This head is situated inside the predicate, taking VP as complement and taking the external argument of the verb as its specifier. The predicate is, in the unmarked case, a projection of this head. The head would aptly be called [±Act(ive)], [+Act] being the value of the head of an active predicate, [-Act] the value of the head of a passive predicate. We will, however, refer to the head as Act, projecting a phrase ActP, when it heads an active predicate, and Pass, projecting PassP, when it heads a passive predicate. The predicate of a transitive active sentence, e.g. Swedish Johan kb'pte boken "Johan bought the book" will look as follows in D-structure: (1.18)

Act?

Act'

DP

Act

Johan

VP I V V

DP

kopte

boken

A complete VP structure, with Spec-VP and Comp-V filled, is found with verbs taking both an experiencer and a theme argument, e.g. triadic verbs of the give class (to be discussed in chapter 7). The predicate of e.g. Swedish Job an gav Sara boken "Johan gave Sara the book" is (1.19), where the surface word order is derived by verb movement to Act.

21

Comparative Scandinavian Syntax (1.19)

ActP

Act'

DP

VP

Act

DP

Johan

Sara

V V I gav

DP I boken

The existence of a second head, in addition to the verb, inside the predicate can be motivated on the basis of X-bar theory, as discussed by Speas (1990). Assume (as we have done) that every phrase has the form [XP a [X1 X° b ]]. Now if a verb takes three arguments (as in the case of give) all three cannot fit into VP (if we exclude the possibility of arguments being base-generated as adjuncts to phrasal projections). Speas (1990) proposes that transitive verbs project an extended VP with two head verbs, the higher head being empty in D-structure. Thus give will project the structure [VP oc [y [V e] [VP P [V give f]. Here, too, the derivation crucially involves movement of the lower, lexical verb to the higher empty verb position. Following ideas of Hale and Keyser (1986), Speas assumes that the empty verb corresponds to an abstract predicate CAUSE which is a property of the lexical semantic representation of every transitive verb (all transitive verbs are causative, in this view). The subject argument, usually carrying the role Actor (Agent), is base-generated as a specifier of the higher verb. Slightly modifying Speas' (1990) theory we assume that the higher, abstract head in transitive predicates is not an empty verb but a functional category encoding voice/causativity. Other arguments for the hypothesis that transitive predicates contain two heads and two projections, and various empirical consequences of the hypothesis will be discussed below, in the presentation of Case theory in this chapter, and at various points in subsequent chapters. We will here just briefly list some central properties of the hypothesis. As mentioned, Act occurs only in construction with verbs taking an external argument. We will say, rather loosely, that the head Act is licensed by the verb provided the verb is unergative, i.e. provided it takes an external argument. A more formal account of the relation between the verb and the head Act is presented in Speas (1990). As mentioned she assumes that transitive (unergative) verbs have an abstract predicate CAUSE as part of their lexical, semantic representation (their "Lexical Conceptual Structure" in the terminology of Speas (1990)). This predicate is projected as an additional predicateinternal head, taking VP as complement and the external argument as

22


specifier. In this way the verb (i.e. the lexical semantic properties of the verb) licenses the head Act. Since the specifier of Act is not governed by the verb (see below for definitions of notions like government ) the verb cannot assign the external role directly to its external argument in Spec-ActP. We assume that Act participates in assignment of the external argument role to its predicate by transmitting the role originating in the verb's lexical representation to the argument in Spec-ActP. In the unmarked case this is the role Actor.*° Furthermore we assume that Act assigns (or more precisely, checks; see below) structural accusative case to the object of a transitive verb, via the verb (the verb transmits the Case from Act to the object argument). Hence we find structural accusative case only in construction with verbs which take an external argument (a generalization known as Burzio's Generalization, after Burzio (1986)): only these verbs license the functional category Act required for accusative case-assignment. There are two kinds of verbs which do not take an external argument, i.e. do not license Act: Passive verb forms license the negative counterpart of Act, namely Pass. Pass differs from Act in that it does not transmit an external role to its specifier and does not assign structural accusative case to the object. So-called ergative (or unaccusative) verbs do not license any kind of functional head. Thus the predicate of an ergative verb is a bare VP.19 1.2.5. Finiteness Human languages differ with respect to the ways in which they express the relation between a sentence and a situation in the real world. Some of these relations are conventionalized or grammaticalized in a given language, others are expressed by other means. Since the Scandinavian languages are the focus of our interest, we will only discuss categories which are grammaticalized in these languages. Tense and mood are such categories: tense relates the time of the described situation to the time 18 A stronger hypothesis is that the head Act actually assigns the Actor role to its specifier. A problem with this hypothesis is that there are transitive verbs which take an external argument with another role. For instance love is a transitive/unergative verb where the external argument is rather an Experiencer than an Actor. We will in this work assume the slightly weaker hypothesis according to which the head Act only transmits a role actually assigned bv the verb. 19 The head Act does not have any morphological realization in Scandinavian (but of course its negative counterpart Pass does). Act is morphologically realized in those languages which have an "object registration" or "transitivizer" morpheme, as for instance Hungarian or Tok Pisin. The following example (from Todd (1984)) illustrates the fact that in Tok Pisin all and only verbs taking an object are obligatorily suffixed with -im, a morphological realization of Act, in the present framework, (i) a. Mi no ken draiv. I cannot drive b. Bai mi draivirn halus. I'll drive a plane ("I'll be a pilot.")


23

of the utterance, and mood expresses the attitude of the speaker towards what he is saying. Whereas we will represent tense under 1°, mood will not be formally represented in our work, not as a matter of principle but simply because we have not considered the possible role of mood in relation to the phenomena we discuss. A category related to tense and mood is the category of fmiteness, which has an important role to play in our description. In traditional grammar finite has roughly the meaning 'restricted to the particular situation', i.e., the finite form of a verb indicates the existence of a predication at the time of the utterance, disregarding whether or not this predication is accidental or permanent. Thus, in a way, finiteness is a prerequisite for tense and mood: unless a predication is related to the time of the utterance via the concept finiteness, we have no basis for expressing the relative position in time of the situation expressed by the predication vis-a-vis the utterance, and we cannot relate the attitude of the speaker to this situation. It should be noticed that a finite verb is not identical with a tensed verb: finite verb forms may have tense or lack it (for instance the imperative is a verb form which is finite but lacks tense), and the same applies to non-finite verb forms, (for instance the participle has both a present and a past form). Formally, we will express the category finiteness as a feature [F], realized in some functional category. There are two values of this feature: [+F], encoding 'finite', and [-F], encoding 'non-finite'. See chapter two, where the use of [+F] in our description is described in detail. We will have nothing to say about [-F] in this book. 1.2.6.

Predication and the Extended Projection Principle

As mentioned above, the concept of finiteness relates the predication expressed in the utterance to the time of this utterance. Elaborating upon Rothstein (1983:20) (a view which goes back to Frege) we define a predicate as an open one-place syntactic function which requires saturation or closure by a syntactically external argument, i.e. an argument which is not m-commanded by the head of the predicate.20 In the model which was current when Rothstein wrote her dissertation there was no syntactic correlate of an open position (a predicate variable) in the VP of standard transitive (unergative) clauses. Thus Rothstein (1983) had to just stipulate that maximal projections which are not arguments (typically VP) are open one place functions. Furthermore Rothstein (1983) had to postulate a special "predicate linking rule" which links the subject to the predicate. Today we have a ^" Rothstein (1983:20) formulates her definition in terms of c-command. Since we assume the presence of an argument position in the spec of the predicate, we have to define predicate in terms of rn-cotnmand to ensure that the saturating argument is outside the domain of the head of the predicate.

24


syntactic correlate of the open position, namely the predicate-internal subject position, which is an empty, hence referentially open, position after subject movement to Spec-IP. We can regard "predicate linking" simply as A-binding of the open position in the predicate, so no special predicate linking rule is required. Thus predication occurs when a category a contains an empty theta-position p which is locally A-bound by a category y outside the government domain of the head of a, as shown in (1.20). (1.20) ...y...[a ...p...], where a is maximal, P is empty, and y locally Abinds p. The level of representation where the predication condition (1.20) has to be met is LF. Thus P need not necessarily be empty in S-structure, as long as it is empty in LF. This accounts for constructions like (1.21), where the 'logical subject' is in VP in S-structure, the predicateexternal A-position (Spec-IP) being filled by an expletive pronoun. (1.21) a. b.

Detj har aldrig suttit faglarj i det tradet. there has never sat birds in that tree [jp Faglar; har aldrig [yp suttit e; i det tradet]]

(Swe)

Following Safir (1985) we assume the expletive pronoun is linked to (forms a chain with) the VP-internal argument in cases like this. Following Chomsky (1986b) we assume the expletive, lacking semantic content, is erased at LF, being obligatorily replaced by the contentbearing part of the chain. The result is a structure roughly as in (1.2 Ib), satisfying the predication condition (1.20). The theory of predication sketched above captures the essentials of the Extended Projection Principle of Chomsky (1982:10), according to which every clause must have a predicate-external argument position. We may formulate this principle in the following way (consider also Reuland (1985)): (1.22)

The Extended Projection Principle (EPP) At every level of representation of a clause there must be an external argument position outside the domain of the verb, a position which is coindexed with a theta-marked position within VP.

In the present framework the EPP follows from predication theory: The predicate-external argument position (i.e. Spec-IP) as well as the coindexing of this position with a theta-marked position within the predicate are required by predication theory. Note that although the predication condition is met only at LF in a case like (1.21), the EPP is


25

satisfied at S-structure as well given the analysis where the expletive and the predicate-internal argument are coindexed. 7.2.7. Government A structural relation of central importance for the licensing conditions of syntactic elements is the notion of Government. Following Rizzi (1990) we assume two kinds of government: Head Government and Antecedent Government; the definitions given in (1.23) and (1.24) are taken from Rizzi (1990:25) unless otherwise stated: (1.23)

Head Government: X head-governs Y iff (i) a. X is a head b. X m-commands Y (ii) X = {[±N], [±V], [+F]}2 1 (iii) a. no barrier intervenes b. Relativized Minimality is respected

(1.24)

Antecedent Government: X W-antecedent governs Y (W = {A, A', X0})22 iff (i) a. X is in a W-position b. X c-commands Y (ii) X and Y are coindexed2-5 (iii) a. no barrier intervenes b. Relativized Minimality is respected.

We interpret Relativized Minimality as suggested by Rizzi (1990:2): Relativized minimality "makes the blocking effect of an intervening governor relative to the nature of the government relation involved [...] if Z is a potential governor of some kind for Y, it will block only government of the same kind from X".

21

Rizzi (1990:25) formulates this condition as follows: X = {[±N], [±V], Agr, Tj. As will become evident in chapter two, the difference between our formulation and Rizzi's is not dramatic: for most non V2-Ianguages, [+FJ is situated in the same position as T, hence for these languages the difference is just notational. With respect to Agr, we will claim that only Agr which is nominal, i.e. has the feature value [+N], qualifies as a head governor. Hence most cases where Rizzi explicitly refers to Agr are handled in our system by the presence of the feature [+N]. The only case where our formulation makes a prediction different from Riz.7.i's formulation is for languages where Agr is not nominal and not in the same position as [+F], i.e. V2-languages with non-nominal Agr. Such languages should have no V-to-I in spite of having Agr. There are some MSc. dialects of this kind, e.g. the d i a l p r f of Mfl l l i m f d c i l p n i n N;orwnv fsrv T r n < i r f r i i r l ( I QR ( )^

22 Rizz.i uses this formulation in order to specify the three subcases of

antecedent eovernment: chains formed bv DP-movement. wh movement, and head movement. 23 Rizzi (1990:92) reformulates this condition as follows: (i) X and Y are nondistinct.

26 1.2.8.

The Role of Inflection in Scandinavian Syntax The Empty Category Principle

The occurrence of empty non-pronominal elements is regulated by the Empty Category Principle, ECP, which states that a non-pronominal empty category must be properly governed to be licensed, and thetagoverned or antecedent-governed to be identified. See Rizzi (1990:74). Discussing the ECP, Rizzi (1990:76-80) shows that it is possible to dispense with theta-government in the formulation of this principle. Furthermore, elaborating the concept referential index for the purpose of identifying empty arguments, Rizzi (1990:85-91) is able to reduce the ECP to the former formal licensing requirement: (1.25) Empty Category Principle A nonpronominal empty category must be properly head-governed. We define proper head-government as in (1.26). The definition is the same as Rizzi's (1990) except that Rizzi does not include clause (c). (1.26) X properly head-governs Y if a. X head-governs Y, b. X c-commands Y, and c. X is |±N,±V]. That is to say, while head-government only requires that the governor m-command the governee, proper head-government requires ccommand. In addition a properly governing head must be lexical, i.e. [±N,±V]. It is not sufficient that the governing head is [+F] (compare

(1.23ii)). 1.2.9

Head movement and the Procrastinate Principle

Head movement plays an important role in the present work. Until quite recently it has been standard to assume that the inflected form of the verb can be derived in two ways, either by raising the verb root from VP to I, the head (or heads, in languages where I is split) hosting the verbal inflections, or by lowering the inflections to the verb in VP. Languages would differ with respect to which way they do it. One of the central hypotheses in the present work is that ISc. and MSc. differ with respect to the syntax of the inflected verb. In earlier work (Platzack and Holmberg (1989), Holmberg and Platzack (1991)) we have proposed that the inflected verb is derived by raising V to I in ISc., but by lowering I to V in MSc., yielding (roughly) S-structure representations such as (1.27a,b), respectively:

27

Comparative Scandinavian Syntax (1.27) a. b.

aS Jon [j keyptijj (ekki) [yp [y e]i bokina] that Jon bought not the-book att Jon [j e]j (inte) [\/p [y koptejj boken ] that Jon not bought the-book

(Ice) (Swe)

It has often been noted that lowering I to V ("Affix Hop") is an odd sort of rule which appears to violate well-established conditions on movement and empty categories, in particular the ECP. Clearly the trace of a lowered I is not properly governed, according to standard definitions of (proper) government. 24 Chomsky (1991) assumed that the trace of the lowered I is erased by raising the inflected verb back to I in LF. In this way the ECP is not violated (assuming the ECP applies in LF). This solution, with head-movement back and forth, is obviously not very elegant. Instead Chomsky (1992) proposes a "lexicalist model" where the verb is always inserted in VP with its inflections already attached (see also Reuland and Kosmeijer (1988), Kosmeijer (1991)). The model still assumes that I (possibly split into Tense, Agr, Mood etc.) is a sentential head generated outside VP. This expresses the fact that Tense, Mood, etc. take scope at least over the predicate, if not the whole sentence. Verb raising to I is taken to be triggered by the requirement that the verb morphology be "checked" by the features of 1.25 This is assumed to be a universal requirement. The difference between verb raising and affix-lowering is now rephrased as a difference between verb raising in overt syntax, and verb raising only in LF. This difference would be comparable to the difference between applying whmovement in overt syntax (like English and the Scandinavian languages) and applying wh-movement only in LF (like Chinese and Japanese), following Huang (1982). Movement in Chomsky (1992) is taken to abide by two principles, called "Procrastinate" and "Greed", respectively. Procrastinate says that LF movement is less costly than overt movement. Hence such movement as is required by universal principles is delayed until LF unless overt movement is required for language-particular reasons, where, according to Chomsky (1992), the reasons can always be related to morphological properties: The morphological properties of, say, the verb in a given language may be such that they need to be realized in I in overt syntax. Greed says, informally, that a category a moves only if a itself needs to move in order to be licensed. In other words, a cannot move in order to satisfy some condition applying to another category (3. The alternative hypothesis, articulated in Baker (1988), Pollock (1989) and related work, is that the verb is inserted in its root (or stem) form, the inflections being attached by virtue of successive head 24

See, however, Einonds (1987) and Falk (1993). " Checking is required to ascertain that the sentential hcad(s) has (have) the same feature values as the verb morphology. Checking may involve other things; see Chomsky (1992).

28


movement to functional head positions. An attractive property of this hypothesis is that it implies a very strong claim about the order of the inflectional affixes: The order of affixes on the verb (or other inflected head) should mirror the syntactic position (= the relative scope) of the functional heads: The closer the affix is to the the lexical root, the closer it is to the lexical projection in syntactic structure, i.e. the lower on the tree (cf. the Mirror Principle of Baker (1985, 1988), Belletti (1990)). The lexicalist model does not make this claim as straightforwardly (although it can be formulated to do so: see Chomsky (1992)). However, since for independent reasons we do not assume a split I along the lines of Pollock (1989) for the Scandinavian languages, this possible weakness of the lexicalist model (relative to the Baker-Pollock model) does not affect our theory.^ ^ We will therefore assume the lexicalist model, according to which the verb is inserted with its inflections attached, V-raising applying in order to check the verbal morphology against the features of I. We will tentatively assume Procrastinate. We will not, however, assume Greed, since we will assume certain cases of head movement where the movement is required in order to license a category which is not the moved head itself. In particular we will argue that head movement to an abstract functional head is triggered in some cases by the need to lexicalize the abstract head. 1.3.

Case Theory

1.3.1. Lexical and structural Case-checking The central principle in standard Case theory, following Rouveret and Vergnaud (1980) and Chomsky (1980), is the so-called "Case Filter", a principle which requires that nominal arguments have Case, abstract if not morphological, where Case is assigned to the nominal arguments by

26 In fact the Mirror Principle encounters some problems in Scandinavian. Note that the

past tense inflection is closer to the verb root than the passive inflection in the synthetic passive (the present tense inflection cannot cooccur at all with the synthetic passive inflection), (i) a Johan arrestera+de+s. Johan arrest+PAST+PASS "Johan was arrested" b. *Johan arrestera+s+de. Since there are very good reasons to believe that tense has wider scope than PASS, the Mirror Principle seems to be violated. That tense has wider scope than PASS is shown, for instance, by the fact that in compound tenses, tense is realized on the auxiliary and passive on the main verb: (ii) Johan ha+de arresterat+s. Johan have+PAST arrcsted+PASS "Johan had been arrested"

Comparative Scandinavian Syntax.

29

certain heads. 27 Following (at least in spirit) Chomsky (1986b), Freidin and Sprouse (1991) and SigurQsson (1991) we make a distinction between Case-assignment and Case-licensing, or, in a lexicalist model, lexical Case-checking and structural Case-checking. Correspondingly the Case Filter is broken up into two distinct conditions: one says, loosely speaking, that a nominal category should have a Case matching its lexical environment, the other says, very loosely speaking, that a nominal category should have a Case matching its structural (or functional) environment. One of the reasons that the distinction has gone unnoticed until quite recently is that Case theory has been formulated mainly on the basis of languages with little or no Case morphology. The distinction is brought to light when we consider the behaviour of lexically Case-marked arguments in a language with morphological Cases, such as Icelandic. As noted by Sigur9sson (1988, 1992) and Freidin and Sprouse (1991) morphological Case assigned by lexical heads is not on its own sufficient to satisfy the Case Filter in Icelandic (the same holds true in Faroese, Old Scandinavian, and, according to Freidin and Sprouse (1990), Russian). Consider for instance (1.28) (N = nominative, A = accusative, D = dative, SUBJ = subjunctive, INF = infinitive). (1.28) a. b. c. d. e.

Eg vil a3 bu hjalpir Joni. I want that you(N) help(SUBJ) Jon(D) Eg vil aS Joni verSi hjalpaS. I, want that Jon(D) be(SUBJ) helped Eg astla a5 PRO hjalpa Joni. I want to help(INF) Jon(D) *Eg astla ad bu hjalpa Joni. 28 I want to you help (INF) Jon (D) *£g setla a8 Joni vera hjalpaS. I want to Jon (D) be(INF) helped

We will henceforth refer to Case morphology as "m-case". Hjalpa "help" is a transitive verb which assigns dative m-case to its object. In a finite passive clause the dative object is moved to the subject position (SpecIP; see chapter 4 below for discussion and references), retaining its dative Case form. As shown by (1.28c,d,e) the infinitival counterpart does not accept a lexical subject. A widely accepted explanation of the ungrammaticality of constructions like (1.28d) (following Chomsky (1980)) is that it violates the Case Filter: the subject of the infinitival

27 following standard practise we consistently spell Case in the grammatical sense with a capital C. 28 Following Platzack (1986) we assume the morpheme aS heading infinitival clauses is a complementizer, generated under C, not under I like English to. Hence it precedes the subject.

30


sentence cannot be assigned nominative (or any other Case).29 Note that it does not help if the lexical subject has a lexical Case, assigned to it in D-structure and carried along under movement : (1.28e) is just as ill-formed as (1.28d). That is to say, lexical morphological Case alone is not sufficient to license an argument. The conclusion we draw from this is that nominal categories (N, NP, D, DP, pronouns, pronominal clitics, and certain agreement morphemes) are subject to two distinct conditions both of which involve Case. In accordance with the lexicalist hypothesis, we assume that morphologically Case-marked nominal categories are inserted in Case-inflected form, the Case-inflection then being checked against the syntactic context. We assume it is subject to two checks. The first could be called a lexical check: checking that the governing lexical head, if there is one, has a matching feature. Thus for instance a dative DP in Icelandic must be governed by a head subcategorized for dative. The second check might be called a structural (or functional) check. As we will see, there is a condition that the head of an A(rgument)-chain, if it is nominal (hence has Case), must be in construction with a certain type of functional head feature. The problem in, for instance, (1.28d,e) is not that the offending argument has no Case or has the wrong Case; that is to say the sentences pass the lexical check. Instead the problem is that the Case is not licensed by a functional category of the required sort, that is to say the sentences do not pass the structural check. In a language without m-case we assume every nominal category has abstract Case. More precisely, we assume nominals have a feature [Case] which is assigned a value freely, the possible values (at least in MSc.) being [±nom], i.e. nominative and accusative. Subsequently the category is subject to lexical checking and structural checking, just as in languages with m-case. The lexical Case-checking part of the Case Filter can be formulated as in (1.29), where Xn is X' or X", i.e. the argument can be a complement or a specifier of X°. (1.29) Lexical Case-checking (Case assignment): [ X n X° DP] [ocCase] [aCase] The head must have a "subcategorization feature" matching the Case feature of the argument it governs. The simplest way to represent the subcategorization feature is by a Case feature, the same Case feanre as is born by the argument. As mentioned, we represent nominative and (structural) accusative as [+nom] and [-nom], respectively. We suggest representing the oblique Cases by unary features. For instance Icelandic has [±nom, dat] (dative), [±nom, gen] (genitive), and [±nom, ace] 29 " The issue of Case-marking of the subject of infinitivals in Icelandic is more complicated than implied in the text: see Sigur3sson (1991).


31

(lexical accusative). We assume the oblique Cases are marked [±nom] since they are subject to the same structural licensing conditions as nominative and structural accusative, to be discussed below. In the configuration (1.29) the Case features may have their value specified in the following ways: (a) The values of both the head and the argument may be lexically specified, as in the case of a dative argument being governed by a head subcategorized for dative. In this case we will say that the head and the argument bear the same feature [±nom, dat]. (b) The value of the argument may be lexically specified while the head is unspecified in the lexicon, for instance when a morphologically accusative argument is governed by a transitive verb not subcategorized for a particular Case. In this case the head is assigned a Case value freely, but if the value differs from that of the governed argument the structure is ruled out. (c) The value of neither head nor argument is lexically specified. This is the standard situation in languages without m-case. In this case both the head and the argument are assigned a Case feature value freely, but the result must conform to the lexical Case-checking condition (1.29). (d) The head has a lexically specified feature but not the argument, in which case the argument must be assigned a feature value matching that of the head. Prepositions in MSc. (and English) are lexically specified as [-nom]. Hence the argument of a preposition must be assigned the same feature. Verbs (even transitive verbs) are not specified as [-nom], since they may take a nominative object under certain conditions (see next subsection). In addition we recognize the following mechanisms of Caseassignment: (e) An argument which is not lexically governed at all is assigned [+nom] by default (or inserted by default in the case of morphologically marked nominative). This accounts for the fact that nominative (in for instance Icelandic) is the citation form as well as the form inserted in lexically ungoverned positions, typically the subject position of transitive sentences. Note that [-i-nom] can also occur in lexically governed positions. (f) A Case may be assigned to a certain structural position, by a language-particular rule. A case of this sort will be discussed in chapter 7. An important assumption in the present theory is that certain functional categories have inherent Case-value. Thus Agr (in the sense Agr-S, i.e. the subject-verb agreement element) is inherently [+nom], hence it can only be coindexed with a nominative argument. Agr-O, i.e. the object agreement morpheme, in those languages which have it, is presumably inherently [-nom]. The head Act, we assume, is also inherently [-nom], playing a part in the licensing of [-nom] arguments. As an example, consider the embedded clause in (1.28b), repeated here as (1.30a). It has roughly the structure (1.30b):

32


(1.30) a. b.

Eg vil a3 Joni verSi hjalpa3. I want that John(D) be(SUBJ) helped ad [ip Jonij verQi [yp [V hjalpaS ej ]]] D 3sg D D

The moved object and its trace form a dative A(rgument)-chain. The subcategorization of the verb is satisfied by virtue of the trace. Since the subject is dative, there can be no subject agreement; the finite auxiliary bears the default 3sg form. This is because the agreement element Agr is nominative and therefore cannot be coindexed with a non-nominative argument. The following is a preliminary formulation of the structural Casechecking part of the Case Filter:^ (1.31) Structural Case-checking (Case-licensing): If Z is a category with Case and Z is the head of an A-chain, then Z must be headgoverned by (a) [+F], if Z is [+nom], or (b) Act, if Z is [-nom]. Chapters 2-5 in the present work are largely concerned with the interplay of finiteness, nominative, and subject agreement in Scandinavian and other languages. Thus condition (a) in (1.31) will be particularly important. For the most part we will refer to structural Case-checking simply as Case-licensing. Arguments governed by P are not subject to structural Case-checking, which may be understood as a consequence of P being a functional as well as (in most cases) a lexical category. We will say that PP is "inherently Case-licensed". The assumption that every nominal is assigned nominative by default entails that there are no Case Filter violations in the sense of nominals without Case. In the context of a language with m-case this is to say that the lexicon contains no Caseless forms of nouns, pronouns, etc. Instead most of the "standard" Case Filter violations discussed in the literature violate Case licensing. This includes cases like the following: (1.32) a. b.

*It seems Mary to leave *I'm proud John.

In (1.32a) the subject of the infinitival is governed neither by [+F] nor by Act (seem does not take an external argument, hence does not 30

Cf. Chomsky's (1986) Chain Condition: A maximal A-chain (a ]...an) has exactly one Case-marked position (namely al) and exacdy one 0-marked position (namely a n ). We assume the Chain Condition, except that "Case-marked" is replaced with "Caselicensed", in our sense. (i)

33


project Act). In (1.32b) the object is governed by an adjective, a lexical category which cannot host any of the Case-licensing head features. 7.5.2

Structural accusative Case and the analysis of the predicate

One of the differences between the present Case theory and more traditional Case theory, as in Chomsky (1981), concerns the Case of objects of transitive verbs. The accusative Case rule in Chomsky (1981) is (1.33): (1.33) NP is objective if governed by V with the subcategorization feature [_NP] (i.e. transitive). (Chomsky (1981: 177)) Expressing transitivity in terms of a subcategorization feature [_ NP] is clearly inadequate. Ergative verbs do take an object argument, but do not assign accusative Case to it. In English therefore the object of an ergative verb has to be moved to subject position, according to standard GB theory (*There have come three men/ ®^Three men have come). If the object of an ergative verb remains in object position, as is possible in e.g. the Scandinavian languages, it is usually assigned nominative, not accusative (for verbs not subcategorized for an oblique Case). Since, for reasons which we shall discuss in chapter 5, the object has to be indefinite and hence cannot be a pronoun, the Case is overt only in Icelandic and the other ISc. languages. (1.34) £a-features (person, number, etc.). Once the check is completed Agr must be deleted, since Agr is not licit in PF; it has no phonetic interpretation. Following Pollock (1989) Chomsky assumes that languages may have either "strong" or "weak" Agr. Only strong Agr needs to be deleted before PF: weak Agr is invisible in PF and therefore need not be deleted before PF. This entails that in languages with strong Agr agreement checking must take place in overt syntax, before the derivation branches into PF and LF. Checking the features of the verb requires V-movement to Agr; consequently Vmovement to I in overt syntax is obligatory in languages with strong Agr. In a language with weak Agr, checking can be postponed until LF. Given the Procrastinate principle (see 1.2.9) it must, therefore, be postponed until LF. Consequently there need not be V-movement to I in overt syntax in a language with weak Agr. If, nevertheless, there is Vmovement, it must be triggered by something other than the need to check agreement.^ The notion of weak Agr being invisible in PF suggests that we represent weak Agr as empty Agr. We assume that weak Agr is Agr unspecified with respect to all (|>-features. Being empty/unspecified, weak Agr copies the features of the DP in Spec-IP, and subsequently checks that the verb has the same features. Note in particular that weak Agr has no specification for Case, i.e. it is not inherently nominative. All this entails that weak Agr cannot license an empty pronominal pro in Spec-IP. Empty, featureless Agr cannot license an empty, featureless subject pronoun. Hence a language with weak Agr must have an overt expletive in sentences lacking a subject 9-role. French is an example of such a language: it has agreement morphology, but does not license pro in Spec-IP (this will be discussed in more detail below). We therefore postulate that French has weak Agr (contra Pollock (1989) and Chomsky (1991), who argue that French has strong Agr). That is to say, V-movement to 1° in French is not triggered by strong Agr, but rather by "strong Tense", in Chomsky's (1992) terms. According to Chomsky (1992) tense inflection on the verb is checked in

7 The discussion in this chapter is simplified to the extent that 1° always takes a VP complement: as outlined in section 1.3., we actually assume the presence of a voice phrase above VP, viz. ActP. 8 Apart from certain aspects of checking theory, as outlined here, our theory is not couched in the 'minimalist' framework of Chomsky (1992). Cf. section 1.2.

50


basically the same way as agreement inflection. In a language with "strong T", V-movement to T is obligatory in overt syntax, while in a language with "weak T" V-movement must wait until LF. In the present framework "strong T" is equal to 1° containing the feature [+F]. In a language like French, where 1° hosts [+F], V is raised to 1° in overt syntax to provide the node hosting [+F] with lexical content. Unless there is some other means in a language to lexicalize 1°, we expect V-toI to occur in overt syntax in all languages where [+F] is in 1°. Since Swedish is a V2-language, [+F] is in C°. To give lexical content to the head hosting [+F], V must raise to this position in overt syntax, unless C° is lexicalized in some other way, usually by a complementizer.^ Generally speaking, V raises to C° in main clauses, but not in subordinate clauses. Assuming that relativized minimality prevents a head from adjoining anywhere but to the closest c-commanding head, we conclude that a V moved out of VP in Swedish must adjoin to 1° on its way to C°; thus the tense feature of V is checked in overt syntax in Swedish main clauses. In Swedish embedded clauses, on the other hand, there is no movement to 1° in overt syntax. Since V must raise to 1° in order to check the tense affix, we must assume that this raising in Swedish embedded clauses takes place at LF. Consider next the restrictions imposed by the condition on [+F] in (2.2): to be licit, this feature must be in a head which governs a nominative element. There are two possible positions for the required nominative when [+F] is in 1°: Spec-IP or Spec-VP. 10 However, whereas both positions are theoretically possible for a nominative DP licensed by and licensing [+F] in 1°, only Spec-IP is available in French. In our description this follows from the combined effect of the Extended Projection Principle (EPP; see section 1.2.6. above) and the conditions on small pro. According to our conception of the EPP there must be an external argument position (Spec-IP) outside the domain of the verb, which is coindexed with a theta-marked position within VP. If the subject remains in Spec-VP, the EPP forces the presence of an expletive pro in Spec-IP which is coindexed with the VP internal subject (see chapters 4 and 5 below). This instance of pro will not be licit: In our description of French, Agr is empty, i.e. contains no inherent nominal features, hence pro cannot get the necessary identification. Thus Spec-VP is ruled out as a possible position for the nominative element necessary for the licensing of [+F] in 1° in French. 9 C° may also be lexicalized by the adverb kanske 'maybe', which has the effect that main

clauses with kanske have the tensed verb following sentence adverbials, as in embedded clauses: (i) Erik kanske intc har rest an. *Erik kanske har inte rest an. E. maybe not has gone yet E. maybe has not gone yet 10 Actually, there are three positions available in case the language has strong (nominative) Agr. Since this is not the case in French, we will disregard this possibility here.

A General Theory of Sentence Structure

51

The licensing condition (2.2), together with the EPP and the identificational requirement on pro thus forces movement of the nominative DP from Spec-VP to Spec-IP. In Swedish, where [+F] is in C°, a nominative DP in Spec-VP is not governed by [+F] in C°. Hence, as in French, the licensing condition (2.2) forces movement of the nominative DP from Spec-VP to SpecIP, a position head governed by C°. For languages of the French and the Swedish types, our description also offers the theoretical alternative that the subject DP remains in Spec-VP, with an overt nominative expletive in Spec-IP, coindexed with Spec-VP. This expletive would be // in French and det in Swedish. In such a case the nominative in Spec-VP would be indirectly licensed according to (2.5b), and the licensing condition on [+F] (2.2.) would be met by the presence of the nominative expletive in Spec-IP. Furthermore, since this expletive element is coindexed with the DP in Spec-VP, there is no violation of the EPP. However, this account would incorrectly predict that the following ungrammatical sequences are wellformed: (2.11)

a. b.

*I1 embrasse souvent un garcon Marie, *Det kysser ofta en pojke Marie, it kisses often a boy Marie

We will return to the ungrammaticality of examples like (2.11) in chapter five below, showing that there is a further requirement on positions where DPs are allowed to surface: roughly, these positions must be properly head governed by a category with nominal features. Since neither French nor Swedish have any nominal features in 1°, examples like (2.11) are ruled out. 2.3.

Languages with [+F] in Infl

2.3.1.

Introduction

As noted in the last section, our theory of structural nominative Case licensing in terms of the finiteness feature [+F] and its position vis-a-vis the functional categories has universal ambitions: we claim that the licensing conditions for nominative Case in (2.5), together with the licensing condition for [+F] in (2.2) and the definitions of government in (2.6) and (2.7), will be essentially sufficient for describing the distribution of nominative elements in all languages.* ^ We will

11 ,See Roberts (1993) for another

theory of the distribution of nominative elements based 3n a comparison of a number of languages.

52


demonstrate the use of these licensing conditions for describing languages belonging to different language families. The parameter (2.1) gives us two possible hosts for [+F]: C° or 1°. Languages in which [+F] is in C°, i.e. verb second languages, will be discussed in detail in chapter three below. Here we will consider the implications of our approach for sentence structure and nominative Case licensing in languages that do not show the verb second constraint. Like French, which was discussed in the last section, such languages have the finiteness feature [+F] in 1°. It follows from the licensing conditions of [+F] that its host must have lexical features; furthermore, there must be a nominative element in the vicinity of the host of [+F] which is governed by it, thus making [+F] visible. These requirements are met in different ways in different languages; in general, however, we expect languages of this type to use V-to-I° movement in overt syntax to lexicalize the host of [+F], as already mentioned. Above we have illustrated the use of V-to-P in French: below we will show that V-to-I° occurs in overt syntax not only in other Romance languages, but also in languages from other, quite distinct, language families, including the Kru languages, the Celtic languages, and the Finno-Ugric languages. English seems to be an exception: although [+F] is in 1° in English, there is no general movement of V-to-I° in overt syntax in this language. 12 2.3.2. Romance Languages In section 2.2. we used French to illustrate how our general theory of sentence structure and nominative Case accounts for languages where the finiteness feature [+F] is in 1°: the V°-head of the VP that is head governed by 1° is moved to 1°, and adjoined to this head, creating a complex head. In French, where 1° dominates Tense and weak Agr the result of V-to-P would look like (2.12), where the notation [0person, Onumber] signifies the absence of inherent specification for the nominal features person and number.

' 2 Although the languages we shall discuss are genetically quite distinct, they are typologically similar in certain, possibly crucial, respects: They are all nominativeaccusative (i.e. not ergative-absolutivc), and they are all dependent-marking rather than head-marking (in terms of Nichols (1986)). We would like to think that our theory, appropriately generali/.ed, holds for languages which are typologically distinct from Scandinavian in these respects, too, but we do not have any examples at present.

A General Theory of Sentence Structure (2.12)

53

1° +F

1°

V

i +F

+F;

T

Agr fl person fl number

In other Romance languages, e.g. Italian and Spanish, the result of V-toI is (2.13): (2.13)

1° •+F

V

r

*-F T

1° [+FJ

Agr nominative aperson anumber

The difference between (2.12) and (2.13) is that Agr in (2.13) is inherently specified for person and number, as well as marked with nominative Case. We will henceforth refer to Agr specified for features (nominal features) as "nominal Agr" (rather than "strong Agr"), to be distinguished from "non-nominal Agr" as in French. See Zagona (1988, eg. p. 168). The Case of Agr, we claim, is always nominative, while there is a choice of three persons and two numbers. Inherent specification is a precondition for licensing of pro in Spec-IP: unspecified Agr obviously cannot identify pro, i.e. provide pro with feature specifications, being itself dependent on spec-head agreement with a nominal category in spec-IP for feature specification. Therefore e.g. Italian and Spanish, but not French, allow the presence of small pro in Spec-IP. Consider the Italian and French counterparts in (2.14): (2.14) a. b.

Balla. dances 3sg. pres. *(I1 / Elle) danse. he / she dances

(It.) (Fr.)

Being nominative, Agr in Italian and Spanish must meet the same licensing conditions as other nominative elements, i.e. the conditions specified in (2.5). It is important to notice that the presence of nominative Agr satisfies the licensing condition (2.2) for [+F]: thus in languages where Agr is nominative, it is not necessary to have an overt nominative DP (or its trace) in Spec-IP (or Spec-VP), whereas in

54


languages where Agr is not nominative (or not even present), a nominative DP is necessary in Spec-IP for [+F] to govern a phonetically realized nominative element. Thus an overt pronoun is required in (2.14b) for two reasons: (a) pro cannot be identified in Spec-IP, and (b) [+F] is not licensed in I. Note that French also requires an overt pronoun in Spec-IP in constructions lacking a subject 0-role, such as existential constructions: il arrivera quelque chose d'extraordinaire "it will happen something extraordinary". In this case identification of the features of pro is, arguably, not required. In our theory the overt expletive pronoun is required all the same, in order to license [+F]. Languages where Spec-IP does not need to contain an overt nominative DP (or its trace) may realize small pro in this position. Following Rizzi (1986) we assume that pro must be formally licensed and identified. In our system, which will be discussed in more detail in chapter four below, pro is licensed when it is head-governed by a Caselicensing head, and its interpretation is dependent on the grammatical specifications of the features of this head. In a case like (2.14a), pro is head-governed by 1° with [+F] and thereby licensed, and it is identified as having the same ^-features as Agr in 1°, including, in the case of Italian, features for person and number, which gives pro a referential interpretation. The presence of nominal Agr in Italian also accounts for the phenomenon of free inversion found in Romance null-subject languages,1 ^ but not in French. Consider the contrast between Italian and French illustrated in (2.15a,b): (2.15) a. b.

Ha telefonato Maria. *A telephone Marie. has telephoned Mary

(It.) (Fr.)

13 Free inversion is found with all types of DPs (definite/indefinite) and all types of verbs (ergatives, intransitives, transitives). Consider the following two cases with an intransitive verb (i) (the example is taken from Belletti (1988:7)) and a transitive verb (ii); the example in (ii) is due to Maria-Teresa Guasti (p.c.): (i) Ha parlato con Piero il ragazzo. has spoke with Piero the boy (ii) A quel professore ha dato un libro Mario. to that professor has given a book Mario. According to the description we propose in chapter five below, a definite nominative in Spec-VP must be indirectly licensed via a chain of heads, where the first element in the chain is a nominative clement head governed by [+F]. In the Italian cases we have a chain of heads starting with 1° and ending with the verb of VP. Since Agr is part of the first element of this chain, and Agr is head governed by [+F], this description is compatible with (2.2) and (2.5). In French, on the other hand, no head chain of this kind can be established, since Agr in 1° in French is not Case marked.


55

As we have seen, Spec-VP in French cannot contain a nominative element, since that would force the presence of an unidentified pro in Spec-IP. In Italian, where 1° hosts nominal Agr and thus small pro in Spec-IP is licit, a nominative in Spec-VP is not forced to move to Spec-IP. Nevertheless Italian is like French in not accepting a nominative DP immediately following the finite verb, as shown in (2.16): (2.16)

a. b.

*A [yp Jean pris le livre]. hasj. taken the book *Ha [yp Gianni preso il libro]. has G. taken the book

Whereas the French example in (2.16a) is ruled out since it must contain an unidentified small pro, we cannot explain the ungrammaticality of the Italian example (2.16b) in the same way.14 We suggest that the Romance null subject languages differ from French, English and other Germanic languages in having Spec-VP to the right of the rest of VP. 1 5 jf ^s js COrrect we derive the ungrammaticality of (2.16b): there is no place for a DP immediately to the right of the finite verb. Hence the structure of the Italian example (2.15a) is (2.17):'°

14 According to Roberts (1993), the ungrammaticality of the French and Italian examples in (2.16) is derived from Case Theory: in Roberts' deseription, nominative Case is assigned under agreement but not government in both French and Italian. In examples like (2.16) the finite verb is in Agr°; there is no Spec-head agreement relation between the finite verb and the subject in Spec-VP. Since such a relation is necessary for nominative Case assignment in these two languages, the examples in (2.16) are ruled out. 15 Our hypothesis is indirectly supported by the following interpretation of the data presented in Valian's (1991) study of the use of subjects in early Italian, given that the earliest sentential structures of child language do not contain any functional categories but can be represented as simple VPs (consider e.g. Lebeaux (1988), Radford (1986), Platzack (1990)). In the earliest recordings where subjects could be discerned, i.e. the stage where we expect sentence structure to contain no functional categories, the Italian children produced twice as many post-verbal as pre-verbal subjects, indicating that Spec-VP in their language is to the right of V. In later recordings, when functional categories should be available, the number of pre-verbal subjects increased considerably, indicating movement to Spec-IP. We stress that Valian should not be held responsible for this interpretation of her data. 16 The structure is simplified since we have not illustrated the raising of the auxiliary.

56


IP

(2.17)

r

DP

i

~+F ~ Agr norm

VP V

DP

V pro

ha

telefonato

Maria

Having shown how our system accounts for the main facts regarding sentence structure and the distribution of nominatives in SVO languages such as French and Italian, we will now turn to languages of other types, before coming back to the SVO-language English at the end of this section. In languages with [+F] in 1°, where the underlying word order is not strictly SVO, the forced movement of the verb to 1° reveals itself as a difference with respect to the positions of finite and non-finite main verbs. Firstly we will briefly consider some facts about the Krulanguages Vata and Gbadi, secondly we will discuss some data from Celtic languages, mainly Welsh and Irish, and finally we will briefly discuss some aspects of Hungarian word order. 2.2.3. The Kru-languages It has been shown by Koopman (1984:42) that the main verb in the Kru-languages Vata and Gbadi, spoken on the Ivory Coast, has different positions in relation to its complement depending on whether it is tensed or not: a tensed main verb precedes its complement in these languages, as shown in (2.18a), whereas an untensed main verb follows its complement (2.18b); the main verb is given in bold face: (2.18) a.

alisaka we ate rice b. a la saka li we PERF-A rice eat

According to Koopman (1984:42 ff.), these facts indicate that the Krulanguages are verb final underlyingly, and that the finite V must move to 1°. Koopman (1984:140) argues that this movement must take place in order to Case-mark the subject DP in Spec-IP. Koopman's analysis is compatible with our approach in terms of the finiteness feature [+F]. The structure of (2.l8a) will look like (2.19):

57


IP

(2.19)

r

DP

i +F;

»i

11

j

VP DP

e

i

V DP

V

saka

e

j

AS in French and Italian, the host of [+F] has been lexicalized with the help of V-to-I° in overt syntax: the verb // 'eat' has moved from its position in VP to 1°. Since there is no subject-verb agreement in the Kru-languages, we assume that there is no Agr in 1°. This assumption is supported by the absence of null-subjects in Vata and Gbadi - as we saw above, null subjects presuppose the presence of nominal Agr in 1°. Since there is no Agr in 1°, the subject cannot remain in Spec-VP for the same reason as in French: in such a case EPP would force the presence of small pro in Spec-IP, and this instance of pro cannot be identified due to the absence of Agr in 1°. Consequently, the subject must move from Spec-VP to Spec-IP. 2.3.4. Celtic Languages

Consider next the Celtic languages, where finite main verbs often precede the subject, whereas non-finite main verbs follow the subject. For instance Welsh allows the word order Verb - Subject - Object alongside with the order Auxiliary - Subject - Verb - Object. Consider the following examples, where the main verbs are in bold face: (2.20) a. b.

Gwelodd y plentyn ceffyl saw the child horse Gwnaeth y plentyn weld ceffyl did the child see horse

On the basis of data like these, Harlow (1981) and Sproat (1985) have claimed that the finite verb is moved to a front position in Welsh. This description is immediately compatible with our theory, where (2.20a) might be given the following S-structure.^ 17 The absence of Spec-IP is taken to be a general property of Celtic languages. See the discussion in Guilfoyle (1990: chapter two). If it is correct that Spec-IP is absent in Celtic

58


IP

(2.20a)

I1

I +F . & nornj

VP

V

DP

gweloddj y plentyn saw the child

V

DP

e

ceffyl horse

i

As indicated, we assume 1° in Welsh to host not only [+F] but also (nominative) Agr;18 this is indicated by the fact that the finite verb is inflected for person and number, as well as the possibility of having null-subjects, as shown in (2.21). (2.21) Canon (nhw) bob dydd. sing-past-pl (they) every day "They sang every day." Given that Welsh has nominative Agr, ^ the word order facts follow immediately from our account. The movement of the verb to 1° in overt syntax is forced in order to lexicalize the host of [+F]. Since there is Agr in 1°, the subject may remain in Spec-VP. We will assume that a nominative in this position is licensed in the same way as a nominative DP in Spec-VP in Italian, the only difference being that Spec-VP is to the left of V in Welsh, to the right of V in Italian.^ 0 23.5. Hungarian In this section we will show that our proposal in terms of [+F] and nominative Case licensing can be successfully extended to a language like Hungarian, which has been analyzed by several scholars as a nonconfigurational language. Consider the discussion in E. Kiss (1987), where the relative freedom of word order and absence of evidence for a languages, our interpretation of the EPP implies that all Celtic languages have a nominal Agr in 1° which can perform the duty of a VP-external argument. 18 Presumably, Welsh 1° should be expanded like Italian 1°, shown in (2.14) above. 19 A complicating factor is that there is no morphological agreement when the subject is a non-pronominal DP. 20 Dooley-Collberg (1991) has shown that the description here proposed for Welsh can be successfully applied to Irish as well.

59


VP are adduced as support of the hypothesis that Hungarian is nonconfigurational. However, Maracz (1989) and Speas (1990) have argued for a configurational analysis of Hungarian. Our presentation here is based on Maracz' and Speas' descriptions. In general, maximal projections in Hungarian are head-final, whereas the unmarked sentential word order is SVO. As both Maracz and Speas note, these facts indicate the presence of verb-movement from VPfinal position to a functional category governing VP; furthermore, the possibility of both VOS and VSO indicates, according to Speas (1990:182-3), that Hungarian allows Spec-VP either to the left or to the right of V. Interpreting these data in our terms, we conclude that Hungarian should have the finiteness feature [+F] in 1°. The presence of morphological subject-verb agreement as well as empty referential subjects furthermore indicate that 1° hosts nominative Agr. The discussion above suggests the following analyses of the examples in (2.22) and (2.23). 21 In (2.22) we illustrate the cases where the sentence starts with the tensed verb, in (2.23) the cases where a DP has been moved to Spec-IP, which is the focus position:

IP

(2.22) a.

r i

I +F Agrnoiru

VP V

DP V

kerestej a fonoke ei looked-for die boss-his (nom)

21

The examples are taken from Speas (1990:182-3).

DP Janost John (ace)

60


IP

b.

r i

+F

VP

-

Agr nom

DP

V V

kereste; looked-for

DP

i Janost a fonoke Janost (ace) the boss-his (nom)

e

In these structures, the verb is forced to move to 1° in order to lexicalize [+F]: the presence of this feature is licit since there is nominative Agr in P (consider 2.2). Consequently, there is no need for an overt nominative element in Spec-IP to license [+F]. We will assume that a nominative in this position is licensed in the same way as a nominative in Spec-VP in Italian, the only difference being that SpecVP is obligatorily to the right of V in Italian. Any one of the DPs in (2.22) may be moved to Spec-IP, the focus position; the relevant analyses are given in (2.23):

IP

(2.23)

r

DP

i

+F A

1

^nom

VP V

DP V

e a. a fonoke; kerestej J the boss-his (nom) looked-for b. Janost; kerestej a fonoke

DP

ei Janost John (ace) ei

e

j

According to Speas (1990:183), the possibility of having various topicalized phrases in front of the focus position (Spec-IP) can be described as instances of adjunction to IP.


61

2.3.6. English In the previous subsections we have considered several languages where [+F] in 1° is lexicalized in overt syntax by means of verb movement. English differs from the languages discussed above in one important respect: only auxiliaries seem to appear in 1°. This is indicated e.g. by the fact that auxiliaries precede sentence adverbs like never, hardly etc., whereas other verbs follow these adverbials. Consider the examples in (2.24): (2.24)

a. b. c. d. e. f. g. h. i.

John will surely understand this. *John understands surely this. John surely understands this. John must never leave. *John leaves never. John never leaves. John did not buy the book, *John bought not the book, *John not bought this book.

Disregarding the question of whether or not the auxiliaries are base generated in 1° or moved there from some position within VP, it should be clear that the presence of lexical material in 1° is all that is required under our proposal. Hence, (2.24a) might be given the structure (2.25), assuming the auxiliary to be base generated in 1°. In this structure, [+F] is lexicalized by the auxiliary. Since Agr in English is weak, i.e. unspecified for all nominal features, a DP in Spec-VP must move to Spec-IP as a consequence of the EPP together with the theory of pro. The situation in English is the same as in French: the alternative to subject movement to Spec-IP would be to insert an expletive small pro in Spec-IP, but this pro would not be identified due to the absence of nominal Agr.22

22 We will not discuss the remnants of V2 in English, i.e. direct questions or whquestions, where the finite verb seems to be in C°. See Rizzi (1991a) for some interesting suggestions.

62


IP

(2.25)

r

DP

VP

i +F" ACT

VP

AdvP

DP

John j will

surely

e

V V

DP

i understand

this

If the description outlined above is correct, the crucial question is how [+F] is lexicalized in (2.24c) and (2.24f), where no verb movement to 1° seems to have taken place. We will here elaborate on the suggestion made by Pollock (1989: 404) that English has a null counterpart of the auxiliary do, i.e. 0, which shares all its defining properties except its phonological form;^^ hence (2.24c,f) have roughly the same structure as (2.24g), where the dummy auxiliary is overt. Still following Pollock (1989), we assume the presence of a Neg Phrase headed by the negation in cases like (2.24i), which acts as a barrier for V-to-I, blocking the LF movement of the tensed verb and thus preventing the tense inflection from being checked. 2.4.

The loss of Verb Second in French and English.

2.4.1.

Introduction

In this section^^ we will show that our theory of structural nominative Case licensing in terms of the finiteness feature [+F] and its position visa-vis the functional categories is supported by data from the loss of V2 in English and French. Both languages ceased to be V2-languages during the Middle Ages: Middle English (ME) and Old French (OF) were V2languages, whereas the following stages, Early Modern English and Middle French, respectively, must be considered non-V2-languages.

23 Pollock uses the term "its lexical character". However, we assume that 0 is a lexical element lacking phonological form, hence the formulation in the text. 24 The discussion in this section relies heavily on Platzack (forthcoming); a similar explanation for the loss of V2 in English and French is presented in Hulk & van Kemenade (forthcoming). Consider also van Kemenade (1987) and Vance (1989) for alternative attempts to explain the loss of V2 in English and French, respectively.


63

According to our theory, the change from a V2 grammar to a non-V2 grammar indicates a change of position of [+F]: in V2-languages [+F] is in C°, in non-V2-languages, [+F] is in 1°. Since the presence of [+F] in a head influences the properties of this head (the head hosting [+F] must be lexicalized to participate in nominative Case licensing, and a head hosting [+F] always counts as a head governor), our description predicts that a change from a V2-grammar to a non-V2-grammar is accompanied by certain other syntactic changes. As we will see below, the loss of V2 in English and French takes place at the same time as other syntactic changes that can be explained on the basis of a change in position for the fmiteness feature [+F]. 2.4.2.

Subject

Clitics

As claimed in Platzack (forthcoming), prior to the loss of V2 both ME and OF had developed grammars with V2, SVO, and subject clitics; in such grammars, there are very few signs which unambiguously indicate verb second. The SVO word order can be produced both by a grammar with verb second and by a non-V2 grammar where SVO is the underlying word order. The same is true of sentences with a pronominal subject between the topic and the tensed verb: only a clitic interpretation of this pronoun is compatible with a V2 grammar. Hence for both French and English there is a period when an overwhelming majority of the sentences uttered could be given two different structural interpretations. Such a situation is a necessary prerequisite for a syntactic change to take place. Platzack (forthcoming) gives support for the hypothesis that the existence of such a stage in both English and French triggered the loss of V2. The crucial part of Platzack (forthcoming) is the claim that both English and French display subject clitics prior to the loss of V2. This claim is based on examples such as given in (2.26); in these examples the subject pronoun is in bold face: (2.26)

a. b.

Certis flei ben opyn foolis, and...(Wycliffe, late 14C)2^ certainly they are open fools Alors je deiz de mot a mot tout ...(Jehan de Saintre, 15C)2" then I said from word to word all "Then I said word for word everything..."

Given the possibility of subject clitics, there are two different structural interpretations of sentences like (2.26): the subject pronoun may be in

25 The example is found in van Kemenade (1987:200) 26 The example is found in Vance (1989:158).

64


Spec-IP, like an ordinary subject, or it may be cliticized to the finite verb. These two options are illustrated in (2.27): (2.27)

a. b.

Certis Qp beij Q benj ] [yp ej [y ej ] opyn foolis]] Certis [c beii+benj]^ [IP e [I ek] [VP ej [y ej ] opyn foolis]]

Consider first (2.27b), where the subject pronoun is cliticized to the finite verb. We have not indicated if this cliticization takes place in VP or in IP; for the sake of our argument this does not matter. The important thing to notice is that the pronoun is considered to be cliticized to the verb prior to its movement from 1° to C°. Therefore (2.27b) counts as a V2-structure, and can be produced by a person with a V2 grammar. Consider next the structure outlined in (2.27a), where the pronoun is not interpreted as a clitic element. This structure violates the V2 requirement that at most one constituent may precede the tensed verb, hence such a structure cannot be produced by a person with a V2-grammar. Obviously, sentences like (2.26) are structurally ambiguous; thus, like the SVO-sentences they constitute possible triggers for the loss of V2. To summarize, at the time of the loss of V2 in English and French, we have a situation which can be described as follows. Most utterances which the children met had a word order which was ambiguous and thus did not enable them to determine the position of the finiteness feature: these sentences could be produced by parents having either a verb second grammar or a non verb second grammar. Only sentences with inversion (direct questions, wh-questions and topicalization structures) unambiguosly indicated that the finiteness feature was in C°. The possibility of using examples like (2.26) with a weak pronoun between the topic and the tensed verb constituted a rather ambiguity. In spoken language, and especially in the language spoken to children, the number of sentences unambiguously indicating a V2 grammar must have been quite small: we know from studies of modern V2 languages that the number of sentences with non-pronominal subjects is low, and we can infer that the number of sentences with inverted non-pronominal subjects must have been even lower. In such a situation it is conceivable that many children chose a grammar with the finiteness feature in 1° instead of in C°. In Platzack (forthcoming) it is shown that nothing in the timing of the appearance of subject clitics in OF and ME makes this hypothesis less plausible.

A General Theory of Sentence Structure 2.4.3.

65

Consequences of the change of position for [+F]

As mentioned above, the node hosting the finiteness feature [+F] must be lexicalized in order to license nominative Case. We have seen that this requirement forces the verb to move to C° in V2 languages. When V2 has been lost in French and English, and [+F] is in 1°, there is a similar demand for 1° to be lexicalized. French and English have reacted differently to this lexicalization requirement, due to the different status of Agr in 1° at die time of the loss of V2. It is conceivable that both OF and ME have nominal Agr in 1°: both languages have subject-verb agreement, and both languages have properties that can be related to the presence of nominal Agr. See e.g. Platzack & Holmberg (1989) and chapters 3-5 below. In present day English and French Agr is non-nominal (unspecified), as we have argued above. However, whereas the loss of nominal Agr seems to take place more or less at the same time as the loss of V2 in English, the loss of this feature happens much later in French. The two factors mentioned above, i.e. the change of position of [+F] and the different developments of Agr, are responsible for several syntactic differences between French and English which begin to be visible in the first half of the 15th century. Below we will briefly discuss these differences, starting in 2.4.4. with a discussion of the lexicalization of [+F], leaving the discussion of null subjects for subsection 2.4.5. 2.4.4. The Lexicalization of [+F] As already mentioned above, prior to the loss of V2 the head hosting [+F], i.e. C°, was lexicalized by means of V-to-C. Assuming that relativized minimality prevents a head from adjoining anywhere but to the closest c-commanding head, we conclude that a V moved out of VP in V2 languages must adjoin to 1° on its way to C°; thus the tense feature of V is checked in overt syntax in the main clause in V2 languages. See the discussion of Swedish in 2.2. above. We could now expect that both English and French would use V-to-I to lexicalize the host of [+F] after the loss of V2. However, as mentioned in 2.3., facts indicate that only French has taken this step, whereas English has established a certain category of auxiliaries in 1°, including auxiliary do and its null counterpart (see 2.3.6. above). The description above suggests that the establishment in English of do-support and tense checking at LF occur as the result of the change of position of [+F] and the loss of Agr. To support this hypothesis, we must show that these changes take place more or less at the same time as the loss of V2. With respect to Agr, we notice a considerable weakening of subjectverb agreement during the ME period. In the 14th century, the endings

66


for person and number are lost in the preterite indicative, as well as the endings for the first person present singular and present plural (van Kemenade (1987: 204)). Since it is highly plausible that there is a strong correlation between overt subject-verb agreement and the nature of the Agr-feature in 1°, we conclude that nominal Agr is lost during the 14th century, i.e. at the same time as V2 is lost. Turning to the emergence of do-suppon, it seems clear from studies by e.g. Ellegard (1953) and Visser (1963-84:1488-1568) that the periphrastic auxiliary do came into existence in the late 13th century. One of the factors playing an important role for its regulation was actually the loss of V2, according to Ellegard (1953:209).27 It is also possible to trace the change in English from tense checking in overt syntax to tense checking in LF to the time when V2 was lost. At this time there occur in English instances which seem to indicate some kind of tense copying or tense agreement within the single clause, cases where tense seems to be realized both in 1° and on the verb in VP. As noticed by Ellegard (1953: 123), discussing the use of semi-auxiliary do + explanatory verb, before 1400 "the explanatory verb was generally in the same form as do: finite if do was finite, infinite if do was infinite." An example is given in (2.28): (2.28) Thalestris ... did wroot to kyng Alexandre T. did wrote to king A. Such examples could perhaps be interpreted as involving an expletive do in 1°: if so, the tense generated on the verb in VP could be checked at LF by V-to-I, replacing the tensed expletive do. This description correctly predicts that such a procedure is possible only if the auxiliary and the main verb are in the same tense. The empty auxiliary 0, suggested by Pollock (see section 2.3.6. above), may be seen as a remnant of the overt do in cases like (2.28). In conclusion, we have found that the loss of V2 in English occurs at the end of the 14th century, more or less simultaneously with the emergence of auxiliary do, tense checking at LF, and the weakening of Agr. The hypothesis that these changes are related to the change of position for [+F] thus seems to be supported.

2

' Ellegard (1953:209) claims that "[t]wo sorts of changes in the language structure that were of decisive importance for the regulation of the use of do were taking place in the 15th and 16th centuries. One was the movement of the more lightly stressed adverbs towards the position between the subject and the main verb, and the other was the virtual disappearance of inversion for other than auxiliaries and intransitive verbs."

A General Theory of Sentence Structure 2.4.5.

67

The Licensing of Small pro

With respect to the lexicalization of the host of the finiteness feature, we do not find any difference in French at the time of the loss of V2 as mentioned above. Hence, French word order data do not provide us with any clear evidence for our hypothesis that the loss of V2 implies a change in the status of 1°. To find such evidence, we must consider another aspect of the finiteness feature: its role in relation to small pro. In chapter four below we will argue that small pro in Spec-IP is licensed and identified by the host of [+F]; to be able to identify pro as a referential argument, this head must contain the ^-features of nominal Agr. Since [+F] is in C° in V2 languages but in 1° in non-V2 languages, it follows that pro is licensed and identified by different heads in these two types of languages. Hence the loss of V2 leads to a change in this respect: prior to the change, pro is licensed and identified by C°, after the change it is licensed and identified by 1°. Whereas it is clear that 1° contains ij>-features due to the presence of Agr in 1°, it is not evident that there are any ^-features in C°. Languages seem to differ with respect to whether or not ^-features of Agr may leave 1°. If the ^-features of Agr are actually moved with the verb to C° in V2 languages, we have a V2 language where referential null subjects are found only in main clauses. This is the situation found in OF: as e.g. Adams (1987:2) points out, empty subjects typically occur only in main clauses with inversion in OF.28 In a situation where Agr has the same status before and after [+F] changed its position, we expect this change to lead to an extension of the distribution of pro: after the change, the interpretation of pro should no longer be dependent on verb movement to C°. This is exactly what we find in French: in 15th century texts, i.e. texts produced after the loss of V2, null subjects are found not only in main clauses with inversion, but also in subordinate clauses. Consider the following example, taken from Vance (1989:3): (2.29)

Puet bien estre que n'en avez point (Jehan de Saintre) may (3sg) well be that neg-en have neg "It may well be that you have none."

Since the increased distribution of small pro in French appears after the loss of V2, we have perfect timing: the change of position of [+F],

28 Roberts (1993:132-42) extensively discusses cases with null subjects in embedded clauses in OF. 29 Independent evidence for this hypothesis is provided by the development of Romance varieties in Northen Italy and Southern France, where null subjects were generalized from V2 contexts to all contexts with the loss of V2. See references in Roberts (1983).

68

The Role of Inflection in Scandinc. i ian Syntax

which is the theoretical consequence of the loss of V2, has visible effects on the grammatical output. " 2.4.6.

Summary

Following Platzack (forthcoming) we have shown in this section that our theory of nominative Case licensing in terms of the position of the finiteness feature [+F] provides us with an account of the loss of V2 in English and French, which furthermore correctly predicts the presence of other syntactic changes at the time of the loss of V2. When V2 was lost, both English and French had a predominant use of SVO word order, and in addition both languages had developed subject clitics. The SVO word order can be produced both by a grammar with V2 and by a nonV2 grammar where SVO is the underlying word order. The same is true of sentences with a pronominal subject between the topic and the tensed verb. Flence for both French and English there is a period when an overwhelming majority of the sentences uttered could be given two different structural interpretations. Such a situation is a necessary prerequisite for a syntactic change to take place. The loss of V2 is described as a change of position of the finiteness feature [+F]: in V2 languages, this feature is in C°, in non-V2 languages it is in 1°. This change of position has different consequences for English and French. For English the consequences involve the development of ^-insertion and tense checking at LF, for French a change in the distribution of null subjects. The difference between English and French in this respect has to do with the status of Agr: whereas Agr is present in 1° in French both prior to and after the loss of V2, Agr is lost in English more or less at the same rime as V2 is lost. 2.5.

Conclusion

In this chapter we have outlined a universal theory of sentence structure, finiteness, and nominative Case licensing, showing that this theory can be supported by facts from various language types. In particular we have claimed that verb second languages differ from other languages in having features for finiteness and tense generated in different functional heads. This is a marked situation, and its consequences for verb-second languages will be discussed in detail below. The less marked situation where finiteness and tense are generated in the same functional head (1°), has been explored in this chapter. Of 30 Consider Vance (1989) and Hirschbuhler (1991) for detailed investigations of contexts where n u l l subjects arc possible in MF texts.


69

necessity our description has been very sketchy, and conceivably it must be modified in various ways, when more facts are taken into account. However, for the purposes of this book it should be enough to only sketch the consequences of our theory for non-verb second languages: our focus of interest is differences among the Scandinavian languages, and these languages are all verb second.


Chapter Three: Verb Second Languages, Root-Embedded Asymmetries, Root Phenomena in Embedded Clauses, and Long Distance Reflexives 3.1.

Introduction

This chapter has two aims: firstly, we want to show how the verb second phenomenon is analyzed in terms of our general theory of sentence structure, finiteness, and nominative Case outlined in chapter two above, and secondly, we want to show the effect on subordinate clause word order of the presence of Agr in ISc. and its absence in MSc. According to our theory of sentence structure, verb second languages (V2 languages) are languages where the tense feature and the finiteness feature [+F] are in different functional heads: the tense feature is generated in 1°, whereas the finiteness feature is generated in C°. Since this description is assumed to hold for all V2 languages, differences within the group of V2 languages must be the result of differences in other parts of their grammars. This is the case, we claim, with regard to the different word orders of subordinate clauses found within the group of V2 languages: we find verb-last order in languages like Frisian, German, Dutch and Afrikaans (3.la), verb second order in Icelandic and Yiddish (3.1b), and verb-third order in Danish, Norwegian, and Swedish (3.1c); as shown in (3.2), the corresponding main clauses are much more alike. In the examples given, the tensed verbs are in bold face: (3.1)

a. b. c.

(3.2)

a. b.

dafi Karl das Buch nicht kaufte that K. the book not bought a8 Jon keypti ekki bokina that John bought not the-book att Ulf inte kopte boken that U. not bought the-book Karl kaufte das Buch nicht. K. bought the book not Jon keypti ekki bokina. J. bought not the-book

(German) (Icelandic) (Swedish) (German) (Icelandic)

72

The Role of Inflection in Scandinavian Syntax c.

Ulf kopte inte boken. U. bought not the-book

(Swedish)

Our unified account of the V2-phenomena in terms of the finiteness feature [+F] was outlined in chapter two above, and will be discussed in more detail in section 3.2. Sections 3.3., 3.4. and 3.5 will be devoted to a presentation of the ways in which Agr interacts with our V2-account. In section 3.3. we will discuss the root-embedded asymmetry found in most Germanic verb second languages, concentrating our efforts on the different positions of the tensed verb vis-a-vis sentence adverbs illustrated in (3.1b) and (3.1c) above. As we will see, this difference is a result of the presence of Agr in ISc. and the absence of Agr in MSc. Section 3.4. deals with root phenomena in embedded clauses, i.e. embedded clauses with topicalization, left dislocation, VP-preposing and similar things. As will be demonstrated, the fact that root phenomena in embedded clauses are much more restricted in MSc. (and in English) than in ISc. can be explained as a consequence of the presence of Agr in ISc. and the absence of Agr in MSc. (and English). Finally, in section 3.5., it is shown that our account of root phenomena in embedded clauses enables us to describe the occurrence of Long Distance Reflexives in ISc., i.e. a reflexive in an embedded clause referring to the subject of the main clause. 3.2.

A Unified Account of Verb Second

Our account of the V2-phenomena has much in common with the standard V-to-COMP analysis which was first suggested by den Besten in an unpublished paper in 1977, later printed as den Besten (1983) (see also den Besten (1989:94)).* Like den Besten, we argue that the

1 It should be noted that some linguists do not adhere to the assumption that there is a unified treatment of the V2 phenomena. See e.g. Travis (19,84), who claims that subject first clauses have the tensed verb in I", whereas clauses where some non-subject element is fronted have the tensed verb in C°. The same idea has been defended recently by Zwart (1991, 1992a,b), although in his Split-Infl approach the subject in subject first clauses is assumed to be in Spec-AgrSP. According to these authors the traditional analysis with general V-to-C in V2 main clauses has the undesirable consequence that no formal distinction could be made between topicalization and subject initial main clauses. This is not correct, however. Given the reasonable assumption that topicalization always involves an empty operator in Spec-CP, with the topicalized element adjoined to CP, and the assumption of Rizzi (I991b) that A-positions are positions which show spec-head agreement with their head, there are actually two possible analyses of a subject first clause: either the subject is a real topic, meaning that there is an empty operator in Spec-CP, or the subject is in Spec-CP, where it agrees with the verb in C°. Such an analysis would be preferable to the idea put forward by Zwart and Travis, in the light of the empirical support given by Vikner & Schwartz (in press) to the assumption that the tensed verb is always outside of IP in V2 clauses.

Verb Second Languages

73

requirement of V2 languages that at most one constituent may precede the tensed verb in main clauses^ is due to a movement of the tensed verb to C. The word order asymmetry between main clauses and subordinate clauses in Germanic V2 languages, illustrated in (3.1) and (3.2) above, is taken to be a result of the occurrence of a complementizer in C in subordinate clauses, which blocks movement to this position in overt syntax. Specifically, we claim that V2 languages differ from non-V2-languages with respect to the position of the finiteness feature [+F], as discussed in chapter two above. This feature is understood to be in C° in V2 languages, in 1° in non V2 languages, according to the parameter (2.1), which we repeat here: (2.1)

±([+F] is located in C°)

As indicated in section 3.1. above, Germanic V2 languages may be either VO or OV-languages, and they may have or lack Agr. This gives us four possible combinations, three of which seem to be realized in Germanic: German, Dutch, Afrikaans, Frisian and Old English are OV languages with Agr, Icelandic, Faroese,-5 and Yiddish, 4 as well as OSc., Middle English and Old French are VO languages with Agr, and Danish, Norwegian and Swedish are VO languages without Agr. There is no Germanic OV-language which lacks Agr, as far as we know.' Below we outline the general sentence structures of the three types of Germanic V2 languages that we have distinguished, giving German, Icelandic, and Swedish examples as illustrations. We assume the subject Another reason to give up a unified account of the V2 phenomenon is the apparent lack of a root-subordinate distinction in languages like Icelandic and Yiddish. See footnote 10 below. 2 Exceptions to this generalization are found in various Germanic V2 languages. Consider e.g. the fact that certain Norwegian dialects use an overt complementizer in direct wh questions, a possibility investigated in detail in Nordgard (1985). The example in (i) is taken from Knut Hamsun's novel Landstrykere from 1927, but the phenomenon is found in several Norwegian dialects of today: (i) Hvad som ikke er sandt? what that not is true Standard Norwegian have V2 in constructions like this: (ii) Hvad er ikke sandt? what is not true Another deviation from V2 is found in Scandinavian clauses with kanske 'maybe'. A Swedish example is given in (iii): (iii) Erik kanske inte har traffat henne. E. maybe not has met her In casies like (\\i\ the finite verb follows the nesration. hence it oresumablv remains in VP. 3 The status of Faroese has been debated. See section 1.1.2. above. 4 It is not easy to determine whether Yiddish is OV or VO. See the discussion in Moedvan Walraven (1982), den Besten & Moed-van Walraven (1986) and Geilfuss (1992). 5 The Kru-languages Vata and Gbadi, described by Koopman (1984), are OV-languages lacking Agr, but they are not verb second languages. Cf. the discussion in section 2.3. above.

The Role of inflection in Scandinavian Syntax

74

to be base-generated in the specifier of the predicate (VP, ActP or PassP), and sentence adverbs (including the negation word) to be leftadjoined to the predicate. See sections 1.2.3. and 1.2.4. above. For ease of presentation we have left out the Act projection from the trees. According to our description V° moves to C° in overt syntax in main clauses in all types of Germanic V2 languages in order to lexicalize the host of the finiteness operator [+F]. In subordinate clauses, V° moves to 1° in overt syntax in languages of the Continental type and in languages of the Insular Scandinavian type, due to the status of Agr as a strong feature (or bundle of features). In languages of the Mainland Scandinavian type, where 1° only hosts the weak feature tense, there is no V-movement out of VP in embedded clauses in overt syntax. See the discussion in chapter two above, and section 3.3. below. (3.3) OV languages with Agr: Continental Germanic, including German, Dutch, Afrikaans, Frisian, Old English, Old Yiddish a. CP Spec e

IP

c"

[+F]

r

DP

i

±T1 .AgrJ AdvP

VP

VP DP

V

(DP)

b.

Karl; dafi K. that c. Karlj kaufte; ej d. das Buchk kaufte; Karlj

sicher surely sicher sicher

ej das Buch the book ej das Buch ej ek

V kaufte bought e

j

e

i

75


(3.4) VO languages with Agr: ISc.(Old Scandinavian, Modern Icelandic, Modern Faroese), Old French, Middle English, and Modern Yiddish. a. CP Spec" C

IP

C [+F]

r

DP

i

•±T~ Agr

VP AdvP

VP DP

V DP

V Joni keypti; ekki a8 bought not that Je ekki c. Jonj keyptij e i j ekki d. bokinajj keypti; Jon; e j

b.

e

i

e

i i

e

e

j

e

j

e

j

bokina the-book bokina e

k

(3.5) VO languages without Agr: Modern Mainland Scandinavian, i.e., Danish, Norwegian, and Swedish.

CP

a. Spec

C' C f+F]

IP

r

DP

i [+T]

VP

VP

AdvP

DP

V V

att that kopte; c. Ulfi d. bokenjj kopte;

b.

Ulfj U. ei Ulf,

ej Cj

inte not inte inte

ei e

i i

e

ko'pte bought ei e

j

DP boken the-book boken ek

76


A fourth type consists of VO languages which have Agr, but where Agr is weak. As discussed in chapter 2, French and English belong to this type. With regard to nearly all Agr-related phenomena investigated in the present work French and English pattern with MSc. rather than with the languages listed under (3.4). This suggests that the MSc. languages can be viewed as a special case of VO languages with weak Agr, where Agr is so weak in MSc. as to have lost all morphological reflexes. In this view the MSc. languages have Agr, but, unlike the situation in French or English, Agr is totally abstract in MSc. However, we shall continue to refer to the MSc. languages as languages without Agr. As far as we can see, the theory where MSc. has no Agr and the theory where MSc. has abstract, weak Agr are for the most part close notational variants; see, however, chapter 6, section 6.3.4. for a case where the two theories potentially differ. 3.3.

The Word Order of Subordinate Clauses

Since a complementizer in C° prevents movement of V° to C°, subordinate clauses will have different word orders in the three types of Germanic V2 languages illustrated in (3.3) - (3.5). In languages of the Continental type with the structure (3.3), the tensed verb will move to 1° and remain there, producing verb-final subordinate clauses. In languages of the ISc. type illustrated in (3.4), the tensed verb will always precede sentence adverbs in subordinate clauses, due to the obligatory movement of V° to 1° in overt syntax,? whereas in the MSc. type of languages, illustrated in (3.5), the tensed verb will follow sentence adverbs in subordinate clauses, since the verb is not forced to move to 1° in overt syntax due to the lack of Agr. Note that the negation patterns with sentence adverbs in the Scandinavian languages; see section 1.2.3.

6 We will not discuss the different possibilities of having verbal clusters at the end of subordinate clauses in these types of Germanic languages. For a recent discussion, cf. den Besten (1989: 266 ff.) and the literature cited there. B 7This is one of the points where Faroese diverges from Icelandic. As Barnes (1987) has shown, Faroese, unlike Icelandic, tends to have sentence adverbials in front of the tensed verb in subordinate clauses, just like MSc.; however, unlike MSc., the sentence adverbial may also occur after the tensed verb, especially in «t-clauses or in archaic style. Barnes (1992) demonstrates the variation with the following example: the tensed verb is in bold form, the adverbial (in this case the negation) is in italics: (i) Hann spyr, hvi tad ikki eru / eru ikki fleiri tilikar samkomur he asks whv there not are / are not more such Catherines 8'Our description presupposes that there is no other trigger for movement to I than (a) the need to lexicalize [+F] (in non-V2 languages) or (b) the need to check agreement morphology. However, we do not rule out in principle the possiblity of a language of having a strong Tense feature, as suggested in Chomsky (1992).


77

The different word orders of subordinate clauses in the three types of Germanic languages were illustrated in (3.1) above. In (3.6) we give some additional examples, showing the variation within the Scandinavian languages: (3.6)

a. b. c.

at Gudz ordh kan ey vara j honom (OSw.) that God's word can not be in him a9 Jon haf>i raunverulega keypt bokina (Ice.) that John had actually bought the book att John faktiskt hade kopt boken.(Sw; same in Da. and No.) that John actually had bought the book

Comparing (3.6a) and (3.6c), it is evident that there must have been a change in subordinate clause word order in MSc. For V2 languages, this difference is dependent on the presence or absence of Agr, according to our description. Hence we predict that this word order change should coincide in time with the loss of Agr. This prediction seems to be correct. In a detailed study of consequences of the loss of Agr in Swedish, Falk (1993: chapter six) has shown that the first occurrences of the new word order are found when agreement is weakened, whereas the old word order finally disappears when agreement is lost. Personal agreement is weakened in late Old Swedish (the 15th century), and the remaining number agreement is lost during the 17th century in the central spoken dialects. See Wessen (1962: 224) and Larsson (1988).9 Falk reports a fairly good fit between the loss of agreement and the loss of the old word order for embedded clauses (Falk 1993: chapter six, table 2): Peder Mansson, born around 1470, uses the old word order in 72% of his subordinate clauses, whereas authors born 1495-1535 use the old word order in 39% of the subordinate clauses, and authors born 1635-1670 only have 16% of their subordinate clauses with the old word order. See also Platzack (1988). It: is evident from the data reported that the word order change of subordinate clauses takes place roughly at the same time as the loss of subject-verb agreement. Hence, we presume, the hypothesis is supported that the loss of Agr is responsible for the word order change.

9 In the written language, number agreement is retained for strong verbs until the 20th

century.

78


3.4.

Root Phenomena in Embedded Clauses

3.4.1

Introduction

Languages of the ISc. type differ from the Continental and the MSc. types in having what seems to be a V2 constraint not only in main clauses, but also in subordinate clauses: 10 whereas the Continental type has verb final subordinate clauses and verb second main clauses, and the MSc. type has verb third subordinate clauses and verb second main clauses, the ISc. type has verb second subordinate clauses as well as main clauses. Consider the examples in (3.1) and (3.2) above. Additional examples are given in (3.7) and (3.8):*1 (3.7)

a. b.

(3.8)

a. b.

Dos yingl vet oyfn veg zen a kats. (Yiddish.) the boy will on-the way see a cat Avrom gloybt az dos yingl vet oyfn veg zen a kats. A. believes that the boy will on-the way see a cat Jon las aldrei bokina. J. read never the-book ...a8 Jon las aldrei bokina. ...that J. read never the-book

(Ice.)

It follows from the discussion in the previous subsection that we take the alleged V2 constraint for subordinate clauses in languages of the ISc. type to be a result of the presence of Agr in 1°. As we will show below, the fairly liberal use of embedded clauses with main clause phenomena 10 The apparent lack of a root - subordinate distinction in languages like Icelandic and Yiddish has led several scholars to question the virtue of attempting to give a unified account of the V2 phenomenon. Compare footnote 1 above. Rognvaldsson & Thrainsson (1990), Kosmeijer (1989), Dicsing (1990), Zwart (1992a), and Santorini (1990) all agree in claiming that V2 in Icelandic and Yiddish is partly different from V2 in other Germanic languages. According to these scholars, the finite verb ends up in C° in main clauses of the Continental and MSc. types of Germanic, whereas it ends up in 1° (or some other functional head below C°) in main clauses of the ISc. type. For ease of reference, we will refer to this description as the I-account. According to the standard approach to V2, including the approach advocated here, the finite verb ends up in C° in main clauses in all Germanic V2 languages; we will refer to this account as the C-account. As far as we are able to tell, the two accounts are empirically almost equal. It is undeniable that the I-account gives an elegant description of the ISc. facts: on the other hand, as we will show in subsection 3.4.3., the I-approach seems to miss a generalization, compared with the C-account. Furthermore the I-approach is subject to the objections raised in Vikner & Schwartz, (in press) against a description of V2 which does not universally assume verb-movement to C°. 11 The examples in (3.7) have been taken to show that Yiddish has a V2-constraint in both main clauses and subordinate clauses (Santorini (1989)), and the examples in (3.8) have been used to demonstrate the same thing for Icelandic (Rognvaldsson & Thrainsson (1990), examples (10) and (11)).

79


like topicalization found in ISc. can also be explained in terms of the presence of Agr. The Continental type avoids all complementizerintroduced subordinate clauses with root phenomena, 12 and the MSc. type restricts the use of such embedded clauses mainly to cases where the content of the embedded clause can be asserted (see Andersson (1975: 30 ff.), Platzack (1986a)); in this respect, MSc. is like English (see Hooper & Thompson (1973: 473 ff.); consider however data in Kosmeijer 1993 from more liberal English dialects). The different degrees of freedom for embedded clauses with root constructions are illustrated in (3.9) - (3.11); here, the a-examples illustrate embedded assertions, whereas the content of the embedded clause in the bexamples is not asserted. (3.9)

a. b.

(3.10) a. b. (3.11) a. b.

*Karl sagte dafi dieses Buch sollte ich gelesen haben. (Ger.) K. said that this book should I read have *Karl beklagt dafi dieses Buch soil ich gelesen haben. (Ger.) K. regrets that this book shall I read have Jan sa att den har boken borde jag ha last. J. said that this here book should I have read *Jan beklagar att den har boken hade jag last. J. regrets that this here book had I read Jon sagSi a3 bessa bok hefSi eg att aS lesa. J. said that this book had I ought to read J. said that I should have read this book, Jon harmar ad bessa bok hefQi eg att a3 lesa. J. regrets that this book had I ought to read J. regrets that I should have read this book.

(Sw.) (Sw.) (Ice.) (Ice.)

We will have nothing to say about the ban on root phenomena in complementizer introduced embedded clauses in German and Dutch; ^ from now on we will concentrate on the distinction between the ISc. type and the MSc. type.

12 Notice that Frisian seems to allow embedded V2-clauses even in the presence of a complementizer. See DeHaan & Weerman (1986:83-87). In German and Dutch embedded main clauses are possible when there is no complementizer, and the finite verb is in the conjunctive; cf. the following examples taken from den Besten (1989:82): (i) a. Er sagte, er komrne rnorgen. he said he comes (conjunctive) tomorrow According to den Besten, the complement er komme morgen in (i) is not a subordinate clause but a root sentence. 13 See den Besten (1989: 82-88), and Wccrman (1989:93 f., 141).

80 3.4.2.

The Role of Inflection in Scandinavian Syntax The C-Recursion Analysis

The simplest analysis of embedded clauses with main clause word order (EMC) says that such constructions consist of a complementizer followed by a main clause structure. 14 Since complementizers are generated in C°, and since main clauses in V2 languages are CPs, we are forced to assume an analysis in terms of a C-recursion at the top of an EMC. 15 Consider the example given in (3.12), which has the structure outlined in (3.13): (3.12) ad bessum hring lofacH hann Mari'u that this ring (D) promised he Mary (D)

(Ice)

(3.13) [CP a3 [CP bessum hringk [C lofaSij ftp hann] [p ej] [VP ej [V' ej Mariu ejj]]]] In this example the direct object flessum hring has been moved to Spec-CP of the embedded CP, and the tensed verb is moved to the embedded C° to lexicalize [+F]. In Platzack (1986a), where the C-recursion analysis is introduced, it is claimed that embedded clauses with main clause word order are structural islands, 1 " due to the absence of a possible escape hatch. ' This

14

This is the analysis given both by the C-approach and the I-approach. Since the two approaches assume different structures for main clauses, EMCs are also given different structures. According to the I-approach, the structure of (3.12) is (i), not (3.13): (') lCP a|3 [IP pessum hring; [p lofaQij] [yp hann [y ej Mari'u e;]]]] A discussion of different approaches to EMCs is presented in Vikner (1990:chapter two, especially p. 2-44). 1? Consider the discussion in Holmberg (1986:110) and Platzack (1986a). This analysis is also adopted by Wechsler (1991), Vikner (1990, chapter two), and by DeHaan & Weerman (1986) in their discussion of Frisian EMC. 161 According to Rognvaldsson & Thrainsson (1990), who base their statement on examples like (i), it is not correct to say that EMCs are islands, at least not in Icelandic: (i) Um bennan atbur5j vona eg [a8 raettj verSi ej ej a fundinum] about this incident hope I that talked gets at the-meeting It is to be noticed, however, that all examples put forward by Rognvaldsson & Thriinsson for claiming that extraction is possible out of EMCs with topicalization have nonlexicalized Spec-IPs, i.e., there is either a trace or small pro in Spec-IP. In our view this clearly indicates that these EMCs do not contain Topicalization but Stylistic Fronting (SF), a word order phenomenon first described in Maling (1980). According to Maling, SF is typically found in subordinate clauses where the subject position is empty; an illustrating example is given in (ii), taken from Rognvaldsson & Thrainsson (1990, example (S2b)): (ii) Eg helt a5 feriQj hefSi veriS ej rne8 pennan mann a sjukrahus. I thought that gone had been with this man to a-hospital Rognvaldsson & Thrainsson claim that there is no syntactic difference between topicalization and stylistic fronting. However, we will argue that these two processes are different: in particular, we consider topicalization to be the fronting of a maximal phrase to Spec-CP (or, to be more precise, the adjunction of a maximal phrase to CP, which is

81


analysis can be transposed directly to the present framework. Consider (3.14), illustrating the structure of a sentence where the object of an EMC is extracted and moved to Spec-CP of the main clause; for clarity, the extracted object and its traces are in bold face: (3.14) *Mariul veit eg [CP ej a3 [CP bessum hringk [Q lofacMj [IP Olafuri [p ej] [yp ej [v' ej e] ejj]]]] Mary (D) know I that this ring promised Olaf (N) The structure in (3.14) is blocked by relativized minimality (Rizzi (1990:2)); see 1.2.7 above. The fronted element flessum bring in the innermost Spec-CP is in an A-bar position, thus it will interfere with the chain from the fronted Mariu to the trace in the innermost VP. 18 The analysis of EMCs in terms of C-recursion easily handles the fact that topicalization is usually quite bad in wh-clauses,* 9 both in Icelandic and in Yiddish. Consider the discussion in Rognvaldsson & Thrainsson (1990) and Diesing (1990). Some relevant examples are given in (3.15): (3.15) a. b.

*Eg veit ekki hvar i gxr stoS k$rin. I know not where yesterday stood the-cow *Ikh veys nit vemen zuntik hot zi gezen. I know not whom Sunday has she seen

(Ice.) (Yiddish)

Following Vikner (1990) we take the ungrammaticality of topicalization within TVh -questions to be explainable in terms of relativized minimality. The structure of a w^-clause with topicalization is outlined

coindexed with an empty operator in Spec-CP), whereas stylistic fronting is adjunction to I". Consider chapter four below for a detailed discussion. 17 Consider Holmberg (1986: 112), where other explanations for the islandhood of EMCs are discussed. Recently, Wechsler (1991) has suggested that the reason that EMCs are islands is not primarily syntactic but semantic: according to Wechsler, EMCs are clauses with illocutionarv force, and any clause with illocutionary force is an extraction island. 18 The C-approach and the I-approach to EMCs make different predictions with respect to the possibility of extracting out of embedded clauses beginning with the dummy pronoun fla> 'it', 'there1. According to both approaches, fla> occurs in the position where topicalized elements land. See 4.2. below. Since this position is Spec-CP in our approach, we predict that no extraction out of EMCs beginning withyZa; should be possible, whereas such extractions should be possible according to the I-approach of Rognvaldsson & Thrainsson (1990), where flat is in Spec-IP. The facts seem to support our description: Rognvaldsson & Thrainsson (1990:33) have to admit that it is "not easy to find good examples of extractions" out of fla> -introduced clauses. Even the best examples given by Rognvaldsson & Thrainsson have a single question-mark. Cf. the example given in (i) (= (57) in Rognvaldsson & Thrainsson (1990)): (i) ?l?enna mann; held eg [ a& bafl hafi stundum veri 6 talaS ilia urn e j] this man think I that there has sometimes been talked bad about 19 This fact is problematic for the I-approach of Rognvaldsson & Thrainsson (1990), where there is no way to exclude such clauses.

82


in (3.16). In this example the topicalized time adverbial tg<er is in an Abar position, thus it interferes with the A-bar chain headed by hvark?® Hence our description correctly predicts that topicalization within an embedded wh-clause should be ungrammatical. (3-16)

CP wh

"C

C

CP C'

AdvP

IP

C

'r

DP

i' hvar^

f gsrj

stodi

kyrinj

e

J

VP e

i ej e k e l

According to Vilcner (1990, p. 2-34), only embedded t^jy-questions are really good with root word order in Yiddish.2 * The same is not true of the corresponding Icelandic wAy-questions. See the examples in (3.17), which are taken from Vikner (1990). (3.17) a. b.

Ikh veys nit far vos in tsimer iz di leu geshtanen I know not why in room is the cow stood *Eg veit ekki af hverju f herberginu stod k$rin. I know not of why in the-room stood the-cow

To account for this difference between Yiddish and Icelandic, we follow Vikner (1990) who suggests that 10Ay-questions are derived differently in the two languages. In Yiddish, the element far vos 'why' is base generated in clause initial position, hence there is no wh-movement and consequently no crossing of two A-bar chains. In Icelandic there is wh-

20 It does not matter that the wh-word is adverbial in nature in (3.16). We get the same type of minimality violation when an argument is wh-fronted; consider the example in (i): (i) *Eg veit ekki hva3 i gser keypti hann. I know not what yesterday bought he As in (3.16), the topicalized time adverbial i gar interferes with the A-bar chain headed by the wh-word. 21 However, Diesing (1990:64-67) states that other types of embedded wh-clauses with root word order may occasionally also be accepted. U1V.

83


movement of the corresponding element af hverju 'why', leading to a violation of relativized minimality according to the discussion given of (3.16) above. 3.43.

EMC and the Role of Agr

In the final part of this subsection we will consider in more detail the question of why embedded clauses with root phenomena are used in most types of subordinate clauses in ISc. languages, whereas they are restricted in MSc. to clauses which can be interpreted as direct quotations, or as assertions on behalf of the speaker. As we will show, this difference is an effect of the presence of Agr in ISc., and the absence of Agr in MSc. The examples (3.10) and (3.11), here repeated, illustrate the different use of EMCs in ISc. and MSc.: (3.10) a. b. (3.11) a. b.

Jan sa att den har boken borde jag ha last. J. said that this here book should I have read *Jan beldagar att den har bokcn hade jag last. J. regrets that this here book had I read Jon sag3i a5 bessa bok hefSi eg att a3 lesa. J. said that this book had I ought to read J. said that I should have read this book, Jon harmar ad bessa bok hefc5i eg att a3 lesa. J. regrets that this book had I ought to read J. regrets that I should have read this book.

(Sw.) (Sw.) (Ice.) (Ice.)

According to our analysis, an embedded clause with main clause word order has the general structure (3.18) in both ISc. and MSc.:

CP

(3.18)

C

CP *r

C'

Spec

C*

IP

Since both ISc. and MSc. are V2 languages, they have [+F] in C. In a case like (3.18), there are thus two possible positions for [+F]: in the higher C or in the lower C; for ease of reference, we will refer to the lower C as C*. As we will show, the presence of Agr in ISc. enables [+F] to be in both C-positions, whereas the absence of Agr in MSc. only allows [+F] to be in C*.


84

Consider first the the situation where [+F] is only generated in C*. In this case we have an ordinary main clause structure embedded as the complement of C: [+F] and the nominative elements are licensed in the same way as they would be if the lowest CP were an independent main clause. Hence, our description correctly predicts that the structure in (3.19) should be well-formed in both Icelandic and Swedish.

(3.19)

CP C

'CP ^•^ DP

C'

C* [+F]

IP

r

DP

i a3

art

Jonj Jonj

keypti; kopte ;

e

i ei

e

VP ej ej bokma (Ice.) e; e; boken (Sw.)

j j

e

Consider next the situation where [+F] is generated in the highest C as well:

CP

(3.20)

"CP

c"

[+F]

DP

C1

C* [+F]

a3 art

Jon; keypri; Johnj kopte;

IP DP

e

i e i

i e

j e j

r

VP ei ej bokina (Ice.) ej e; boken (Sw.)

As we will show, our description correctly predicts that (3.20) is wellformed for ISc., but not for MSc. From its position in the highest C, [+F] governs both the lower CP and the specifier position of this CP. It follows from the licensing condition (2.2) for [+F] that the string is well-formed only if there is a nominative element in one of these positions. In both (3.2()a) and (3.20b), there happens to be a nominative element in Spec-CP (Jon, John). However, since Spec-CP is an A-bar


85

position, it is reasonable to assume that a nominative element in this position does not license [+F].22 In the ISc. example (3.20a) there is in addition a verb carrying agreement in C*, whereas there is no similar thing in the MSc. example (3.20b). We have already claimed that Agr is marked for nominative Case in ISc., hence there is a nominative element for [+F] to govern in (3.20a), but not in (3.2Ob). As a consequence, [+F] may be licensed only in the first case. A structure like (3.20), then, where we find the feature [+F] in both C-positions, is wellformed only in a language with nominative Agr. In (3.19) and (3.20) we have illustrated the cases with recursive CPs where only the lowest C is marked [+F], and where both Cs are marked [+F], respectively. There are two additional cases, which should be considered: firstly the case where only the highest C is marked [+F], and secondly the case where we have more than two CPs. However, as we will show immediately, these options both lead to ungrammaticality. Consider first the case where only the highest C is marked [+F]. As we have repeatedly stressed, the node hosting [+F] must be lexicalized and govern an instance of nominative Case to be licensed. The two available positions for this nominative are the specifier of the lower CP, and the lower C°. We have already rejected the possibility that a nominative in Spec-CP may suffice for licensing a higher [+F]. Hence we are left with the head position, C°. Since there is no [+F] in this position, the verb carrying tense and agreement cannot raise to this position - there is nothing in the structure that triggers verb movement in this case. The situation is the same whether or not the higher C° is lexicalized by a complementizer or a raised verb - in the latter case there is a trace of the verb in the lower C-position, but still no nominative in the lower C°. Secondly, consider the case where we have more than two CPs on top of each other - as a matter of fact, one of the arguments against the CP-recursion description of EMC is the alleged inability of such a description to prevent more than two CPs at the same time. However, in a structure with more than two CPs on top of each other, there will always be at least two instances of a that-type complementizer. Suppose we treat complementizers of the that-type as expletives (see Law (1991) for such a proposal). Expletives must be removed at LF due to the principle of full interpretation, cf. Chomsky (1986b, 1992), but the only way to eliminate them would be by movement of the tensed verb in LF. Since there is only one tensed verb, at most one complementizer can be removed in this way. Thus, any combination yielding more than one complementizer of the that-type will be ruled out as a violation of the principle of full interpretation.

22 Note also that the position may be filled with a non-nominative category, e.g. a

topicalized object.

86 3.4.4.

The Role of Inflection in Scandinavian Syntax The Interpretation of Embedded Main Clauses

According to our description, there are two ways in which [+F] may be lexicalized: by a verb or by a complementizer. When [+F] is lexicalized by a verb, we have what we loosely could call a main clause interpretation: the speaker is responsible for the content of the clause,23 it is either expressed as a quotation, or the content of the clause is asserted by the speaker. Since MSc. accepts [+F] only in the lower Cposition, EMCs will always be interpreted in this way: hence our description is compatible with the observation of Andersson (1975:34) that root transformations are possible in embedded clauses in Swedish (and the other MSc. languages) only when the content of the clause may be asserted. As we have seen, ISc. in addition accepts ECMs with [+F] in both C-positions. When [+F] is licensed in the higher C-position, i.e. in the position where the complementizer is generated, we have what we could call a subordinate clause interpretation: the speaker is not expressing responsibility for the content of the clause, i.e., the clause is not asserted. Thus in ISc. EMCs are not restricted to clauses which may be asserted by the speaker; hence our description provides us with an answer to the question as to why ISc. accepts a wider range of EMCs than MSc. does. 3.4.5.

Conclusion

Concluding this subsection it should be noticed that our account of EMCs predicts that the restricted use of such clauses found in modern MSc. should be an innovation: as long as there was Agr in 1°, languages like Swedish, Danish and Norwegian should have been fairly free in using various types of root phenomena in subordinate clauses. Although we have not made any systematic study of this matter, we have the impression that this prediction is supported. Consider e.g. the existence of topicalization in the following Old Swedish embedded clauses: topicaliz.ation is not possible in the modern Swedish cognates of these examples (the topicalized element is in bold face, the relevant tensed verb in italics): (3.21) a. l?a vildi iak slikum rattti vnz, sum mif0ree iak basr fram (AVgl, 20:4) 23 Consider Wechslcr (1991) for a similar, more detailed account. According to Wechsler, the features of the clausal head constrain the choice of function in the following way: (i) a. All [-V] clauses are arguments or modifiers. b. AJI [+V] clauses are assigned an illocutionary force (IF).


87

then wanted I such redress get, that (rel.) now bring I you forth "Then I would be satisfied with such redress as I now offer to you." b.

Ok hwat som war mote the helghe kirkio skipan, thz skulle swa af lysas ok laggias af, at aldrigh skulle thz vp nyas (Lg 3, 509:3) and what that was against the holy church custom, that should so off be-called and be-laid off, that never should it up be-renewed "And everything that was against the custom of the holy church should be called off and put aside in such a way that it would never be renewed." c. Prsester a majp laghum en hsst i garpi at hause firi by, at han skal i sokn ribs, sen brafllikse kom<e bub bonds at husla; jellatr ols. (OgL 45:21) The-priest may with law a horse in farm to have for that that he shall in parish ride, if suddenly come message farmer to give-theHoly-Communion or give-extreme-unction "The priest may, according to the law, have a horse in the farm, because he must ride out in the parish if he suddenly gets the message that he shall give the Holy Communion or the extreme unction to some farmer." These examples are taken from Larsson (1931:75). Judging from his description, EMC does not seem to have been a common phenomenon in Old Swedish.^^ Nevertheless, the existence of examples like (3.21) supports our description: as long as there is Agr, root phenomena are not restricted to a specific kind of subordinate clause. 3.5.

Long Distance Reflexives

3.3.1.

Introduction

In this section we will give further support of our hypothesis that the presence or absence of Agr in 1° is of importance for syntactic differences between ISc. and MSc., showing in particular that our description enables us to account for the presence of Long Distance Reflexives (LDR) 2 ^ in ISc. and their absence in MSc.2^ Long Distance 24 It is to be noticed that EMCs do not seem to be common in Modern Icelandic either. Maling (1990) reports that she found just one example of EMC in approximately seventyfive pages of text (two short stories by Gestur Palsson, "TiJhugah'f" and "Hans Voggur", published 1970). 25'We will only consider LDR in subordinate clauses in this chapter. All Scandinavian languages accept LDR in ECM-constructions and infinitives; notice the Swedish examples in (i): (i) a. Jonasj sag [Kalle; leka med s i n j / j hund] J. saw K. play with REFLposs dog

88


Reflexives, i.e. the occurrence in a (usually subjunctive)27 subordinate clause of a reflexive bound by the subject of the matrix clause, was first discussed for Icelandic in a generative framework by Thrainsson (1976):28 (3.22) a. b.

Jonj segir a3 Maria elski sigj / hannj. John says that Mary loves (subj.) REFL / him Johnj sager att Maria alskar *sigj / honomj. John says that Mary loves REFL / him

(Ice.) (Sw)

Reflexives and pronouns are considered to be universally in complementary distribution. This follows from the Binding Theory, which states that reflexives must be bound in the same local domain where pronouns must be free. Roughly speaking, the local domain relevant for the binding of an element is the governing category of the element, i.e. the maximal phrase containing the element, its governor, and a possible subject of that governor. The occurrence of reflexives and pronouns in the same position, bound by the same antecedent, as in examples like (3.22a), is thus a paradoxical situation. Icelandic LDR may occur in complement clauses of nonfactive verbs like segja 'say', telja 'believe', vilja 'want', halda fram 'claim', which take complements in the subjunctive. Certain verbs of this type may take complements either with subjunctive or with indicative: prototypically, LDR is possible only if they take subjunctive mood. Hence we have a contrast like the one illustrated in (3.23), taken from Thrainsson (1990):

b.

Andersj bad Evaj [PROj att overtala Lena^ [att PRO|j ringa all sigj/jj A. asked E. to persuade L. to phone to REFL We will not discuss the differences found between different Scandinavian languages with respect to the use of LDR in non-finite complements. 26 As pointed out by Falk & Torn (1900: 133), Aass (1979:42-43) and recently by Moshagen & Trosterud (1990), there are certain Norwegian dialecs which accept LDR. These dialects seem to lack overt Agr. Unless the LDR-phenomena found in these dialects are historical relicts we have no account to offer. Notice, however, that LDR seems to be an unstable construction in these dialects: parts of these dialects seem to have lost LDR during the last fifty years. 27 As SigurQsson (1990a:313) points out, there are some speakers of Modern Icelandic, including himself, who find some indicative clauses containing a long-distance reflexive quite acceptable". That there is no one-to-one relationship between LDR and subjunctive mood is also shown by the fact that Faroese, which has lost the distinction between indicative and subjunctive verb forms, nevertheless has LDR of the same type as Icelandic has (see Barnes 1986a). Furthermore, there are adverbial clauses which obligatorily have subjunctive mood but do not accept LDR; an example is given in (i): (i) Maria er her enn bo ad eg skammi *sig/hana. M. is here still although I scold (subjunctive) REFL./ her 28 The existence of Long Distance Reflexives in Icelandic is mentioned in Srnari (1920:133) and in Einarsson (1949:124).

Verb Second Languages (3.23) a. b.

89

*J6nj uppl$sti hver haffli bari8 sigi. J. revealed who had (ind.) hit REFL. Jonj uppl$sti hver hefcH bariS sigi. J. revealed who had (subj.) hit REFL.

Since Thrainsson brought Icelandic LDR into discussion, several scholars have attempted to solve the problems related to this construction. There are mainly two types of accounts, a semantic one and a structural one. The structural approaches to the binding theory problems of LDR usually involve the suggestion that it is necessary to revise the definition of governing category. The most influential attempts in this direction are Anderson's (1982) account in terms of tense agreement and Everaert's ((1984), (1986)) account which involves a revision of Binding Theory in the direction of Kayne's Connectedness approach (Kayne (1983), (1984)). According to Anderson, LDR is possible only if there is tense agreement between the embedded clause and the matrix clause: basing himself on the fact that subjunctive complements in Icelandic, but not necessarily indicative complements, normally have the same tense as their matrix clauses, Anderson assumes a rule of tense agreement between a matrix verb and a subjunctive. When there is tense agreement, the governing category of the reflexive will include the whole sentence. Since tense agreement is optional, Anderson elegantly accounts for the possibility to have both a personal pronoun and a reflexive in the same position (cf. (3.22) above)). Whereas Everaert's description has been criticized for being untestable (see SigurSsson (1990a: footnote 8)), some counterexamples have been presented against Anderson's description (Maling (1984), Rognvaldsson (1986)). It has for instance been shown by Rognvaldsson (1986:91) that LDR is also possible in a subjunctive clause which does not agree in tense with its matrix clause:^ (3.24) Mariaj segir ollum a8 eg hef3i bariS sigj ef hiin hef3i ekki fari>. M. tells (present) everybody that I had (past subj.) hit REFL if she had (past subj.) not gone. The most serious type of counterexample to the structural approach has been put forth by Maling (1984), who notices that it is possible to have an embedded clause with both a reflexive referring to the subject of the main clause and a personal pronoun referring to (another) superordinate subject in the same (subjunctive) clause. This is illustrated in (3.25): 29 As Sigur3sson (p.c.) points out, this is not a strong counterexample, because the irrealis if-then construction is a tense-island (i.e., one could claim that one has abstract tense agreement in this case). A better example is found in SigurSsson (1990a:316): (i) Jon; hefur sennilega haldiS a3 Maria setlaSi a3 sla sigj /hannj John has (pres.) probably believed that Mary planned (past) to hit REFL / him

90


(3.25) Jonj taldi a5 Man'aj hefSi sagt a9 eg hefSi skilac5 hennij bolcunum sinumj. J. believed that M. had (subj.) said that I had (subj.) returned her books REFL.poss. The semantic accounts of LDR all go back to Thrainsson's (1976) influential paper, where it is suggested that the principles governing LDR "are of a semantic rather than syntactic nature" (Thrainsson (1990:297)). According to Thrainsson, some notion of "point of view" can be defined in such a way that it captures all the relevant examples. Recently, Sigurdsson (1990a) has elaborated this suggestion, stating that LDR is possible when the speaker wants to express a secondary ego's referential point of view. Although it seems obvious that SigurSsson's description of the semantic characteristics of LDR is well-founded, it is not clear from his account why ISc., but not MSc., can have this construction, 30 For this reason we will investigate the possibility of establishing some kind of synthesis of the syntactic and the semantic approaches. According to our conception, the presence of LDR presupposes certain structural properties, although these properties are not sufficient for triggering an occurrence of LDR. In particular, we will claim that LDR is possible when a chain of heads can be established which starts with the tensed verb of the main clause and ends with the verb of the embedded clause which governs the reflexive. As we will show, such a chain can only be established in embedded clauses with nominative Agr, hence our description will explain why LDR is found in ISc., but not in MSc. 31 3.5.2.

The Finiteness Chain

Recall the description of subordinate clauses proposed in section 3.4. As noted it follows from our account of verb second, sentence structure and nominative Case licensing that three types of subordinate clauses schematized in (3.26a,b,c) are used in ISc., whereas only two types, (3.26a,b), are available for MSc., due to the lack of Agr; furthermore it is important to notice that the tensed verb in (3.26a) has different positions in ISc. and in MSc.: it is in 1° in ISc., in V° in MSc.:

30 Hellan (1988: 89), who like Thrainsson and Sigur, marked [+F], in both (3.27a) and (3.27b). Since the head of the embedded clause is marked [+F], the chain of heads starting with [+F] of the matrix clause can be expanded into the embedded clause. We take for granted that such an expansion is possible only if [+F] of the embedded clause is identical to [+F] of the matrix clause (assuming for concreteness that the two instances of [+F] are coindexed). The next head downstairs in (3.27a) is 1°. Following standard assumptions, we take C° and 1° to be coindexed. Hence, the chain of heads which includes C° will also include 1°. But 1° is the host of the tensed verb of the embedded clause (V is raised to 1° in overt syntax in ISc. due to the presence of Agr in 1°, as discussed above). Thus, via the traces of the tensed verb, the chain of heads can be extended into VP of the embedded clause, where its trace ev governs the reflexive pronoun. Consider next (3.27b), where the first head downstairs from the head containing the complementizer is the second C° of the embedded clause. This is the position of the tensed verb. This head is also marked with the feature [+F]. If this instance of [+F] is coindexed with [+F] in

32 We like to stress that it is not necessary to define the governing category in this way: see below. 33•* The hypothesis that verbs and functional categories like C and I might constitute headchains with relevance for tense has previously been suggested by En? (1987) and Gueron & Hoekstra (1988); these approaches are only marginally different from the one presented here.


93

the complementizer,-^ we can expand the chain from the head of the main clause to the second C° of the embedded clause. Since we have the tensed verb of the embedded clause in this position, the chain can be further extended, following the traces of the verb downstairs into VP of the embedded clause. The end of this chain will be the trace of the main verb of the embedded clause. Thus, for both (3.27a) and (3.27b) it is possible to establish a chain from the finiteness marker of the main clause to the D-position of the main verb of the embedded clause.-^ Since the finiteness marker of the main clause governs the subject of the main clause, we have in effect reached our goal: we have shown that (3.27a,b) can be interpreted in such a way that the main clause subject is the subject of a chain which includes the governor of the reflexive. Hence this reflexive can be said to have the whole matrix clause as its governing category. Crucially, no finiteness chain can be established in sentences with embedded clauses of the other types in (3.26), i.e. (3.26a) with the tensed verb in V° (MSc.), or (3.26b). In both cases we lack a link between the verb of the embedded clause and the feature [+F] of the main clause: in MSc. (3.26a) the reason is that the embedded verb is in V°, not in 1°, in (3.26b) the reason is that the complementizer a> without finiteness feature prevents the chain from expanding into the embedded clause.^6'-57

" It seems implausible that two instances of [+F] in the same embedded clause should bear different indices, hence we assume as the unmarked case that they are coindexed. However, this is not necessary: the only thing needed for our purpose is that it is possible that the second instance of [+F] in the embedded clause is coindexed with the previous instances of [+F]. An uninterrupted chain of [+F] heads can only be established when all occurrences of [+F] bear the same index. •" In examples with auxiliaries, we have to say that the auxiliaries are counted as links in the chain. Consider (i) from Sigurfeon (1990:316): (i) Jonj hefur sennilega haldid a 9 Maria aetlaQi a8 sla sigj /hannj John has (pres.) probably believed that Mary planned (past) to hit REFL / him To establish a chain from [+F] in the main clause to the main verb in the main clause, the auxiliary must be considered a link in the chain. •*" As already indicated, no finiteness chain can reach into a subordinate clause of the type (3.26c) unless all instances of [+F] in the chain are coindexed. Since such a coindexation is optional, our description does not exclude the possibility that there might be subordinate clauses with this structure where the governing category does not include the whole sentence. *' Recall that we assume that tense is checked in LI1' in MSc.; hence not until LF will it be possible to establish a chain of the right kind in these languages. Therefore our description presupposes that reflexive binding must be established in overt syntax. Consequently we predict that principle A of the Binding Theory must be met in overt syntax.

94


3.5.3. Predicted properties of LDC The proposed description automatically accounts for the absence of LDR in MSc.: structures like (3.27) can only exist when there is nominative Agr, as shown above. Furthermore, the description accounts for the paradoxical fact that a pronoun and a reflexive can occur in the same position, both referring to the subject of a higher clause: the reason according to our description is that we can establish two different governing categories for a single position in cases like (3.27): either we establish a finiteness chain, and the government category will be the whole sentence, licensing LDR, or no such chain is established, and the governing category will be the embedded clause. Since our approach to LDR in terms of a finiteness chain is close in nature to the proposal by Anderson (1982), see above, we will here consider how our description handles the two types of counterexamples to Anderson's description, given in (3.24) and (3.25). We will first consider eamples like (3.24), repeated here, where the embedded clause does not agree in tense with the main clause: (3.24) Man'aj segir ollum a3 eg hefSi bari5 sigj ef hun hefSi ekki fari>. M. tells (pres.) everybody that I would-had (past subj.) hit REFL if she had (past subj.) not gone. Tense is distinguished from finiteness in our system, hence the presence of a finiteness chain in (3.24), which is necessary for LDR according to our approach, does not presuppose tense agreement. It follows that examples like (3.24) are not counterexamples to our account. Consider next the second type of counterexamples to Anderson's proposal, where one and the same clause contains both an LDR and an ordinary long distance pronoun. The relevant example (3.25) is repeated here: (3.25) Jonj taldi a8 Mariaj hefSi sagt afl eg hefSi skila3 hennij bokunum sfnumj. J. believed that M. had (subj.) said that I had (subj.) returned her books REFL.poss. Since there is an instance of LDC in the example (sinum in the DP bokunum sinum), we predict that there is a finiteness chain starting with [+F] of the matrix clause and ending with the participle skila>. Nothing prevents us from establishing such a chain in (3.25) for the purpose of getting the whole sentence as governing category of the reflexive. The governing category of the pronoun henni, on the other hand, must be defined as the deepest embedded clause within which the pronoun is free. It should be noticed that our description does not exclude the possibility that the governing category of the reflexive


95

presupposes the presence of a finiteness chain, whereas the governing category of a pronoun in the same sentence presupposes the absence of such a chain: as soon as we have an embedded clause with one of the structures illustrated in (3.27), the possibility of establishing a finiteness chain is present, and nothing prevents us from making use of this possibility when calculating the governing category of one element, but not when calculating the governing category of another element. Given this analysis, it is no surprise to find that examples like (3.25) are "rather hard to parse, but they are possible" (SigurQsson (1990a:342)). Our account of examples like (3.25) corresponds to SigurSsson's semantic observation that "even in an LDR clause [where the reflexive indicates a secondary ego's point of view (our comment)] anaphoric relations other than the reflexive are stated from the speaker's point of view [...]" (Sigur8sson (1990a:342)). Several other properties of clauses with LDR also follow directly from our account. Firstly, since clauses of type (3.26c = 3.27b) are possible LDR-clauses, we predict that it should be possible to have topicalization and other types of main clause word order in them. The correctness of this prediction is shown by examples like (3.28): (3.28) Jonj segir a3 i dag kyssi Maria sigj John says that today will-kiss (subj.) Mary REFL Secondly, our description immediately accounts for the fact that LDR is not possible in embedded clauses with main clause interpretation. As discussed in section 3.4. above, root phenomena in embedded clauses in MSc. are found only in cases where the embedded clause is interpreted as an assertion on behalf of the speaker: it follows from our description that such clauses should have the structure (3.26b). This structure is not compatible with LDR, as we have shown above. Thus, we correctly predict the absence of LDR in embedded clauses which express the speaker's point of view: consider SigurSsson's conclusion that "LDR is grammatical only if the reflexive has access to an appropriate secondary ego [...] [whose] point of view must [...] be able to 'transmit' down into the clause that contains the reflexive" (SigurQsson (1990a:334-335)). Thirdly, our description predicts that LDR should be found in complement clauses but not in adjunct clauses: since the establishment of a finiteness chain is a prerequisite for LDR, we must have a structure where we have an unbroken chain of heads from the highest [+F] to the main verb governing the reflexive. The correctness of this prediction is illustrated by examples like (3.29), where it is shown that LDR is not possible in adjunct clauses, even if these clauses are in the subjunctive mood: (3.29) a.

Jon; kemur ekki nema Maria kyssi *sigj/hannj. J. comes not unless M. kisses (subj.) REFL./ him

96

The Role of Inflection in Scandinavian Syntax b.

Jon er her bo a9 Maria kyssi *sigj / hannj J. is here although M. kisses (subj.) REFL. / him

It follows also from our account of LDR that extractions out of clauses with LDR should be possible: in those cases the embedded clause with LDR must have the structure (3.27a). According to Halldor Sigurflsson (p.c.), examples like (3.30) are well-formed: (3.30)

Hvadi sagQi Jonj [CP ef a5 [jp Maria hefSi gefi5 serj ej]]? what said J. that M. had (subj.) given REFL

The proposed description only indirectly accounts for the fact that most Icelanders use subjunctive in clauses with LDR. According to our description, an embedded clause with LDR is more closely connected to its matrix clause than an embedded clause without LDR: the presence of a finiteness chain stretching all over the sentence naturally has the consequence of bringing the parts of the sentence closer together.-*° It seems plausible to assume that the use of a subjunctive complement signals the presence of such a finiteness chain for most Icelandic dialects.39 This is supported by the fact that a subjunctive complement may never be interpreted as an assertion on behalf of the speaker, i.e. this semantic property of subjunctive clauses indicates that such clauses never have the structure (3.26b). However, since there are some Icelandic dialects where subjunctive is not needed in LDR clauses (see Maling (1984), SigurSsson (1990a)), and furthermore Faroese has LDR in indicative clauses (see Barnes (1986)), we take it for granted that the use of subjunctive mood in LDR-clauses is a secondary matter, having nothing directly to do with LDR per se. Consider the detailed discussions in Thrainsson (1990) and Sigur3sson (1990a). Finally, we notice that the proposed description predicts that LDR may be found in older stages of MSc.: since the presence of embedded

*" An interesting piece of evidence for the assumption that a subjunctive complement is more closely connected to its matrix is the fact that a change from indicative to subjunctive in contexts where both moods are possible has implications for scope. Consider the following example, discussed by SigurSsson (1990a:327): (i) Jon for ekki af pvi a5 hann var / vxri reidur. J. left not because he was (ind.) /were (subj.) angry As SigurQsson notices, there is a clear semantic difference between the indicative and the subjunctive version of (i): "in the indicative version, the negation takes scope over the matrix clause, whereas it takes scope over the subordinate clause in the subjunctive version". Hence, the indicative version corresponds to the English translation in (iia), whereas the subjunctive version could be paraphrased as (iib): (ii) a. John did not leave, and the reason for that was that he was angry. b. John did leave, but the reason for that was not that he was angry. •^ It is to be noticed mat this does not imply that all clauses with subjunctives are related to their matrix clauses with the help of a finiteness chain: such a chain can only be established into complement clauses.


97

clauses of the types (3.27) is the basis for LDR, and clauses of these types are present in older stages of MSc. due to the presence of Agr, we expect to find LDR as well. This prediction is also sustained, as shown by the following three examples from Norwegian, Danish and Swedish, respectively: (3.31) a.

b.

c.

Nilsi svarede, at Sogneprestenj havde uret, i det at handj havde giuit sigj udi dette aar 5 daler. (No. 1550-70) N. answered that the-parish-clergyman was wrong, in it that (=because) he had given REFL in this year 5 dialers. Handj gremmede sig, at der fands ingen i sin; gantske store hxr (Da. 157540) he fretted himself that there was no one in his (REFL) rather big army Hani horde at nagon var i rummet hos sigj. (Sw., 173141) he heard that someone was in the-room at REFL

A property of LDR which we do not have any account of for the moment is the so called domino effect (Thrainsson 1990). Some verbs, e.g. segja 'say', require complements in the subjunctive mood, whereas other verbs, like vita 'know', require complements in the indicative. It is compatible with our description that we should find LDR in the complement of segja, but not in the complement of vita. However, if a clause with vita is used as the complement of sega, not only will vita be put in the subjunctive, but it is also possible to use subjunctive in the complement clause of vita, disregarding the fact that vita generally governs the indicative. When this happens, we can also have LDR in the complement of vita: (3.32) J6n{ segir a3 Haraldurj viti ad Maria elski sigj J. says that H. knows (subj.) that M. loves (subj.) REFL. The domino effect also makes it possible to have LDR in adjunct clauses and in relatives: (3.33) a. Jonj segir aS hannj komi ekki nerna Maria kyssi sigi /hannj. J. says that he (* John) comes (subj.) not unless M. kisses (subj.) REFL /him b. Jonj segir aS hannj komi bo a5 Maria kyssi *sigj / hannj. J. says that he comes (subj.) although M. kisses (subj.) REFL. / him c. Jonj segir aQ betta se stulkan sem elski sigj/hannj. J. says that this is (subj.) the-girl who loves (subj.) REFL. /him

40 Anders S0rensen Vedel's translation of Saxo (1575). 41

Dalin: Then Swiinska Argus (1731).

98


If there is a structural explanation for the domino effect, we do not know how to formulate it. 3.6.

Conclusions

In this chapter we have presented an account of the Verb second phenomenon in terms of the general theory of sentence structure that was presented in chapter two. We have claimed that V2 languages are special in having the tense feature and the finiteness feature [+F] in different functional heads. We have also considered in more detail certain differences within the group of verb second languages with an underlying VO word order. In particular, we have demonstrated the role played by Agr for the word order of these languages: languages with Agr, i.e. the ISc. languages, have the tensed verb in front of sentence adverbs in embedded clauses, and root phenomena are generally found in embedded clauses. Languages without Agr, on the other hand, i.e., the MSc. languages, have the tensed verb following sentence adverbs in embedded clauses, and root phenomena are found only in a restricted set of subordinate clauses. An interesting spin-off effect of our description is that it also accounts for the presence of long distance reflexives in ISc. subordinate clauses and the absence of such reflexives in MSc. We will proceed to present several other differences between ISc. and MSc. in the following two chapters which also depend on the presence vs. absence of Agr.

Chapter Four: Null Subjects, Small pro, and the Role of Agr 4.1.

Introduction

This chapter will contain a discussion of various differences between ISc. and MSc. related to Spec-IP, differences that are due to the presence of nominative Agr in the former type of languages and the lack of nominative Agr in the later type. Generally speaking, ISc. displays much more freedom with respect to Spec-IP than MSc. does: thus, in MSc., every finite clause must have a phonetically realized nominative subject in Spec-IP (or a trace of such a subject),1 whereas in ISc. we find cases with empty subjects and oblique subjects, in addition to nominative subjects. None of the modern Germanic languages accepts referential null subjects of the type found, for example, in many Romance languages; thus for instance (41 a,b) contrast sharply with the Italian sentence (4.1c). 3 - 4 (4.1)

a. b.

*Dansar. (Ice.) dances (3 sg. pres.) *Dansar. (Sw.) dances (pres.)

1 An exception was mentioned in chapter two, footnote 1. See also footnote 5 below in this chapter. Yet another exception is the second conjunct of conjoined Ss, as in the Swedish example in (i): (i) Erik ringde Lisa igar och bjod henne pS middag. Eric phoned Lisa yesterday and invited her for dinner We will not discuss coordinations in this book. ^ The most complete account of null subject phenomena in Icelandic which we are aware of is found in Sigur3sson (1989:123-179). * SigurQsson (1989: 134-142) notices that in certain contexts in modern Icelandic, there occur what seem to be referential null subjects. The cases he mentions are referential null subjects in imperative constructions and in conjuncts, and contextually determined referential null subjects (topic drop) of the type found in dialogues (e.g. Veil fla > 'know it' as an answer). These types of referential null subjects are also found in MSc., and as far as we know, in all Germanic languages. According to SigurSsson (1989: 159f.), who is following Huang (1984), these referential null subjects are variables bound by a null topic. We have no better description to propose. ^ Icelandic lost the possibility of having referential null subjects in ordinary tensed clauses as late as around 1800. See Hjartardottir (1987), and the discussion below in section 4.3.3.

100

The Role of Inflection in Scandinavian Syntax c.

Balla. (It.) dances (3 sg. pres.)

However, most Germanic languages, with the exception of MSc. and English/ can have non-referential null subjects. Like German, ISc. can have expletive null subjects in existential clauses, impersonal passives and sentences with extraposition; unlike German, ISc. also accepts null subjects with verbs having a quasi 0—role, e.g. weather-verbs. In MSc. there must always be an overt expletive subject in these cases. Consider the illustrations in (4.2) - (4.5) below:'' (4-2), a. I dag hafa (*fla>) komi5 margir malvfsindamenn hingad. today have it come many linguists here b. Idag har *(det) kommit manga lingvister hit. today have it come many linguists here (4.3)

a. b

(4.4)

a. b.

(4.5)

a. b.

I gaer var (*fla>) dansad a skipinu. yesterday was it danced on the-ship Igar dansades *(det) p3 skeppet. yesterday was-danced it on the-ship

(Ice.) (Sw.) (Ice.) (Sw.)

Um hausti9 var (fla>) fullreynt, a3 hann stseli. (Ice.)'' in the-autumn was it clearly-proved that he stole Om hosten var *(det) klart bevisat att han stal. (Sw.) in the-autumn was it clearly proved that he stole Rigndi (*fla>) f gser? rained it yesterday Regnade *(det) igar? rained it yesterday

(Ice.) (Sw.)

' Both English and Swedish have constructions with a kind of non-referential null subject in sentences beginning with an adverbial of place (see also chapter two, footnote 1): (i) a. Into the room walked my brother Jack, b. I gra'set kan finnas ormar. in the-grass may be snakes Consider the discussion in Stowell (1981), Falk (1987, 1993:283-291), and Hoekstra & Mulder (1990). This option was lost in Danish and Norwegian during the 19th century; see Platzack (1992b). ° As usual, we illustrate ISc. with Icelandic examples, MSc., with Swedish. Differences with respect to the use of expletive subjects within the two groups of Scandinavian languages are briefly discussed in section 4.2 below. Consider also the overview given in Vikner (1990, Chapter three). ' It should be noticed that fla> has a different distribution in (4.4a), compared to its distribution in (4.2a), (4.3a), and (4.5a): in cases with extraposition, it is possible to use fla> also after the finite verb. When realized in this position, fla> is interpreted demonstratively. The del used in the corresponding MSc. example with extraposition is ambiguous between an expletive and a demonstrative reading. See rlatzack (1987).

Null Subjects, Small pro, and the Role ofAgr

101

In addition to the types of non-referential null subjects illustrated in (4.2) - (4.5), there are at least the following three types in modern Icelandic, discussed by SigurSsson (1989: 162 f£): (4.6)

Ekki er hlzjandi a9 bessu. 8 not is laughing at this "One cannot laugh at this." b. Ekki skal harma petta. 9 not shall deplore this "This should not be deplored." c. fiarf a3 kaupa mjolk?,10 needs to buy milk "Do we (/people, etc.) need to buy milk?" a.

As is to be expected, constructions like (4.6) are not found in MSc, due to the absence of an overt subject. Unlike the case in the examples (4.2) -(4.5), however, we do not get well-formed Swedish examples just by inserting a dummy subject det 'it', as shown in (4.7); here we also give the closest well-formed translations into Swedish of the Icelandic examples in (4.6): ^ (4.7)

a. b. c.

*Ej a'r det skrattande at detta/ Detta a'r inget att skratta at. not is it laughing at this / this is nothing to laugh at *Ej skall det beklaga detta. / Inte ska man beklaga detta. not shall it deplore this / not shall one deplore this *Behover det (att) kopa mjolk? / Behover det kopas mjolk? need it to buy milk / need it be-bought milk

The absence in MSc. of examples like (4.6) is automatically predicted by our theory: since MSc. lacks nominative Agr, there must be an overt nominative DP in Spec-IP in MSc. to license [+F] in C°. Since we do not have anything else of interest to say about the difference illustrated in (4.6) and (4.7), we will leave examples of these kinds out of consideration for the rest of this book. The reader is referred to the insightful discussion in Sigur8sson (1989).

8 SigurSsson (1989:163), who refers to this construction as the Impersonal Present Participle Construction, notices that it always involves the copula. 9 SigurSsson (1989:163) refers to this construction as the Optionally Ergative Construction. 10 SigurSsson (1989:163) refers to this construction as the Impersonal Modal Construction. 11 In (4.7a), the present participle must be changed into an infinitive, in (4.7b) the arbitrary subject man 'man, one' must he inserted, and in (4.7c) Swedish must use a passive construction.

102 4.1.1. The ISc. versus MSc.

The Role of Inflection in Scandinavian Syntax difference

The general difference between ISc. and MSc. with respect to the possibility of using null-subjects will be shown to follow as an automatic effect of the presence of nominative Agr in ISc. and its absence in MSc. According to our general theory of sentence structure, finiteness and nominative Case, presented in chapter two, an occurrence of [+F] is licit if and only if the node that hosts it governs nominative case. The node hosting [+F] in V2-languages is C°, as argued in chapter three. This node governs IP, hence its head 1°, and Spec-IP; therefore, in a V2-language at least one of these positions must contain a nominative element. In ISc., where there is nominative Agr in 1°, [+F] is always licensed by virtue of this. Hence, in ISc., a nominative element in Spec-IP is never needed for the purpose of licensing [+F]. It follows that ISc., in addition to having a nominative element in Spec-IP,12 may have a non-nominative element there, or leave this position empty (i.e. filled with small pro). Since there is no nominative Agr in MSc., [+F] cannot be licensed by virtue of governing 1°. Consequently, there must always be a nominative DP in Spec-IP in MSc., or the trace of such a DP. In this chapter we will consider the cases where ISc. differs from MSc. in having something other than a phonologically realized nominative element in Spec-IP. After a brief overview of the different types of expletive subjects used in the group of Scandinavian languages in section 4.2., section 4.3. will be devoted to a discussion of the licensing and identificational conditions on small pro, providing us with an account of the presence of non-referential null subjects in Icelandic of the types illustrated in (4.2) - (4.5). In section 4.4. we will highlight the case where Spec-IP in Icelandic is used as a landing site for nonnominative subjects, so-called oblique subjects or quirky subjects. Section 4.5. presents a discussion of Stylistic Fronting, a construction found in Icelandic clauses which lack overt subjects. In section 4.6. we show that the various null subject constructions discussed in this chapter were present at older stages of MSc. and that they are lost in MSc. at the same time as Agr is lost. Hence, the diachronic data give further support to our general hypothesis that nominative Agr is a necessary condition for the presence of null subjects in Scandinavian. 12' Since [+F] is always licensed by nominative Agr in Icelandic, it could be asked how a nominative element in Spec-IP is licensed. Consider the licensing conditions for nominative case, given in (2.5). The answer depends on whether or not it is possible for a single head to license more than one occurrence of a case. If this is possible, a nominative in Spec-IP is directly licensed by [+F], since it is head governed by the node hosting [+F]. However, we find it more plausible to assume that there is a biunique relation between Case licensers and Case licensees (such a restriction is proposed e.g. by Rizzi & Roberts (1989)). In this case, a nominative in Spec-IP must be indirectly licensed by being head governed by 1° with nominative Agr, and nominative Agr is directly licensed by the head hosting [+Fj.


4.2.

103

Expletive Subjects in the Scandinavian Languages

Before proceeding, the different types of expletive subjects in the Scandinavian languages need some comments. As already demonstrated in the last section, ISc. differs from MSc. in allowing expletive pro in examples like (4.2)-(4.S), i.e. both in cases without any 9-role, as in existentials and impersonal passives, and in cases with a quasi 0-role, as with weather-verbs. However, ISc. can also have an overt expletive, realized as fla> in Icelandic, and ta> in Faroese. Icelandic fla> and Faroese ta> have partly different distributions: whereas Faroese ta> has the same distribution as the overt expletive subject in MSc., being able to occur both in Spec-IP and Spec-CP,1' Icelandic fla> cannot be used in Spec-IP,14' as indicated in (4.2)-(4.5) above. The only position available for Icelandic fla> is Spec-CP;1 ^ due to the verb second constraint, no other phrase may precede the finite verb in such cases. Thus we have the following Icelandic examples corresponding to (4.2a)-(4.5a): 1< ^ (4.8)

a. fiaQ hafa Icomi9 margir malvfsindamenn hingaS f dag. it have come many linguists here today b. fia5 var dansaQ a skipinu i gser. it was danced on the-ship yesterday c. fia5 var fullreynt, a3 hann staeli um hausti>. it was clearly-proved that he stole in the-autumn d. fia5 rigndi f gaer. it rained yesterday

The MSc. languages, too, display differences with respect to the use of expletive pronouns. Whereas Swedish uses det across the board, as 13 As noticed, Faroese differs from MSc. in allowing in addition expletive pro. 14At least not overtly. Notice that the presence of sentence initial fla> excludes the

possibility of having a topical subject in Spec-IP, as demonstrated in SigurSsson (1989:299). This does not mean that fla> may be generated in Spec-IP and obligatorily moved to Spec-CP: as SigurSsson demonstrates an impersonal /Ea>-clause with a lexical subject in Spec-IP is possible when this subject is non-topical, as in (i): (i) I>ao hefur [rj> einhver stoliS bokinni]. there has somebody stolen the book IS' Hornstein (1990) argues thatyfa; is adjoined to 1°. 16 Initialfla> can be used also with the examples in (4.6), as shown by the following correspondences, taken from Sigur5sson (1989:164): (i) a. I?a3 er ekki hlaejandi a5 flessu. it is not laughing at this "One cannot laugh at this." b. I'a9 skal ekki harma betta. it shall not deplore this "This should not be deplored." c. J?a5 barf a9 kaupa mjolk? it needs to buy milk "Do we (/people) need to buy milk?"

104


illustrated in (4.2)-(4.5), Danish uses der in existentials and impersonal passives, det with weather verbs and extrapositions. The situation for Norwegian is more complicated: some dialects, mainly located along the south coast and the west coast, have the Danish system with der and det, other dialects are like Swedish in allowing only det, whereas a third group of dialects seems to have both systems. See Christensen & Taraldsen (1988), who base themselves upon a survey presented in Sand0y (1985). It should also be mentioned that the overt expletive of MSc. may occur either in Spec-IP or in Spec-CP. Hence in this respect, the expletive has the distribution of an ordinary subject. In the rest of this chapter we will ignore the different uses of expletive subjects found within the two groups of Scandinavian languages, illustrating our descriptions only with Icelandic and Swedish examples. As far as we can tell, these descriptions are immediately transposable to Faroese, Danish, and Norwegian, respectively. 4.3.

The Theory of Small pro

4.3.1. Introduction In this section we will discuss the theory of small pro, in order to account for the various uses of empty subjects in ISc. Recall that the mere possibility of having an empty subject in ISc. in contrast with MSc. was explained above in section 4.1.1. as a consequence of the presence of nominative Agr in ISc. Since Rizzi (1986) it is commonly agreed that the theory of small pro consists of two essential parts, the first one being a formal requirement on the structural position of pro (a licensing condition), the second one an interpretive constraint on the recovery of its content (an identificational condition). According to Rizzi both functions are performed by the head governing pro, as shown in (4.9): (4.9)

a. b.

Licensing condition of small pro: (Rizzi 1986:524). Pro is Case-marked by X°y, i.e. a head X° of type y. Identificational condition of small pro: (Rizzi 1986:520) Let X be the licensing head of an occurrence of pro. Then pro has the grammatical specification of the features on X coindexed with it.

Taking Rizzi's conception of the licensing and identificational conditions of pro as our point of departure, we will show that Icelandic facts of the types presented above in the a-examples of (4.1)-(4.5) motivate a slight reformulation of the licensing condition. In particular, we will argue that pro does not have to be Case-marked, although it must be governed by a Case-licensing head. Furthermore we will discuss the


105

identificational condition of pro, suggesting a way to implement (4.9b) in order to account for the different uses of pro. As is well attested, small pro can be interpreted as a referential argument, an arbitrary argument, a quasi-argument, or it may lack all kinds of referential meaning (i.e., it may be a true expletive): languages differ with respect to which combination of these interpretations of pro they display. A minimal requirement of any proposal about pro should be that it can account for the different uses of pro in closely related languages. For instance, we expect a theory of small pro to explain why ISc. can have quasi-argumental pro, a possibility which is lacking in modern German. We also expect such a theory to provide an answer to the question why referential pro is found in older stages of Icelandic, but not in modern Icelandic. 4.3.2. The licensing condition of small pro In this subsection we will discuss the formal licensing of pro, suggesting a reformulation of Rizzi's (1986) proposal that pro must be Case-marked to be licensed. Rizzi gives two main reasons for this proposal: firstly the observation that subject pro in Italian is coextensive with the domain of nominative Case assignment, both in finite and nonfinite clauses, secondly the fact that pro in object position is possible only if the verb is transitive.1' It should be noticed, however, that the fact that pro occurs in the domain of Case assignment (or, in our terms, in the local domain where Case can be licensed) does not necessarily imply that pro is Case marked in this domain. Consider for intance the fact that Icelandic can have an overt DP in Spec-IP (i.e., in the domain of direct nominative Case licensing, see (2.5a) above) which does not have nominative Case. An example is given in (4.10): (4.10) HafcHi [ip einhverjum batumj [p ej] [VP e [V' hvolft ej]]]. had some boats (dat) capsized "Some boats had capsized." As we will see in section 4.3. below, it has been demonstrated beyond doubt that oblique DPs with subject properties, like the dative einhverjum bdtum 'some boats' in (4.10), are situated in Spec-IP. For the moment it is only important to notice that Icelandic allows the presence of a dative DP in the licensing domain of nominative Case. From examples like (4.10) we conclude that it is not necessary for an element to be nominative, even if it is in the domain of nominative 17'Scandinavian accepts fro in object position only under very restricted circumstances, see Afarli & Creider (1987), Sigur9sson (1989:168-9), Rognvaldsson (1990). The cases with null objects found in Old Icelandic may be identified under free coindexation with an NP antecedent, as SigurSsson (1992b) convincingly argues.

106


Case licensing. This should hold for pro as well as for overt DPs. It would actually have been problematic to have nominative pro in Spec-IP in an example like (4.11), which is the existential version of (4.10): (4.11) HafSi pro [VP hvolft einhverjum batum i gaer]. had (3 sg.) capsized some boats (dat) yesterday "Some boats had capsized yesterday." Examples like (4.11) are identical to ordinary existentials like (4.12) in all respects except the following ones: in ordinary existentials, the DP in VP is in nominative Case, and the finite verb agrees with this DP in number and person. In cases like (4.11), where there is no nominative DP in the clause, the finite verb is always 3 sg. (4.12) Hafa pro [VP komiS margir malvfsindamenn hinga5 i dag] have (3 pi.) come many linguists (nom) here today "Many linguists have come here today." In particular, it should be noticed that the non-nominative DP in (4.11) must be indefinite, just like its nominative counterpart in (4.12); see Sigur3sson (1988). In chapter five below, we will argue that the indefiniteness effect found in existentials like (4.11) and (4.12) is the result of the Binding Theory in combination with the Extended Projection Principle (EPP): in short, the post-verbal DP in cases like (4.11) and (4.12) must be bound by pro. ^ Hence, pro forms an expletive chain with the indefinite DP in VP. Since we assume exactly one Case for each maximal A-chain (including expletive chains), it is not possible for pro in a construction like (4.11) to bear nominative Case; the result would be an expletive chain where the head and the foot are assigned different Cases. Summarizing the discussion, we will propose a slight reformulation of the licensing condition of pro: '° In 1.2.6. we formulated the EPP in such a way that there must be an external argument position outside the domain of the verb: this position must be coindexed with a 6-marked position within VP. In both (4,11) and (4,12), pro is in the external argument position, and hence coindexed with the postverbal subject, according to the EPP. As a consequence, the postverbal subject is bound by pro. Since the bound DP is an R-expression, this binding will violate principle C of the Binding Theory, which states that R-expressions must always be free. With Safir (1987:87) we assume that principle C is reformulated as the Predicate Principle, die effect of which is to remove the principle C violation in cases like these. See the discussion in 5.2.1. In (4.11) the chain between pro and einhverjum batum is needed to satisfy the EPP. However, a consequence of the establishment of this chain is that the dative in VP will be bound by pro. Hence, given Safir's account of the definiteness effect, we correctly predict that einhverjum batum in (4.11) must be indefinite: notice that there is no definiteness effect in (4.10), where einhverjum batum is not bound: Haf>i batunum hvolft? "Had the boats sunk?" 19 Notice that Belletti (1988) has to allow two lexical Cases in constructions like (4.11): in addition to the visible dative Case determined by the governing verb, the postverba! NP must also have partitive Case, to account for the indefiniteness restriction.


107

(4.13) Formal Licensing of small pro: Pro is head governed by a Case-licensing head X°y. This formulation preserves the virtues of Rizzi's insight, without forcing us to say that every occurrence of pro must be Case marked. Consider pro in Spec-IP. In this position, pro is potentially head governed both by C° and 1°; remember that head government is formulated in terms of m-command (consider the definition in (1.23) above). Since both C° and 1° may license nominative Case, depending on the position of the finiteness feature [+F], pro in Spec-IP cannot escape being head governed by a Case-licensing head; hence pro in Spec-IP is licensed both in V2-languages and in non-V2 languages/0 4.3.3. The Identification of Pro Consider next the identificational condition of small pro. Following Rizzi (1986:520), we assume that the different interpretations of pro are dependent on which ^-features pro is associated with, according to the specification in (4.14); compare Rizzi (1986:543): (4.14) a. b. c.

referential pro: quasi-argumental pro: true expletive pro:

pro is associated with person. pro is associated with number. pro is associated with neither number nor person.

In Rizzi's formulation of the identificational condition on pro, given in (4.9b), pro is identified by the features of the licensing head, specified in (4.13) as a Case-licensing head governing pro. The Case-licensing head governing Spec-IP of an ordinary sentence is the head hosting [+F]. This is C° for V2 languages like Icelandic, 1° for non-V2-languages like Italian, as described in chapter two above. Consequently, the identificational condition (4.9b) states that pro will be coindexed with Agr in Italian, and with C° in Icelandic. 21 ' 22

20" It is not enough to say that the licensing condition on pro is simply head government. In a V2 language with Agr, Spec-IP is head governed by both C° and 1°, but it is clear from the role played by the licensing head for identifying the content of pro that C° and not 1° is the relevant head. See section 4.3.3. below. *' Several scholars have suggested that fro must be licensed and identified by C° in V2 languages. Consider e.g. Platzack (1987) and Tomasclli (1990), first circulated 1987. 22^ Indirect support for the assumption that pro is identified by different heads in Icelandic and Italian can be deduced from the fact that the agreement system of Icelandic is just as rich as the agreement system of Italian: still, Italian, but not Icelandic, accepts referential small pro. If pro were identified in the same way in the two languages, this difference would be hard to explain.

108


Whereas it is clear that 1°, due to the presence of Agr, contains <j>features, it is not evident that there are any ^-features in C°. Modern German seems to lack (|>-features in C° altogether: the only possible identification of pro in such a case is that pro is a true expletive. Thus, an example like (4.15a) with expletive pro is well-formed in modern German, whereas examples like (4.15b,c) are not well-formed, since C° without any (((-features can identify neither referential pro nor quasiargumental pro: (4.15) a. b.

c.

Gestern wurde pro getanzt. yesterday was danced (Sein Buch ist sehr interessant.) *Leider hat pro sehr schlechte Bilder. his book is very interesting, unfortunately has very bad pictures *Gestern hat pro geregnet. yesterday has rained

We have already seen that Modern Icelandic differs from German in allowing quasi-argumental pro: consider the well-formed example in (4.16): (4.16) Rigndi pro i ga;r? rained yesterday

(Ice.)

Since C° is the identifying head of pro in Icelandic as in German, the contrast illustrated by (4.15c) and (4.16) indicates that C° may be marked for number in Icelandic, but not in German. Consider (4.14b) above. There is no morphological support for this difference: in both (4.15c) and (4.16), the tensed verb in C° is in its 3rd singular form. Furthermore, the facts are the same in embedded clauses: although neither German nor Icelandic complementizers show agreement, quasiargumental pro is possible in Icelandic embedded clauses, but not in German embedded clauses: (4.17) a. b.

Hann harmaSi ad f gxr skyldi rigna. he regretted that yesterday should rain He deplored that it rained yesterday *Er beklagte dafi gestern hatte geregnet. he deplored that yesterday had rained

(Ice.) (Ger.)

Thus, we propose that Icelandic C° differs from German C° in being marked with the feature number. This feature must be transferred to C°


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from 1°, maybe as a result of C-I coindexation. 2 ^ Nevertheless, since the presence of the feature number in C° is not morphologically supported, we expect its status to be rather shaky: as a matter of fact there are indications both from the history of German (Lenertz 1985) and the history of MSc. (Falk 1993) that V2-languages tend to lose the ability to identify quasi-argumental pro although they retain the ability to identify pure expletive pro. Old Icelandic differs from Modern Icelandic in accepting referential small pro in certain circumstances. As shown by Hjartardottir (1987), this option was available in Icelandic up to around 1800; it does not seem to be possible to relate this loss of referential small pro to any weakening of verb inflection. 24 According to the description outlined in Platzack (1992a), we would expect to find referential small pro in a language like Old Icelandic just in case the person feature incorporates in the verb and moves with the verb to C°; this is the situation we find in Old French. This means that referential small pro should be possible in Old Icelandic only in root structures. However, this prediction seems to be wrong: not only do we find referential null subjects in #>-clauses ('that'-clauses), where it may be possible to argue for an underlying root structure (i.e. V-movement to C°, see (4.18a), taken from Hjartardottir, p. 47), but also in whclauses, as in (4.18b), taken from Hjartardottir, p. 48, and in adverbial clauses like (4.18c), taken from SigurSsson (1992); since at least subordinate clauses of the last type are never found with topicalization and other main clause phenomena, it seems safe to exclude the possibility of V-to-C in such clauses: (4.18) a. b.

c.

SceGitj var sva sitt atproj la i kniam honom. the-beard was so long that lay in knee him En um sumarid faeddi hun meybarnj. Glumur spurSi HallgerQi hvaflproj heita skyldi. and during the-summer gave-birth she to daughter. G. asked H. what be-called should ok kom hannj bangat, ok var Hoskuldr uti, er pro\ rei(51 tun and came he there and was H. outdoors when rode into field

SigurQsson (1992b) claims that only some of the examples with referential null subject in Old Icelandic actually involve small pro, the other cases of referential null subjects being explained as Topic drop. He also observes that all instances of null subjects that cannot be

23 Another possibility, investigated in Platzack (1992a), is to assume that 0-features like number and person are invisible clitics, and that they can move from 1° to C° like other clitics. 24^ This observation supports our assumption that active ^-features should be separated from the <j>-features belonging to the agreement inflection of the verb.

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explained as Topic drop are coreferential with a DP in preceding discourse; see the examples in (4.18). His conclusion is that these instances of small pro are identified under free coindexation with an NP antecedent. As SigurSsson (1992b) notes, the loss of referential null subjects around 1800 must then be the result of the loss of free indexing as an identification strategy. This is not the place to repeat the arguments that SigurSsson (1992b) adduces. Interpreting his observations in our terms, it seems to be the case that Old Icelandic accepted a contextually determined instance of person in C°. There is an interesting piece of support for the assumption that older stages of Icelandic might have an instance of person in C which is not there any longer. Consider the observation made by Hoekstra & Maracz (1989a,b) that complementizer agreement languages do not accept deletion of complementizers. A language with the feature person in C° could be analyzed as a language with covert complementizer agreement. Hence our description predicts complementizer deletion to be impossible in older Icelandic, whereas complementizer deletion should be possible in modern Icelandic, where no feature person is found in C°. As predicted, complementizer deletion of a> 'that' is possible in modern Icelandic when the complementizer introduces the object complement of semi-factive and non-factive verbs. As shown in Thrainsson (1979: 214 f.), deletion is not possible after true factive verbs. The following examples are taken from Thrainsson (1979): (4.19) a. b. c.

Jon telur (a>) hun hafi fari>. John believes that she has gone Jon veit (a>) hun hefur fari>. John knows that she has gone Jon harmar ?*(a>) hun skuli hafa fari>. John regrets that she should have gone

As predicted, the possibility to leave out the complementizer is much more restricted in Old Icelandic. Consider the observation in Falk & Torp (1900:249) that the complementizer in Old Icelandic could only be deleted in oratio obliqua with main clause word order; that is, no deletion of the complementizer is allowed in ordinary embedded clauses. That the presence of agreement features in C° might be needed for the interpretation of pro as a referential argument in V2-languages is also evident from some West Germanic data. Languages like Bavarian have complementizers which agree overtly in number and person with the subject, and it is possible to use referential pro after such


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complementizers, as shown in (4.20a). As shown in (4.20b), Bavarian also allows referential pro in main clauses, when the verb occurs in C°:^ (4.20) a. ob-st \lPpro noch Minga kumm-st] (Bavarian; Bayer 1983/84:240) whether (2sg.) to Munich come (2sg.) b. kumm-st pro ? (Bavarian; Bayer 1983/84:249) come (2sg.) It is important to notice that Bavarian and West-Flemish do not accept referential pro in contexts where C° does not carry agreement: thus, the fact that there is Agr in 1° is not enough to identify small pro: (4.21) a. *ob pro noch Minga kumm-st (Bavarian; Bayer 1983/84:240) whether to Munich come (2sg) b. *da pro komt (West-Flemish; Bennis & Haegeman: 1984:45) that (sg.) come (3sg.) 4.3.4. Summary and Conclusion According to our description, the presence of nominative Agr in 1° opens the possibility of using null subjects. With Agr in 1°, a nominative element in Spec-IP is never needed for the purpose of licensing [+F]. It follows that ISc. may have a non-nominative element in Spec-IP, or leave this position empty (i.e. filled with small pro). Since there is no nominative Agr in MSc., [+F] cannot be licensed by IP in these languages. Consequently, there must always be a nominative DP in Spec-IP in MSc., or the trace of such a DP. In subsections 4.3.2. and 4.3.3. we have suggested the following formulations of the licensing and identificational conditions on small pro: (4.22) a. b.

Formal Licensing of small pro: Pro is head governed by a Case-licensing head X°y. (=4.13) Identification of small pro: (= Rizzi 1986:520) Let X be the licensing head of an occurrence of pro. Then pro has the grammatical specification of the features on X coindexed with it.

Provided that our assumption is correct that C° in ISc. contains the feature number, our theory accounts for the uses of small pro in ISc. 25 The same situation is found in Old French, where null subjects are allowed only in V2 contexts, i.e. when the verb has moved to C°. Consider among others Adams (1987).

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illustrated in (4.2a)-(4.5a). We have also suggested that the lack of number in German C° accounts for the lack of quasi-argumental pro in that language. Notice that our formulation of the licensing and identificational conditions on pro does not prevent pro from occurring in MSc.: it is the absence of Agx which accounts for the lack of pro in these languages, not the conditions on pro itself. Finally, it should be stressed that the licensing and identificational conditions on small pro, given in (4.22), are too liberal for the Scandinavian languages. As pointed out above, these languages do not accept pro in object position. To prevent pro from being something other than an empty subject in ISc., some parametricalization of the conditions in (4.22) is called for. A possible way would be to restrict (4.22a) to nominative-licensing heads. We will now proceed to discuss other cases where the Scandinavian languages differ as a result of the different possibilities of licensing [+F]. 4.4.

Non-nominative elements in Spec-IP: Oblique Subjects

Since Andrews (1976) it has been generally accepted that there are constructions in Icelandic where a non-nominative (oblique) DP has syntactic properties like those of nominative subjects, i.e. properties indicating that it is placed in Spec-IP.26 An example was given in (4.10) above. The same phenomenon is found in Faroese (Barnes 1986), Old Scandinavian,27 Middle English, Yiddish and Old French, but not in MSc.; see Platzack & Holmberg (1989). That is to say, oblique subjects occur in V2-languages of the Insular Scandinavian type, but not in V2 languages of the Mainland Scandinavian type. Some relevant examples from Icelandic and Swedish are given in (4.23) and (4.24) (A = accusative, D = dative, N = nominative). (4.23) a. b. c. d.

Hana vantar peninga. (Ice) her(A) lacks money (A) HafSi ber ekki leiSst? had you(D) not bored "Were you not bored?" Henni bykir broSir sinn leiQinlegur. her(D) thinks brother(N) her(REFL) boring "She thinks her brother is boring." Honum voru gefnir hestarnir. him(D) were(3 PL) given the-horses(N)

^" Oblique subjects lack two properties of prototypical subjects: they do not have nominative Case, and they do not agree with the finite verb. 2' See Rcignvaldsson (1991). The presence of oblique subjects in Old Scandinavian has been disputed by Faarlund (1988), Sundrnan (1985), and recently by M0rck (1992).

Null Subjects, Small pro, and the Role of Agr

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e. fieim var bjarga>. them (D) was(3 SG) rescued (4.24) a. b. c. d. e.

*Henne saknar pengar. (Swe) her lacks money *Hade dig ej trakigt? had you not bored *Henne tycker sin bror trakig. her thinks brother her boring *Honom blev givet/givna hastarna. him was given(SG)/given(PL) the-horses *Dem blev raddade. them was rescued

There are basically two types of oblique subject constructions: Experiencer constructions, as in (4.23a,b,c), and passives where the passivized object, usually a theme, has oblique Case, as in (4.23e). Example (4.23d) is a case where the passivized argument is an experiencer (this will be discussed in more detail in chapter 7). We assume, following Ottoson (1989), that the oblique subject in examples like (4.23a,b,c) and also (d) are base generated in Spec-VP, while the subject in (4.23e) is base-generated in V-Comp. Recall that we claim that the verbal predicate has a more complex structure than is standardly assumed: predicates headed by unergative, active verbs have two head positions, V and Act, where Act projects a Spec-position for the actor argument, to which it transmits a 0-role, and in addition licenses structural accusative Case on the object: see chapter 1, section 1.3.2. Oblique subject constructions are always either ergative or passive: the oblique subject is never an actor, but either an experiencer, as in (4.23a-d), or a theme, as in (4.23e), and the object, if there is one, does not have structural accusative but either nominative (as in (4.23c,d)) or a lexical Case (see Yip et al. (1987) for arguments that the accusative on the object in (4.2 3a) is lexical, not structural accusative). Consequently, we assume that the oblique subjects in the experiencer constructions in (4.23a-c) are not base-generated in SpecActP, but in Spec-VP proper. This is consistent with the fact that the experiencer has Case selected by the verb: this presupposes that it is in the government domain of the verb. The structure of (4.23a) is (4.25) (before I-to-C and subject movement to Spec-CP):^, 29 7 ft

We suggest that Spec-VF is the canonical position of experiencers; this will be discussed in more detail in chapter 7. Thus the oblique subject in (23d) is also basegenerated in Spec-VP. " The alternative is that the oblique subjects are base-generated as complements of V in experiencer constructions, too, as argued by Sigurdsson (1989:210-224) But (a) this is not permitted under strict binary branching (in cases where there are two arguments), and (b) if the verb is allowed to have two sister objects, we predict that either object could be

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(4.25) C [IP hanaj [f [l° vantarj Agr] [yp ej [y1 ej peninga]] Sigurdsson (1989: 204-209) (consider also Thrainsson (1979: 462 ff.), Zaenen, Maling & Thrainsson (1985) and Sigurdsson (1992a)) has summarized a number of tests indicating that oblique DPs like the accusative hana 'her' in (4.2 3a) and the datives in (4.23b-e) are in SpecIP. The majority of these tests are designed to show that the oblique DP is not a topicalized object: it is our conviction that this has been demonstrated beyond doubt by the authors mentioned. Some of the subject properties relevant for oblique subjects are indicated in the examples given. In (4.23b), for example, there is inversion between the dative DP and the finite verb: topicalized objects may never invert with the finite verb. In (4.2 3c) the dative obligatorily binds the possessive reflexive in the nominative bro>ir sinn: topicalized objects do not bind reflexives obligatorily.-50 As already indicated, the possibility of using oblique subjects in ISc. follows immediately from our description: due to the presence of nominative Agr, there is no need for a nominative DP in Spec-IP, hence this position is open for other elements. In languages without Agr, on the other hand, the licensing condition for [+F] requires the presence of a nominative DP in Spec-IP. Hence, there is no place for oblique subjects in MSc.-^

made the surface subject. However, only the experiencer can be the surface subject; compare (ia,b) arnd (4.23a,c): (i) a. *Peninga hefur vantaS hana. money(A) lias lacked her(A) b. *15r65ir hennar pykir hcnni leiflinlegur. brother(N) her thinks her(D) boring On the assumption that the experiencer is base-generated in Spec-VP, (4.25a,b) are ruled put as violations of relativi/.ed minimality. Note that Sigurdsson (1989) was written before it became commonplace to assume that all subjects are base-generated inside the predicate. His arguments are directed against the analysis where oblique subjects are base-generated in Spec-IP. 3® Sigur3sson (1989: 204 f.) gives the following list of eleven phenomena with respect to which oblique subjects behave like nominative subjects, and not like topicalized objects: Topicalization, Non-topicalization, Position in subordinate clause, Accusative-withInfinitive, Norninative-with-lnfinitive, Reflexivization, Control, Extraction, Heavy Subject Shift, Cliticization, and Conjunction Reduction. ' The Swedish oblique subject constructions in (4.24) would seem to be ruled out for another reason, as well: Swedish has no lexical Case. If accusative is always structural, we do not expect it to be preserved under A-movement, hence we do not expect accusative in the subject position regardless of Agr. There is a possible test case, however. As will be discussed in chapters 6 and 7, the indirect object of the double object construction behaves in some respects as if it had lexical case, preserved under A-rnovernent, in some varieties of Swedish and Norwegian. Thus, if Case is all that matters, we predict that (i) = (4.24d) would be grammatical: (i) *1 lonom blcv givct hastarna. him were given thc-horses Interestingly this constructions is clearly better than the rest of the sentences in (4.24), yet being clearly unacceptable. Conceivably this is because (i) is ruled out only for violating the licensing conditions on [+F], while the other sentences violate Case conditions as well.


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The different behavior of oblique subjects and topicalized elements in Icelandic indicates that Spec-IP is an A-position, not an A-bar position. Notice that we do not find adverbially used oblique DPs which have the subject properties listed above: to be able to occur in Spec-IP, DP must bear an argument 0-role. This observation argues against current proposals according to which Spec-IP may be used as a landing site for A-bar movement in V2-languages: consider e.g. Kosmeijer (1989) and Rognvaldsson & Thrainsson (1990). 4.5.

Stylistic Fronting

As mentioned in chapter three, there are two types of fronting phenomena in Icelandic besides wh-fronting: Topicalization, which is the fronting of maximal phrases, and Stylistic Fronting, which is a fronting of heads, typically participles, light adverbs and particles.-*2 The same two types are found in Faroese; consider Barnes (1986, 1987). Illustrative examples are given in (4.26) and (4.27). For convenience, the fronted elements are in bold face.

(4.26) TOPICALIZATION a.

b.

Mariu hef eg aldrei hitt. Mary (ace.) have I never met I gxr keypti Olafur bessa bok. yesterday bought Olaf (nom.) this book (ace.)

(4.27) STYLISTIC FRONTING a. Fram hefur komiQ a3 ... out has come that ... b. Fundurinn, sem fram hafcli farifl i Oslo, var skemmtilegur. the-meeting that on had gone in Oslo was fun Whereas Topicalization as well as wh-fronting is just as common in MSc. as in Icelandic, Stylistic Fronting is not found in the modern Mainland Scandinavian languages: * Barnes (1987) claims that DPs and PPs can be fronted by Stylistic Fronting in Faroese. In fact in all the examples of DP-fronting which he gives, except one, the fronted constituent is a bare noun, as in (ia). It is quite possible that only the N° head has been fronted here. In (ib) a noun with an attributive adjective is fronted. It seems to us that this may be a kind of oblique subject construction rather than a case of Stylistic Fronting. (i) a Fa eru tey, sum b0kur hava keypt. few are they who books have bought b. Hetta er nalcafl sum rottum monnum er andstyggiligt. this is something which (to) proper men (dat) is abominable c. Tey, sum i Danmark hava ven >, siga... they who in Denmark have been The fronted PP in (ic) may be harder to accommodate within a theory where Stylistic Fronting applies strictly to X° categories. Falk (1993) reports cases from older Swedish where Stylistic Fronting also seems to involve maximal phrases.

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(4.28) a. b. (4.29) a. b.

Maria har jag aldrig traffat. Mary have I never met Igar kopte Olaf derma bole. yesterday bought Olaf this book

(Swe)

*Fram har kommit att... out has come that ... *Motet som rum har agt i Oslo, var trevligt. the-meeting that on has gone in Oslo was fun

The occurrence of two fronting processes in Icelandic was first noted in the generative framework by Maling (1980),^ a nd has since been generally accepted by most scholars studying Icelandic.^ Maling presented the following list of differences between the two fronting processes: it is important to notice that Stylistic Fronting differs from Topicalization in being clause-bounded and requiring a subject gap, besides the fact that Stylistic Fronting only affects heads while Topicalization affects maximal projections. 35 (4.30) TOPICALIZATION STYLISTIC FRONTING36 a. Applies to object NPs, PPs etc. Applies to past participles, Adjs, some Advs, particles, etc. b. Emphasis or focus on fronted No such emphasis or focus constituent necessarily present c. Uncommon in embedded Ss Common in embedded Ss d. Judgments vary on fronting Accepted by all speakers in relatives, questions, etc. e. Unbounded Clause-bounded f. No Subject Gap required Requires a Subject Gap

*•* Smari (1920:260) mentions the possibility of Stylistic Fronting of infinitives and past participles in clauses without an overt subject, but he does not seem to consider the fronting of other light elements in such clauses to be instances of the same process. That these frontings should be considered one phenomenon is, however, suggested by traditional scholars working on Old Swedish, where this construction is labelled 'the wedge construction" (kilkonstruktionen), the interpretation being that the fronted element functions as a wedge between the complementizer and the tensed verb. Consider Wesson (1956:306-7). " The exceptions are Rognvaldsson (1982) and Rognvaldsson & Thrainsson (1990); see below. •*' Another difference mentioned in Maling (1980) is the fact that there is an accessibility hierarchy connected with Stylistic Fronting in Icelandic, determining which element will be fronted if more than one is available. According to Maling, the hierarchy is said to be the following: (i) ekki 'not' > predicative adjective > past participle / verbal particle There is no similar accessibility hierarchy connected with topicalization. '" In Maling (1980), the construction is named Stylistic Inversion.

Null Subjects, Small pro, and the Rote ofAgr

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There is no generally accepted description of Stylistic Fronting. Platzack (1987) suggests that Stylistic Fronting is the result of movement to the empty subject position. However, as Rognvaldsson & Thrainsson (1990) correctly point out, such a description meets severe problems. First of all it is not attractive to move heads into the subject position, where we expect to find maximal phrases. Secondly it is not clear that the subject position is empty, even if it is not filled with a phonologically realized element: in examples like (4.27a,b) it is plausible to assume that the subject position contains pro, and in examples like (4.27c,d) it seems to contain a wh-trace. In both cases the subject position should be unavailable as a landing site. The alternative description proposed by Rognvaldsson & Thrainsson (1990) does not seem attractive either, though. These authors advocate the I-account of modern Icelandic, where both Topicalization and Stylistic Fronting are described as movement to Spec-IP, a position distinct from the subject position, which is taken to be adjoined to VP. In particular, their analysis does not involve movement to a position already filled by pro or a wh-trace: in examples like (4.27), the empty subject, be it pro or wh-trace, is in the subject position adjoined to VP, leaving Spec-IP free to be used as a landing site for both Topicalization and Stylistic Fronting. On the other hand, their conception of Icelandic sentence structure is incompatible with our general account of the verbsecond phenomenon. Furthermore, we do not find their assumption that Topicalization and Stylistic Fronting are the same process to be well attested: recall that we pointed out in chapter three above that extraction out of an embedded clause with Stylistic Fronting is generally allowed, whereas extraction out of clauses with Topicalization is banned. Independently of each other, Cardinaletti & Roberts (to appear),^ Platzack (1991) and Jonsson (1991) argue that Stylistic Fronting should be described as an adjunction of a head to the left of 1° with Agr. The MSc. languages have no Agr in 1°, hence no V-raising to 1° (in overt syntax). Adjunction of a head to 1° is therefore impossible in MSc. simply because there is no lexical material in 1° to adjoin to. This is not the whole truth, however. There is evidence that V-raising to 1° is not a sufficient condition for Stylistic Fronting, but what is crucially required is presence of (nominal) Agr in I. Icelandic has obligatory verb raising to 1° even in infinitival clauses (note that the infinitive marker a> 'to' is in C, not in I, in Icelandic). (4.31) a.

Maria Iofa8i a5 (*ekki / *alltaf) lesa (ekki / alltaf) bokina. Mary promised to not / always read not / always the-book

37 ^' Cardinaletti & Roberts (to appear) assume Split-lnfl.

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*Marfa lofadi a8 teki> hafa ut peninga ur bankanum i morgum. Mary promised to taken have out money from the-bank tomorrow

That the infinitive raises to 1° in Icelandic is evident from the relative word order of the infinitival verb and the sentence adverb in examples like (4.3la); this fact has been discussed by several scholars, including Thrainsson (1984, 1986, 1993), Holmberg (1986:154-6), SigurSsson (1989:49-53, 1991), and Hornstein (1990). Stylistic Fronting is, however, not allowed in such clauses, as is indicated by the ungrammatical example in (4.31b). This indicates that Agr, which is present only in tensed clauses, is necessary for the triggering of Stylistic Fronting. Some properties of Stylistic Fronting follow immediately from the hypothesis that Stylistic Fronting is head adjunction (cliticization) to 1° with Agr. Consider first the clause boundedness of Stylistic Fronting, (4.30e). It is well known that clitics and other adjoined heads cannot move out of their clause: hence analyzing Stylistic Fronting as head adjunction immediately gives us an account of this property. Second, this analysis also accounts for the presence of Stylistic Fronting in main clauses: since Icelandic is a verb-second language, the verb must move from 1° to C° in main clauses. When Stylistic Fronting has taken place, resulting in a complex 1°, this complex can move to C°, giving us examples like (4.27a,b). Third, cliticized elements cannot be focused: this explains Maling's observation (4.30b). Fourth, nothing can intervene between a cliticized element and its host, nor can cliticized elements conjoin to each other. Both properties hold for stylistically fronted elements as well. Finally, clitics cannot be stranded when their hosts are fronted, see Kayne (1991). Stylistically fronted elements cannot be stranded either, as indicated by the examples in (4.32): notice that the position of fram I hef>i in front of the negation is taken to show that these elements have been adjoined to 1°: (4.32) a. b.

*Hafaj [jp e [\° keypt ej] [VP ekki bessa bok margir studentarj] have bought not this book (A) many students(N) "Tlefurj [jp e [l° fram ej] [VP ekki komiS ad ...]] has out not come that ...

As shown by Jonsson (1991), the analysis of Stylistic Fronting as adjunction to 1° also enables us to explain the existence of the accessibility hierarchy for Stylistic Fronting, mentioned above in footnote 35, in terms of relativized minimality. We will now consider the other properties of Stylistic Fronting mentioned in (4.30). Since Stylistic Fronting is possible only if there is no overt subject in Spec-IP, it seems obvious that adjunction of the


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stylistically fronted element to 1° prevents an overt DP from being licensed in Spec-IP. An initially plausible hypothesis is that Stylistic Fronting blocks nominative Case licensing of Spec-IP; this idea is suggested both by Platzack and by Jonsson. However, the fact that Stylistic Fronting is also impossible when Spec-IP is filled by an oblique subject indicates that an explanation based on nominative Case licensing is insufficient. Consider the examples in (4.33): (4.33), a. *Eg helt [aS [jp margir studentar [p keypt hefSu] bessa bok ] ,1 thought that many students (N) bought had this book (A) b. *Eg helt [a8 [jp einhverjum [p flott hefc5i] Olafur leiSinlegur] I thought that someone (D) thought had Olaf (N) boring (N) In (4.33a), we have Stylistic Fronting in an embedded clause with an overt nominative subject in Spec-IP, in (4.33b) with an overt dative subject in Spec-IP. A possible answer to the question of why Stylistic Fronting is incompatible with a Spec-IP with overt material is provided by Rizzi's (1991b) definition of A-positions (see above). When Spec-IP hosts the subject of a clause, Spec-IP must be an A-position; this implies, given Rizzi's definition, that Spec-IP agrees with 1°. We have seen in connection with the discussion of Oblique Subjects that the ^-feature responsible for this agreement is invisible: in particular it is not a part of Agr and it is not a part of the inflectional ending of the tensed verb. Suppose this invisible (((-feature is adjoined to 1° like a clitic element. If this is the case, cliticization of another element to 1° is blocked: this follows from the general restriction on clitics proposed by Roberts (1991) on the basis of his study of cliticization in Valtotain, a FrancoProvencal dialect spoken in the Val d'Aoste in northern Italy. In that paper Roberts points out that subject clitics are in complementary distribution with object clitics in some varieties of this dialect, and explains this distribution in terms of a universal restriction on clitics, requiring that clitics cannot adjoin to other clitics. Consider next the case where Spec-IP is filled by pro: an example is given in (4.34): (4.34) Eg helt [a3 \I° pro{ [p keypt hefSu] bessa bok margir studentarj] I thought that bought had this book (A) many students (N) (4.34) equals (4.33a) with the difference that the overt subject is in a postposed position, leaving a trace in Spec-VP (actually Spec-ActP, since this is a transitive clause). The empty Spec-IP is interpreted as pro. In this case, the different parts of the structure are appropriately licensed. Pro is licensed and given an interpretation according to (4.22): it is licensed since it is governed by the head hosting [+F], i.e. a> in C°,

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and it gets an interpretation as a true expletive from being coindexed with this head, which lacks ^-features. This head also hosts the finiteness feature [+F], which is licensed by nominative Agr (see (2.2)). Nominative Agr is licit since it is in the head of IP which is head governed by [+F] (see (2.5)). Finally, the trace in Spec-VP is in a position where nominative is indirectly licensed, as we will show in chapter five. The overt nominative margir studentar 'many students' forms an A-bar chain with this trace: hence its Case is licensed. Finally we will discuss the case where the subject gap of a clause with Stylistic Fronting seems to be filled by a wh-trace: examples of this kind are given in (4.27c,d). The wh-phrase must bind a variable, i.e. an empty head of an A-chain. The head of an A-chain must be in an Aposition. But we have seen in the discussion of (4.33) that Spec-IP is not licensed as an A-position when Stylistic Fronting has applied. Consequently it should not be possible to have a wh-trace in Spec-IP in such constructions either. Since sentences like (4.27c,d) are wellformed, we must look for an alternative description of these cases. The obvious solution is to assume that Spec-IP is filled by pro, and that the trace of the wh-elernent is in Spec-VP, as in (4.34). Under this analysis, an example like (4.27d) will have the structure outlined in (4.35): (4.35) f>essi rnadurj held eg [QP ej a3 [jp pro teki> hafi [VP ej lit peninga ur bankanum]|| this man think I that taken has (3 sg.) out money from thebank. "This man I think has taken money out from the bank." A remaining question to be answered is how the conditions of the EPP are met in a structure like (4.35): in particular we must ask where we find the argument position outside of VP which is coindexed with a theta-marked position within VP. In a case like (4.35), the finite verb agrees in person and number with the fronted DP. As we have noted, the finite verb in Icelandic agrees with the nominative DP in the clause if there is one, seemingly disregarding the position of this DP. Consider an example like (4.23d) above, where we have a nominative object in VP with which the finite verb agrees. Whatever mechanism is responsible for this agreement we conclude that Agr in (4.35) should agree with the fronted DP, in effect with the trace in Spec-VP. Hence we claim that the requirement of the EPP that there should be a VP-external position coindexed with a thetaposition within VP is fulfilled by Agr in a case like (4.35).^

38 Another possibility is that Stylistic Fronting itself satisfies the EPP, since although the

fronted element is not an argument but a head, it still creates a l i n k between a predicateinternal position and a position outside the predicate.


121

In conclusion, the proposal that stylistically fronted elements adjoin to 1° with Agr seems to account for most properties of Stylistic Fronting. 4.6.

Diachronic support

In this chapter we have studied various differences between ISc. and MSc., differences which we have claimed are due to the presence of nominative Agr in ISc. and the lack of nominative Agr in MSc. The same differences are found between the older stages of MSc. and their modern descendants, as shown by the data in (4.36):^9 (4.36) a. Pro with existentials: compare (4.2) Flogh wp hani (DL) flew up cock b. Pro with impersonal passive: compare (4.3) Ar grauit vndir syll (VgL ) is dug under sill c. Pro with extraposed clause: compare (4.4) handa ma at twu vardhir kalladh (Bo) happen may that you are called d. Pro with quasi-role: compare (4.5) Oc rangde ower iordhina fyretighi dagha oc fyretighi natter (MB) and rained over the-earth forty clays and forty nights e. Impersonal Present Participle Construction: compare (4.6a) Annat tidh ar markiandhe at ihesus bodh losa asnana another time is noticing that Jesus asked to-release the-donkey ok ledha til sik (SM) and to-lead to himself f. Optionally Ergative Construction: compare (4.6b) Fyrst skal by letae (AVgL) first shall village search First one shall search in the village. g. Impersonal Modal Construction: compare (4.6c) Ea skal kopa bokar (OgL) then shall buy books h. Oblique subject with active verb: compare (4.23) tha hungradhe varom herra (Bo) then starved our lord (D) 39 The abbreviations refer to'the following Old Swedish texts: DL: The Dalecarlian Law, Bo: OSw. translation of Bonaventura's Meditaliones ViLce Christi., AVgL: The Old Vestro-gotia law, VgL: The Vestro-gotia law, OgL: The Ostro-gotia law, MB:: Old Swedish Bible translations., KM:: The OSw. Saga of Karl Magnus, Vidh.: The chronicle of the priest from Vidhein, SM: Old Swedish hooks of homilies.

122 i. j.

The Role of Inflection in Scandinavian Syntax Oblique subject with passive verb: compare ((4.25) Hanum war firigiort ma8 ondom dryk (Vidh.) him (D) was destroyed with evil drink Stylistic Fronting: compare (4.27) som suikit haffde roland oc t0m Xij isemninga (KM) that failed had Roland and the twelve knights

If it is correct, as we have claimed in this chapter, that the ocurrence of the constructions illustrated above presupposes the presence of nominative Agr, we should expect these constructions to disappear at the same time as Agr disappears. For Swedish, it is known that Agr disappears during the 17th century: cf. section 3.3. above. Hence, we expect the Agr-dependent constructions to be lost in the beginning of the 18th century. For some of the constructions illustrated in (4.36) we have frequency data, showing how their frequencies drop during the 17th century. The following table is based on Platzack (1985); see also Falk (1993) for a confirmation and refinement of these findings. Table 1 Frequency figures for finite sentences with null subjects and subordinate clauses with Stylistic Fronting in semiprivate letters and diaries by Swedish authors born between 1530 and 1730. For each period, texts from at least five different authors are excerpted. The frequency figures are median values. Date of birth of authors 1530-1570 1571-1610 1611-1650 1651-1690 1691-1730

Number

Null-subjects

Stylistic Fronting

5 6 7 5 5

62% 62% 28% 22% 17%

36% 40% 24% 4% 0%

As the figures indicate, the number of constructions studied decreases considerably during the 17th century. Since Agr is lost during this century, the results are in accordance with what is to be expected if these constructions presuppose the presence of nominative Agr. ® The other constructions illustrated in (4.36) are used so sparsely that it is hard to get any reliable frequency figures. However, Platzack (1985) reports that the majority of verbs used with oblique subjects in Old Swedish (examples like (4.36h,i,j)) cannot be used with that construction in the 18th century: thus, once again there is a fairly good 40

Falk (1993) has shown that the figures in table 1 disguises an important difference: the frequency of null subjects with quasi-argurnental interpretation decreases much quicker than the frequency of null subjects with expletive interpretation.


123

fit between the loss of Agr and the loss of a construction claimed to be dependent on Agr. In conclusion, we have shown in this section that the various null subject constructions discussed in this chapter were present in older stages of MSc. and that those constructions we have data about are lost in MSc. at the same time as Agr is lost. Hence, the diachronic data give further support to our general hypothesis that the presence of null subjects in Scandinavian presupposes the presence of nominative Agr.


Chapter Five: The Role of Agr and The Licensing of Nominative DPs within VP 5.1.

Introduction

Having studied the role of Agr for the position of the tensed verb (chapter three) and the possibility of using null subjects (chapter four), we will now proceed to discuss the role played by Agr for licensing nominative DPs within VP. There are two properties of Agr in 1° which are of importance in this respect. The first property is its nominative status, which forces Agr to be in a position where nominative can be licensed, at the same time as it discharges a nominative licenser: recall that we argue for a biunique relation between the licenser and its licensee. The second property of importance is the status of Agr as an element of the category [+N]: this property will make 1° with Agr a lexical head governor. All the Scandinavian languages may have nominative DPs within the predicate. The few differences found between ISc. and MSc. in this respect are of two types. Firstly, as already noticed in chapter four, ISc. but not MSc. may have a definite nominative object in sentences with an oblique subject. See the examples in (5.1) below. Secondly, nominative DPs are allowed in Spec-VP in ISc. but not in MSc., due to the presence of nominal Agr in ISc. This is illustrated in (5.2). In (5.3) we exemplify the fact that both ISc. and MSc. may have a nominative DP in the position following the main verb, i.e. presumably in the complement of V.1 The occurrence of a nominative DP in the complement of a past participle in both ISc. and MSc. is illustrated in (5.4), and in (5.5) it is shown that a nominative DP may also be in the

1 Since

there is no m-Case in MSc. (except with some definite personal pronouns which cannot be used in V-Comp. for independent reasons), it is impossible to tell for sure that a DP in VP in MSc. has nominative Case. However, when the corresponding DP in modern Icelandic, as well as in earlier stages of MSc., is nominative, it seems to be the straightforward conclusion that such a DP is nominative in modern MSc. as well. Furthermore, assuming that such a DP is nominative will give us the easiest account of the historical development in MSc. on this point: the only thing which has happened is the loss of m-Case. 2 Note that the participle agrees with the complement DP in ISc., but not in MSc. Certain Norwegian dialects are like Icelandic in this respect; see Christensen & Taraldsen (1987). This difference is further discussed in section 5.3.

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Spec-position of a past participle^ in MSc., but not in ISc. In all the examples the VP-internal nominative is in bold face: (5.1)

a. b.

(5.2)

a.

b. (5.3)

a. b.

(5.4)

a. b.

(5.5)

a. b.

Honum voru gefnir hestarnir. him (D) were (3PL) given the-horses (N) *Honom blev givet / givna hastarna. him was given (SG) / (PL) the-horses

(Ice.) (Sw.)

Ead hafa [VP sennilega [VP margir menn komiS hingaS f dag]] (Ice.) there have (3 PL) probably many men come (N PL Masc) here today *Det har [VP sannolikt [VP manga man kommit hit idag]] there has probably many men come here today EaS hafa [VP komi3 margir menn hinga3 f dag] (Ice.) there have (3 PL) come many men (N PL Masc) here today Det har [VP kommit manga man hit idag] (Sw.) there has come many men here today I>ad voru [VP lesnar nokkrar baekur] (Ice.) there were read (N PL Fern) some books (N PL Fern) Det blev [Vp last nagra bocker] (Sw.) there was read (3SG Neut) some books *£aS hafa [yp veri9 [yp nokkrar baikur lesnar]] (Ice.) there have been some books (N PL Fern) read (N PL Fern) Det har [yp blivit [yp nagra bocker la'sta]] (Sw.) there has been some books read (3PL Neut)

The chapter is organized in the following way. In section 5.2. we will give a general overview of the mechanisms used for licensing nominative Case within VP. Constructions with a nominative DP in the complement of V will be discussed in section 5.3.: in such constructions, illustrated in (5.3)-(5.4), ISc. and MSc. are alike with respect to the possibility of having a nominative DP in VP. We will argue that this nominative is indirectly licensed via an expletive chain from Spec-IP. The consequences of the presence versus absence of Agr in 1° for licensing a DP in VP are investigated in sections 5.4. and 5.5. In section 5.4. we will show that Spec-VP is available for an overt DP only in ISc., i.e. in languages where 1° contains Agr (see the examples in (5.2)), although an expletive chain from Spec-IP can be established in

^ It is to be noticed that this is possible only after vara 'be' and the passive auxiliary bli 'be, become'.

The Role ofAgr and the Licensing of Nominative DPs

127

both variants of Scandinavian. In section 5.5. we will claim that the presence of Agr in ISc. in addition makes available the licensing of nominative Case via a head-chain; such a chain cannot be established in MSc. As we will argue, this way of licensing nominative Case is used in examples like (5.1). Diachronic support for our description is provided in 5.6., the concluding section. 5.2.

The Licensing of Nominative Case

The licensing conditions for nominative Case were presented in (2.5) above: we will here repeat them as (5.6): (5.6)

Nominative is licit iff a. it is head governed by a head with lexical content hosting [+F] (direct licensing), or b. it is governed by a member of a chain, the head of which is licensed by virtue of (5.6a) (indirect licensing).

A general illustration of the way these conditions are supposed to work in various types of languages was given in chapter two, and in chapter four we discussed the consequences of these conditions for a nominative element in Spec-IP. Here we will concentrate on the implications of these conditions for nominative DPs within VP. It follows from the conditions in (5.6) that a nominative DP within VP in a verb second language must be indirectly licensed. Recall that [+F] is always in C° in V2 languages: the licensing conditions for [+F], given in (2.2) above, are here repeated as (5.7): (5.7)

Licensing Condition for the Finiteness Feature [+F] An occurrence of the feature [+F] is licit if and only if the head hosting it governs a phonetically realized element bearing nominative Case, or the trace of such an element.

When [+F] is placed in C°, a nominative element must be present either in Spec-IP or in the head of IP for the structure to be wellformed. The presence of 1° blocks (direct) government from C° into VP (relativized minimality). The nominative element governed by [+F] is also directly licensed by [+F], according to (5.6a). Hence, any nominative element within VP must be indirectly licensed. According to the licensing condition (5.6b), indirect licensing of nominative Case presupposes that the nominative element is governed by a member of a chain, the first member of which is head governed by a head with lexical content hosting [+FJ. Since the notion "government" is not specified in this formulation, there are two possible ways for this condition to be fulfilled: the nominative element is either antecedent-

128


governed or head-governed. These two options are outlined in (5.8) for V2-languages with [+F] in C°. In both cases the indirectly licensed nominative is indicated as bold faced Nom1, and the nominative element directly licensed by [+F] is indicated as Nom" (in italics); the empty element e^ in (5.8a) is the trace of Nomk" in Spec-VP: (5.8)

a.

Indirect licensing accomplished by antecedent-government: [CP Spec [C [+F]] [IP Nomkd I [VP ek-Nom1 ...]]]4

b.

Indirect licensing accomplished by head-government [CP Spec [C [+F]] [IP DP [I Norn*] [Vp ...V Norn* ...]]]

When indirect licensing is accomplished by antecedent-government of Nom1, as in (5.8a), the antecedent (Nomk° in Spec-IP or ek, i.e. the trace of Nomk" in Spec-VP^) must be a link in a nominative chain which is head governed by [+F]. On the other hand, when indirect licensing is accomplished by head government of Nomi, the governing head (i.e. V° in (5.8b)) must be a member of a head chain, where the first element (Nom^ = nominative Agr in this case) is a nominative head governed by [+F]. Since a nominative head coindexed with V° can be found only when there is Agr in 1°, it follows that indirect licensing accomplished by head government is an option only for ISc. Empirical differences between ISc. and MSc. due to this type of indirect nominative licensing will be discussed in section 5.5. below. Finally, it should be noted that there is always an element binding the nominative DP when nominative Case is indirectly licensed with the help of antecedent-government. Since the bound DP is an Rexpression, this binding will violate the standard formulation of principle C of the Binding Theory, which states that R-expressions must be A-free. With Safir (1987:87-94) we assume6 that Principle C is revised so that it does not apply to bound indefinite DPs. Safir (1987:87) proposes that an indefinite DP can be analyzed as a predicate; as a predicate it escapes principle C. The idea is roughly that an indefinite DP together with a binding expletive pronoun forms an argument. The reader is referred to Safir's article for further discussion. From our point of view, it is enough to notice that if we assume Safir's revision of Principle C, our description predicts that there should be a definiteness effect as soon as we have a nominative Case indirectly licensed by means of antecedent-government via an expletive chain from Spec-IP; no such

^ Nom1 is either in Spec-VP or in V-Comp. ' It follows from the relativized minimality condition on antecedent government that the trace of Nom in Spec-VP must be the antecedent governor of a nominative in V-Comp. ° Consider the discussion of examples (4.11) and (4.12) in chapter four.

129


effect is predicted when a nominative is indirectly licensed by means of head-government. 5.3.

Nominative DP in the Complement of V

In this section we will account for the possibility of licensing a nominative element in the complement of V. As shown in (5.3), there is no difference within the group of Scandinavian languages in this respect: both ISc. and MSc. can have an indefinite nominative DP in V-Comp when Spec-IP contains an expletive element. In (5.9) we give the structure of examples like (5.3); the nominative DP in V-Comp is in bold face:'

(5.9)

rp

Spec

C

IP

C

r

DP ±Tns (Agr)

VP DP

V

VP

V DP

V

V

I>aS hafaj projj there have(3PL) Detk harj ek

ei

ek

ei

ek

ei ei

ek ek

DP

komiS margir meim^. many men come kommit manga mank

Consider the licensing of margir menn I manga man 'many men' in (5.9). To be licit, this nominative DP must be governed by a member of a chain, the head of which is a nominative head-governed by [+F]. See (5.6) above. It is standardly assumed that the members of a chain are linked together by antecedent-government (Chomsky (1986a), Rizzi

To save space we have used the same tree for illustrating the structures of both the Icelandic and the Swedish example, hence Agr is within parentheses..

130


(1990: 92);8 hence this licensing is possible only if a chain from Spec-IP to V-Comp can be established. However, the closest possible antecedent of a DP in V-Comp is Spec-VP: no DP higher up in the tree can antecedent-govern V-Comp without violating the relativized minimality condition of antecedent-government. Thus the chain from Spec-IP to V-Comp must include Spec-VP. The requirement that Spec-VP must antecedent-govern V-Comp presupposes that Spec-VP and V-Comp are coindexed. The second requirement, that the head of this chain is governed by [+F], presupposes that Spec-IP is also coindexed with V-Comp (and thereby, naturally, also with Spec-VP). This requirement is independently provided for by the Extended Projection Principle (EPP): we claim in 1.2.6. that the EPP should be interpreted in such a way that there must be an external A-position outside the domain of the verb, a position which is coindexed with a 0-marked position within VP. In (5.9), SpecIP is the only available A-position outside of VP, and V-Comp is the only 9—marked position within VP; hence, it follows from the EPP that Spec-IP must be coindexed with V-Comp. Since V-Comp is also coindexed with Spec-VP, and the co-indexed elements Spec-IP, SpecVP, and V-Comp are linked together by antecedent-government both in ISc. and in MSc., we have an expletive chain containing these elements in structures like (5.9). The expletive chain established in (5.9) is indicated by the elements bearing the index k. Since the head of this chain, Spec-IP, is headgoverned by [+F], and V-Comp is not only bound by but also antecedent-governed by Spec-VP, we conclude that the requirements for indirect licensing according to (5.6b) are met: a nominative in VComp is licensed both in Swedish and in Icelandic. Correspondingly, accusative is not licit in V-Comp in this construction. Within the theory assumed here nothing prevents assignment of accusative to VComp. However, accusative is licit only if it is head-governed by the head Act, i.e. the head which also licenses an external (agent) argument. Ergative verbs and passive participles do not project Act, hence take no agent argument, and do not allow accusative Case in V-Comp. Notice finally that the nominative DP in the complement of V must be indefinite, as predicted above: examples like (5.10) and (5.11), where the indefinite DPs of (5.9) are replaced by definite DPs, are not well-formed:^

8

This condition can be stated as in (i): (i) (aj,...an) is a chain only if, for every »', 1< i < n, a; antecedent governs aj + i. " As a matter of fact, examples like these may occasionally be found in Icelandic. As we will claim in section 5.5. below, we do not have licensing by virtue of antecedent government in such cases.

131

The Role of Agr and the Licensing of Nominative DPs (5.10) *I»ad hafa [yp komiS mennirnir hinga9 i dag] (Ice.) there have (3 PL) come the-men (N PL Masc) here today (5.11) *Det har [VP kommit mannen hit idag] there has come the-men here today

(Sw.)

The account just given of nominative DPs in V-Comp is directly transferrable to examples like (5.4), where the nominative DP occurs in the complement of a past participle. Following SigurSsson (1990b) we will assume that the agreement found between the participle and its nominative complement in Icelandic is a consequence of the presence of Agr in 1°: the participle is in a head chain with Agr, and each link in a chain must have the same -feature values. Indirect support for this description is given by the fact that there is no corresponding agreement between the participle and its complement in those MSc. dialects which show participle agreement: in MSc., there is no Agr in 1° and no head chain can be formed. We assume that a participle or adjective in MSc. agrees with its subject as a result of spec-head agreement: consider examples like (5.5b), which show that we have agreement when the nominative is in the spec-position of the participle. See Hedlund (1992) for a description of participles in Swedish. 5.4.

Nominative in Spec-VP

5.4.1.

Introduction

As noted in section 5.1., ISc. but not MSc. can have a nominative DP in Spec-VP. This difference was illustrated by the examples in (5.2), here repeated here as (5.12); (a) is Icelandic, (b) is Swedish: (5.12) a. I>ac5 hafa [yp sennilega [yp margir menn komi3 hingaQ i dag]], there have (3 PL) probably many men come (N PL Masc) here today b. *Det har [yp sannolikt [yp manga man kommit hit idag]] there has probably many men come here today In this section we want to show that this difference between MSc. and ISc. is a direct consequence of the presence of Agr in ISc.; the relevant property of Agr in this case is its nominal feature, which makes 1° with Agr a lexical governor.

132


5.4.2. The proper head-governement requirement on overt DPs It has been pointed out by Vikner (1990, p. llff.) and SigurSsson (1991) that an indefinite DP argument in Spec-VP in Icelandic must be in the highest Spec-VP. Consider the examples in (5.13), where it is shown that the occurrence of a nominative DP between two infinitival auxiliaries (presumably the DP is in the spec-position of the lower auxiliary) leads to ungrammaricality: (5.13) a. b.

I>a5 mundu sennilega [VP nokkrar baekur hafa [yp veriS [VP lesnar]] there would probably some books (N) have been read *I?aS mundu sennilega [VP hafa [yp nokkrar baekur veriS [VP lesnar]] there would probably have some books (N) been read

As shown by the data in (5.13), a nominative DP may be licensed in the highest Spec-VP but not in the next highest one (or in any Spec-VP more deeply embedded). See the relevant structure of (5.13a,b) in (5.14) below. We have argued above that the highest Spec-VP is antecedentgoverned by Spec-IP in both ISc. and MSc.; hence a nominative in this position is indirectly licensed if there is a nominative element in SpecIP. However, the next highest Spec-VP is also antecedent-governed, this time by the trace of the expletive pro in the highest Spec-VP. For typographical reasons we have divided the tree in two: the boxed VP in the upper tree corresponds to the boxed VP in the lower tree.

133

The Role ofAgr and the Licensing of Nominative DPs (5.14)

CP Spec

C'

c

IP

-F

r

DP

i

VP

Ins Agr

i>aa

munduj proj

e

i

si

AdvP sennilega

Vtf DP

V V

VR.

-V

DP V

VP DP

V

v"

VP

_-*x.

DP

V

V' nokkrar baekur .e

j

e

i ei

e

J e )

e hafa veri9 i hafa nokkrar b.j verio

DP

l

j lesnar ei lesnar

e

e

J j

e

Intermediate Spec-VP positions are not only unavailable for nominative subjects, they are unavailable for oblique subjects as well, as shown by Vikner (1990) and SigurSsson (1991). The following examples are taken from SigurSsson's paper: (5.15) a. £aS mundi einhverjum strakum sennilega [yp hafa veriS hjalpaS] it would some boys probably have been helped b. I>aS mundi sennilega [yp einhverjum strakum hafa veriS hjalpaS] c. *I>a5 mundi sennilega [yp hafa einhverjum strakum verid hjalpad] d. *I>a8 mundi sennilega [yp hafa veriQ einhverjum strakum hjalpad] e. I?a3 mundi sennilega [yp hafa veriQ hjalpaS einhverjum strakum] We have assumed throughout that DPs are subject to very strict licensing conditions. In particular we have argued that every DP which is either lexical (i.e. non-empty) or is the head of an A-chain, must be

134


governed by a head (member of a head chain) containing either [+F] (for nominative), Act (for accusative), or else by P. The data in (5.15) suggest an even stronger requirement: It is not sufficient that the DP be governed by a non-finite auxiliary verb, even if the auxiliary verb is member of a head chain headed by [+F], as in (5.15).10 The DP must be governed either by C° (as in 5.15a), 1° (as in 5.15b) or by the main verb (5.15e). Vikner and SigurSsson have each proposed a licensing condition to account for (5.15), essentially similar although couched in different terms: DP must be locally governed from 1° or from a lexical head assigning Case or 0-role.11 What we propose is a slight modification of our Case-licensing condition (1.31) from chapter one: If Z is a category with Case and Z is the head of an A-chain, then Z must be properly head-governed by [+F], Act, or P. If proper government is formulated in terms of lexical head-government (see the discussion in section 1.2.8.), and if auxiliaries are analyzed as not containing lexical features, we are able to rule out the occurrence of visible DPs in any Spec-VP position except the one locally governed by 1°, i.e. the highest one, in case 1° contains nominal Agr, hence contains lexical (nominal) features. If it is correct that Case marked DPs must be properly headgoverned, something special must be said about examples like (5.5b), here repeated as (5.16): (5.16)

Det har [yp blivit [yp n&gra bocker la'sta]] there has been some books read (3 SG Neut)

(Sw.)

We will stipulate that the auxiliaries vara 'be' and bli 'become' are exceptional among the Swedish auxiliaries in being proper governors. Similar suggestions have been put forward by scholars trying to account for the possibility of placing the logical subject in front of the past participle in English passives (5.17a); notice that this word order is limited to passive, as shown by the ungrammaticality of (5.17b). Compare Falk (1989), Vikner (1990, chapter 3 p. 32) and SigurSsson (1991)): (5.17) a. b.

There was a man killed here yesterday, There have many students arrived.

10 ' Since this is a passive construction there is no head Act, hence the head chain headed by C° containing [+F] reaches all the way down to the main verb. See chapter one, section 1.3.2. 11 Vilcner (1990) takes his point of departure in Belletti's theory that an invisible partitive Case is responsible for the indefiniteness effect. He assumes that abstract partitive Case can be assigned to DPs with any morphological Case in Icelandic, either by an ergative V° or a lexicalized 1° which does not assign nominative Case. SigurSsson (1991) proposes that all DPs must be properly head governed, defining proper head government as in (i): (i) a properly head governs b iff a locally governs b, a = Infl / +Agr or a lexical head capable of assigning Case or &-role.

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Summarizing, we will show here how our account in terms of a demand that overt DPs are properly governed handles the difference between ISc. and MSc.: (see (5.2). The structures of (5.2a,b) are given in (5.18): (5.18) a.

Icelandic

CP Spec

C

C

IP DP

T

I Agr

VP VP

AdvP

V

DP'

I>a3 hafaj pro^ ej sennilega margir mennk ej ek komiQ hinga31 dag there have probably many men come here today b.

Swedish

CP Spec

C

IP

C DP

i

r VP

VP

AdvP

-v

DP'

Deq bar; there has

ej

sannolikt manga man j probably many men

e

j

i kommit hit i dag

e

come here today

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Consider first the Swedish example in (5.18b). The DP manga man 'many men1 is antecedent-governed by the expletive det 'it', which is coindexed with manga man as a result of the EPP. However, since 1° is not a lexical governor, we conclude that (5.18b) is ruled out as a result of an illicit overt DP in Spec-VP. Consider next the Icelandic example in (5.18a). Since there is Agr in 1° in Icelandic, 1° is a lexical governor, hence Spec-VP is a possible position for an overt DP. As in the corresponding Swedish example, the expletive in Spec-IP (i.e. pro) must be coindexed with Spec-VP due to the EPP. Pro in Spec-IP antecedent-governs Spec-VP. As a result, the nominative margir menn in Spec-VP is licensed. Furthermore, since antecedent-government is involved, we predict that the nominative in Spec-VP must be indefinite. This is a correct prediction, as shown by the ungrammatical (5.19), where we have changed the indefinite DP into a definite one: (5.19) *I?a9 hafa [VP sennilega [yp mennirnir konu'5 hingaS i dag]] there have (3 PL) probably the-men come (N PL Masc) here today Thus, the difference between ISc. and MSc. illustrated in (5.2) is ultimately due to the presence of Agr in ISc. and its absence in MSc. 3.4.3.

Further consequences of the different and ISc.

status of Spec-VP in MSc.

According to our description, a nominative DP is possible in Spec-VP when it is head-governed by nominative 1°. If this is correct, we predict that it would not matter what type of verb is found in the head of VP: as long as there is Agr in 1°, there may be an overt DP in Spec-VP. In the preceding sections we have exclusively illustrated the phenomenon with VPs headed by ergative verbs: as shown in (5.20), however, VPs headed by transitive and intransitive verbs may also take a nominative in the spec of the predicate in Icelandic; as expected, this is not possible in MSc: (5.20) a. b. c. d.

I>aS hefur sennilega einhver ma>ur etid hakarlinn. (Ice.) it has probably some man (N) eaten the-shark (A) I>a8 hefur sennilega einhver ma>ur dansaS f gardinum. (Ice.) it has probably some man (nom) danced in the-garden *Det har troligen nagon atit hajen. (Sw.) it has probably someone eaten the-shark *Det har troligen nagon dansat i tradgarden. (Sw.) it has probably someone danced in the-garden


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Assuming that wh-traces must be properly governed, and that proper government is formulated in terms of lexical head-government, we can also account for the fact that ISc., but not MSc., permits a nominative variable in Spec-VP: it is only when 1° contains Agr that Spec-VP will be lexically head-governed. The correctness of this prediction is illustrated by the difference between (5.2 la) and (5.2Ib): (5.21) a. I>a8 munu [VPtVP ei kaupa pessa bok] margir studentarj]. (Ice.) there will buy this book many students b. *Det skall [VPtVP ej kopa den ha'r boken] manga studenterj]. (Sw.) there will buy this here book many students In these examples, the postposed DP is in an A-bar position, rightadjoined to VP. It is reasonable to assume that we do not need to license nominative in an A-bar position: a nominative DP in such a position must inherit Case from a trace in a position where nominative is licensed. Considering the traces in (5.2 la) and (5.21b), it follows from the discussion around (5.2 / 5.18) above that the trace in (5.21a), but not the trace in (5.21b), is in a properly governed position. Hence, the difference between ISc. and MSc. with respect to the possibility of postposing the subject of a transitive verb is a consequence of the difference between ISc. and MSc. with respect to Agr.1^ 5.5.

Indirect Licensing via a Chain of Heads

The description presented above does not account for the definite nominative in (5.la), repeated here as (5.22): (5.22)

Honum voru gefnir hestarnir. him (D) were (3 PL) given the-horses (N)

Notice that the nominative hestarnir 'the-horses' is the complement of the past participle gefnir 'given'. According to our description, we would assume the nominative to be licensed with the help of antecedentgovernment. However, if this were the case, our description incorrectly predicts that the nominative should be indefinite; consider the discussion in section 5.2. above. In passing, notice that the EPP is met in (5.22) by the fronted oblique subject honum, which must be related to a trace within VP.

12 A second case where Icelandic seems to have a nominative variable in Spec-VP is found in the construction Stylistic Fronting (SF), as mentioned in connection with the discussion of example (4.3 5).

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As already mentioned, the licensing condition for nominative given in (S.6b) does not specify the type of government needed: the formulation of (5.6b) allows for either antecedent-government or headgovernment. Licensing via head-government is possible only if the nominative category is in a position where it is governed by a head which is a link in a chain of heads, starting with a nominative head-governed by [+F]. In ISc., the presence of nominative Agr in 1° enables us to establish a head-chain that may indirectly license a DP in VP. Since this DP is not bound by a DP higher in the tree, our description would not predict any definiteness effect. The possibility of establishing a chain of heads starting in the matrix clause was introduced in chapter three above, in our discussion of Long Distance Reflexives. Consider especially section 3.5.2. Hence, assuming that (5.22) has a structure like (5.23), we can establish a chain starting with 1° in the matrix clause (voru), including the trace of this verb and the participle head of VP; in (5.23) the links of this chain are in bold face: (5.23) [C [C [+F]] [IP honum Q voruj ] [VP ... [V ei [PartP [gefniri hestarnir]]]]]]]] Since the head of the established chain contains nominative Agr, directly licensed by [+F], and the foot of the chain, the participle gefnir 'given', head-governs the nominative in the complement of the participle, hestarnir 'the-horses', this nominative is indirectly licensed according to (5.6b). To conclude, it is clear that hestarnir in (5.24) is licensed by (5.6b) provided that a sequence of heads counts as a chain for (5.6b). No definiteness effect is predicted in this case. Hence, our description enables us to account for the occurrence of a definite nominative in examples like (5.22). It should be noted that the possibility of licensing a nominative via government from a head within the same head-chain as nominative Agr in 1° leads to the prediction that it is possible to circumvent the definiteness effect also in the complement of ergatives, i.e. in ordinary existential clauses. This seems to be a correct prediction. As Eirfkur Rognvaldsson (1984) has pointed out, there are examples in Icelandic which look like ordinary existentials, except for the fact that the DP in VP is definite; consider (5.24a-c). Since there is no Agr in MSc., our description correctly predicts the absence of corresponding examples in MSc. (cf. 5.24d). (5.24) a. b.

fad festist riitan a leiQinni norSur. there got-stuck die-bus on the-way north Pad skin alltaf blessu> solin. there shines always blessed the-sun

(Ice.) (Ice.)

The Role ofAgr and the Licensing of Nominative DPs c d

139

I>a5 er kominn naunginn sem flu hittir. (Ice.) there is come the-guy who you met Det fastnade en buss / *bussen pi vagen norrut. (Sw.) there got-stuck a bus / the-bus on the-way north

There is no doubt that the use of a definite DP is the marked case for Icelandic existential constructions: as pointed out in Rognvaldsson (1984) and Sigur8sson (1989:294 ff.), the subject may have only one possible referent in the situation, and it must be informationally 'heavy' or nontopical. 5.6.

Concluding Remarks

In this chapter we have studied the possible positions of nominative DPs within VP, arguing that the few differences found between ISc. and MSc. are due to the presence of Agr in ISc. and the absence of Agr in MSc. As in previous chapters, it is possible to bring forward diachronic data which support the description: we predict that constructions available to ISc. as a result of the presence of Agr should also be available to the older stages of MSc., prior to the loss of Agr. The correctness of this prediction is demonstrated in (5.25), where examples corresponding to the Icelandic Agr-dependent ones are given from Old and Early Modern Swedish, i.e. from periods when Agr was still present in the structure of Swedish: (5.25) a. Nominative V-Comp in examples with oblique subject licensed by means of a head chain from Agr: compare (5.la/5.22). Tha dromde hanum drom. (Bil) then dreamed him (dat) dream (nom) b. Definite nominative as V-Comp of ergative verb licensed by means of a head-chain from Agr: compare (5.24a-c). Thet kommer afftonen. (Bib. 1541) it comes the-evening c. Nominative Spec-VP of ergative verb licensed by means of lexical head-government from 1°: compare (5.2a). Thet aro naghra menniskior medh jbland inkompna (Bib. 1541) it are some people with among arrived d. Nominative Spec-VP of transitive verb licensed by means of lexical head-government from 1°: compare (5.20a). Thet radha wel andre Herrar offuer oss vthan tigh (Bib. 1541) it rule (PL) probably other masters (nom) over us besides you

140


e. A-bar trace in Spec-VP of transitive verb: compare (5.2la). Takar en lot saksokan. (VgL I)1 ^ take one share the-plaintiff To be able to find examples of these types, we had to go back to Early Modern Swedish, i.e. to a period prior to the loss of Agr. Hence, although we have not made any detailed investigation to determine when examples like the ones in (5.25) are lost, it is clear that the diachronic data are compatible with our hypothesis: The variation between ISc. and MSc. with regard to nominative DPs in VP can be related to the presence or absence of Agr

13 Notice however that the subject is definite here, whereas it is indefinite in the Icelandic example (5.2la).

Chapter Six: Object Shift and the Role of Case 6.1.

Introduction

In previous chapters we have dealt primarily with the role of subjectverb agreement in the Scandinavian languages, showing the effects of presence or absence of agreement in a range of syntactic constructions. In this and the following chapter we shall deal with certain other constructions in the Scandinavian languages which show the effects of presence or absence of morphological Case (m-case): the present chapter focuses on constructions involving so-called Object Shift, while chapter 7 focuses on the double object construction. To be able to pinpoint the effects of one variable, in this case presence or absence of m-case, we need to have a theory of the whole network of grammatical relations in the relevant constructions, and thus by necessity many controversial issues besides m-case will be discussed in the following two chapters. In all the Scandinavian languages an object may occur in sentencemedial position, preceding the negation word and other predicate adjuncts, under certain conditions. In MSc. only pronominal objects may occur in this position, while in Icelandic any definite DP object may do so. Following Holmberg (1986) we refer to this phenomenon as Object Shift. (6.1)

a. b.

(6.2)

Jon bekkir hana ekki. (Ice) Jon knows her not Lasu studentarnir greinina ekki allir? read the-students the-article not all "Didn't the students all read the article?"

a.

Johan kanner henne inte. (Swe) Johan knows her not b. La'ste studenterna den/*artikeln inte alia? read the-students it / the-article not all

The analysis we assume here, essentially following Holmberg (1986), is shown in (6.3), roughly the structure of (6.2b). The object pronoun or DP is left-adjoined to the predicate, i.e. ActP (or PassP) in the present framework, thus being governed by I. In this as well as the next chapter the internal structure of the predicate, hence the distinction between

142


VP and ActP, is crucial (see chapter 1, section 1.3.3). Throughout this chapter we represent empty V by V+index, empty Act0 by Act-findex etc.1 (6.3)

lastej [ip studenterna- Ij [ActP den^ [ActP inte [ActP [alia e-] [Act1 Actj [VP [V Vj ek ]]]]]

One reason for devoting a chapter in the present book to Object Shift is that it crucially involves Case, first in that the rule is Case-triggered in a sense to be explained, and second in that the difference between Icelandic and MSc. as regards Object Shift of lexical DPs can be related to presence or absence of m-case in the two languages. Another reason that Object Shift is important in the present work is that it provides empirical evidence in favour of the hypothesis that there is a head 1°, projecting a phrase IP distinct from CP, VP, and ActP in MSc. as well as in ISc. As mentioned above the head 1° is never overtly realized in MSc., since unlike the situation in many other languages the verb is never realized in 1° in MSc. The reason, we have argued, is ultimately the absence of Agr in MSc., reflected in the absence of overt subjectverb agreement morphology. A reasonable and initially appealing modification of this theory is that absence of overt agreement in MSc. signals not only absence of Agr, but absence of 1° (and hence IP) as well. Descriptions based on this hypothesis have been proposed in recent literature, in particular Afarli (1991). We will show, partly on the basis of properties of Object Shift, that this hypothesis is probably incorrect. We shall begin by discussing the properties of Object Shift. We will first establish that the construction involves movement of the object pronoun or DP. Section 6.3 is about the proper classification of this movement rule. We will go through various possibilities: A-bar movement, A-movement, clitic movement, or PF-movement, the conclusion being that it is a "mixed rule", exhibiting a particular mix of properties of A-movement and A-bar movement. In section 6.4 the particular mix of properties is explained, mainly in terms of principles of chain formation. In section 6.5 we continue the discussion of the properties of Object Shift. It will be shown that Case plays a crucial role in the construction in several ways. Finally, in section 6.6 we discuss some implications concerning the structure of the Scandinavian sentence.

' Following Sportiche (1988) we assume the 'floated quantifier' is in its base-position, which is Spec-ActP in our theory, heading a QP out of which the subject DP is extracted.

Object Shift and the Role of Case 6.2.

143

Object Shift is movement of pronoun or DP

Consider a standard case of Object Shift such as (6.4) (= (6.1)): (6.4)

Jon bekkir hana ekki. Jon knows her not

The only overt indication that the object has moved leftwards in this construction is the order of the object pronoun and the negation. If the negation is left-adjoined to the predicate, as we have assumed throughout this work, the object pronoun must have been moved and adjoined to ActP (or possibly moved even further to the left). The verb in this construction has moved out of VP, first to Act0, then to 1° and eventually C°, hence the surface order of verb and object does not tell us anything about the position of the object. It is, in fact, characteristic of Object Shift that it occurs only when the main verb is moved out of the predicate (i.e. ActP or PassP) in overt syntax, so the shifted object never crosses the main verb. (6.5)

a. b.

*J6n hefur hana (ekki) se9. Jon has her/it not seen *Studenterna vill den (inte) la'sa. the-students want it not read

That is to say, Object Shift never occurs in clauses with an auxiliary verb, since the auxiliary verb blocks movement of the main verb out of the predicate. Furthermore, in MSc. it is restricted to main clauses, since in MSc. the verb moves out of the predicate only in main clauses. As discussed in chapter 2 MSc. has no V-to-I in embedded clauses prior to the split-off point between PF and LF. In ISc., on the other hand, where there is V-to-I in embedded as well as in main clauses, Object Shift applies in both clause types.2 (6.6)

a. b.

Det a'r troligt att han inte ka'nner henne. (Swe) it is probable that he not knows her *Det a'r troligt att han henne inte ka'nner.

2 As mentioned, although not dealt with in detail in the present work, Icelandic has V-toI movement in certain infinitivals, namely PRO-infinitivals (see Sigurflsson (1989, 1991)). In such infinitivals Object Shift applies, subject to the same restrictions as in finite clauses. (i) Hann Iofa3i a3 kaupa hana/b6kina/*bok ekki. he promised to buy it/the-book/a-book not. Thus, unlike Stylistic Fronting (see chapter four), Object Shift seems to be possible as soon as there is verb raising.

144 (6.7)

The Role of Inflection in Scandinavian Syntax I?a3 er tnilegt aS hann pekki hana ekki. it is probable that he knows her not

(Ice)

One might consider the possibility that there is no object movement leftwards in the so-called Object Shift construction, but movement of the negation word and other relevant predicate adjuncts rightwards, or base-generation of the relevant adjuncts in VP-final (or ActP-final or IP-final) position. This possibility can safely be discarded, however. To begin with, there are some adjuncts, including the negation word, which cannot occur to the right of the predicate, as shown by examples like (6.8a,b): (6.8)

a. b.

*Hann hefur verid her aldrei. (Ice) he has been here never *Elsa gick hem inte. (Swe) Elsa went home not

Thus, when such adjuncts occur string-finally, as in (6.4), it must be because the constituents of the predicate (the verb and the object) have moved leftwards out of the predicate, across these adjuncts. Another indication that the affected category is the object, not the predicate adjuncts which figure in the construction, is that there are restrictions on the object in the construction but no restrictions on the adjuncts. As mentioned, in MSc. only pronominal objects occur in this construction. In Icelandic a lexical DP may occur in the Object Shift construction, but the DP should be definite and preferably not too complex. The string of adjuncts, on the other hand, may consist of a single member or be, in principle, infinitely complex. (6.9)

a. b. c. d.

Jon keypti ekki bokina/bok. Jon bought not the-book/a-book Jon keypti bokina/*bok ekki. ??J6n keypti bokina sem var me9 gollu8u kapunni ekki. Jon bought the-book which had frayed covers not Jon las hana sennilega ekki oft. Jon read it probably not often

Yet another indication that the predicate adjuncts figuring in the Object Shift construction are not themselves affected is that Object Shift may apply to a small clause or ECM type construction, as in (6.10): (6.10) a. b.

Bornin toldu Jon ekki oil vera heimskan. the-children considered Jon not all be stupid "The children did not all consider Jon to be stupid." Bornin tolduj [ActP J° n j £kki oil ... [y V; [5 e; vera heimskan]]].

Object Shift and the Role of Case

145

The word order in (6.10a), with the subject of the embedded infinitival preceding the negation word and the quantifier, can only be derived by raising the embedded subject up into the matrix clause, as indicated in (6.10b) (where S = infinitival clause). Clearly the negation cannot be a constituent of the embedded clause under the reading in question, and the quantifier cannot be a constituent of the embedded clause under any reading (as long as the embedded subject is singular). See Holmberg (1986: 220) for discussion and additional examples. ^ We may safely assume that Object Shift is movement leftwards of a verb-governed pronoun or (in Icelandic) DP. We assume the moved pronoun adjoins to ActP/PassP. This assumption will be substantiated in the next section. As can be gleaned from (6.10), the category moved need not be the direct object of the verb, but may be, for example, the subject of an infinitival clause. 6.3

The Nature of Object Shift: A-movement, A-bar movement, Head movement or PF-movement?

In this section we will argue by elimination of alternatives that the landing site of Scandinavian Object Shift is a "mixed position" exhibiting some properties characteristic of A-movement and some characteristic of A-bar movement. The hypothesis that Object Shift involves cliticization and clitic movement will also be discussed and rejected, as will be the hypothesis that Object Shift is a rule of PF. Finally the particular mix of properties exhibited by Object Shift will be explained in terms of independent conditions on chain formation and binding. 6.3.1

Object Shift is not A-bar movement

At first glance it may seem that Object Shift must be a case of A-bar movement. According to the description (6.3), repeated here, the shifted category is adjoined to VP, which is an A-bar position by standard definitions. (6.11) lastej [IP studenterna: Ij [ActP den k [ActP inte [ActP [alia e:] [Act1 Act; [VP [V Vi ek ]]]]] 3 (6.10) looks superficially like a case of old-fashioned Raising to Object, and the construction has, indeed, been adduced as empirical evidence of such a rule: See Thrainsson (1979). As discussed in Holmberg (1984, 1986:220ff.) this is a false impression. (6.10) involves raising of an embedded subject, only the raised category does not land in matrix object position but is adjoined to the matrix VP.

146


Object Shift would thus be related to, say, English topicalization, analyzed as adjunction to IP:4 (6.12) John, I don't like. However, as shown by Holmberg (1986: 170ff.) and Vikner (1989, 1990, in press) Object Shift does not exhibit properties standardly associated with A-bar movement and A-bar binding, being instead similar to standard cases of A-movement in several respects: (a) It is clause-bounded in the manner of A-movement (no movement out of finite clauses), (b) it does not license a parasitic gap, and (c) it is insensitive to cross-over. Property (a) is evidenced by (6.13). (6.13) a. Hon anslg honomj tydligen [jp ej vara oduglig] she considered him apparently (to) be incompetent b. Hon ansag tydligen [(att) [jp ban var oduglig]. she considered apparently that he was incompetent c. *Hon ansag hanj/honomj tydligen [(att) [jp ej var oduglig]. she considered he/him apparently that was incompetent (6.13a) shows that the subject of the infinitival complement of an ECM verb can be object-shifted up into the matrix clause. (6.13c) shows that the subject of a finite complement of the same verb cannot be shifted, regardless of whether the complementizer is deleted or not. That Object Shift does not license a parasitic gap is shown by (6.14) (see Holmberg (1986: 173) for more discussion). (6.14a) exemplifies a parasitic gap construction in Swedish (following standard practice we represent the real gap by t and the parasitic gap by e; the phrase moved is in bold face). (6.14b,c) show that Object Shift patterns with passive: neither of them license a parasitic gap. (6.14) a. b. c.

Den artikeln kastade dom t, innan jag hade last e. that article threw they before I had read "That article they threw away before I had read." *Den artikeln kastades t, innan jag hade last e. that article was-thrown before I had read *Jag kastade den inte t, innan jag hade last e. I threw it not before I had read

4 See, however, Miiller and Sternefeld (1993) for evidence against the commonly assumed

analysis of English topicalization as adjunction to IP.

147


Finally, (6.15) shows that Object Shift is insensitive to cross-over. (6.15) a. b.

?Vemj tilldelade dom i hansj franvaro ej priset? who awarded they in his absence the price Dom tilldelade honomj i hansj franvaro ej priset. they awarded him in his absence the prize

(6.15a) is marginal, due to a violation of weak cross-over. (6.15b), exemplifying Object Shift across a coreferent pronoun, is perfectly grammatical. Another property which Object Shift shares with passive and other cases of A-movement but not with standard cases of A-bar movement is that the shifted object lands in a Case-position, as first argued by Vikner (1989). In the present framework the landing site of the shifted object is a Case-licensed position, properly governed by I containing Act+V by virtue of head movement V-to-Act-to-I. Furthermore, Object Shift is not a focusing or topicalizing device, unlike standard cases of A-bar movement such as for instance (6.12), and the shifted category does not have operator-like properties (note that it specifically must not be an indefinite/quantified DP). Consequently Holmberg (1986) and Vikner (1989, 1990, in press) classify Object Shift as A-movement. In the following section we will propose a modification of this hypothesis. 6.3.2

Object Shift is not (standard)

A-movement

Object Shift has two properties which are unexpected if it is Amovement: (a) it does not induce a Relativized Minimality violation although it crosses the external argument position (Spec-ActP in our theory), and (b) the shifted object cannot bind an anaphor from its s-structure position. Consider first Relativized Minimality: It is now widely accepted that the subject (external argument) of a transitive sentence originates inside the predicate. In our theory it originates in Spec-ActP. The shifted object is adjoined to ActP, and thus has to cross the Spec-ActP position. Consider again (6.3), repeated here as (6.16) with the shifted pronoun and Spec-ActP in boldface: (6.16) lastej [ip studenterna: Ij [ActP den^ [ActP inte [ActP [aUa e.-] [Act1 ej [VP [V q «k Hill If Object Shift is A-movement it ought to violate Relativized Minimality, which apparently it does not.

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That the shifted object does not license an anaphor (from its surface position) can be seen in (6.17): (6.17) a. Han anslg till deras/*sin/*varandras besvikelse [Per och he considered to their/REFL/each-other's disappointment Per and Martin vara lika bra]. Martin be equally good "To their disappointment he considered Per and Martin to be equally good." b. Han ansag demj till deras/*sin/*varandras besvikelse [ej vara he considered them to their/REFL/each other's disappointment be lika bra] equally good "To their disappointment we considered them to be equally good." c. Dej ansags till *deras/sin/varandras besvikelse [ ei vara lika bra ] they considered-PASS to their/REFL/each other's disappointment be equally good "To their/each other's disappointment they were considered to be equally good." In (6.17a) a pronominal contained in the main clause adverbial can be coreferential with the subject of the embedded infinitival clause. A possessive reflexive clearly cannot, nor can a reciprocal. In (6.17b) the embedded subject has been object-shifted to a position c-commanding the main clause adverbial. The possessive reflexive and the reciprocal are still not good, which shows that the shifted object cannot serve as the local binder of an anaphor. The pronominal is possible, with the same reading as in (6.17a), showing that the shifted object does not count as a binder for principle B (see also (6.15b)). (6.17b) contrasts with (6.17c) where the embedded subject has been moved to the matrix Spec-IP under passivization. From this position it can bind a possessive reflexive or a reciprocal in the adverbial, but not a pronominal.' 6

5 (6.17c) shows that the adverbial till x's besvikelse "to x's disappointment", although it is in some sense parenthetical, is not opaque to binding. Hence the failure of the shifted pronoun to bind an anaphor in the adverbial cannot be explained away as being due to the parenthetical nature of the adverbial containing the anaphor. Note also that the adverbial cannot contain an R-expression (e.g. a name) coreferent with the shifted pronoun: (i) a. Han ansag till Marias; besvikelse [hennej vara for ung]. he considered to Maria's disappointment her (to) be too young b. "Han ansag hennej till Mariasj besvikelse [ ej vara for ung]. 6 Note that the shifted object is unable to control not only a possessive reflexive but also a reciprocal. The fact that the shifted object cannot bind the reflexive possessive may be


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Note that the behaviour of Object Shift with regard to anaphora is the same when the shifted category is a full DP as when it is a pronoun. Since only Icelandic accepts Object Shift of full DP, this can only be seen in Icelandic. (6.18) a. Harm taldi, beim/*ser/*hvorum oSrum til undrunar, [Olaf og he considered, them(D)/REFL(D)/each other(D) to wonder, Martein vera jafn g65aj. Olafur(A) and Marteinn(A) be equally good "To their surprise, he considered Olafur and Marteinn to be equally good." b. Hann taldi fla/OIaf og Martein^ beim/*ser/*hvorum odrum til he considered them(A)/Olafur(A) and Marteinn(A), them(D)/ undrunar, [ ej vera jafn goSa]. REFL(D)/each other(D) to wonder, be equally good c. Olafur og Marteinnj voru, *beim/ser/?hvorum oSrum til undrunar, Olafur(N) and Marteinn(N) were, them(D)/REFL(D)/each taldir [ e; vera jafn goSir]. other(D) to wonder, considered be equally good "Olafur and Marteinn were, to their surprise, considered to be equally good." (6.18a) shows that a pronominal in the matrix adverbial fleim til undrunar "to their surprise" can be coreferential with the subject of the embedded infinitival clause. In (6.18b) the subject has been shifted across the matrix adverbial up into the matrix clause. From this position the shifted object cannot control a reflexive or a reciprocal, regardless of whether the object is a pronoun or a full DP, (6.18c) shows that an embedded subject moved across the matrix adverbial under passivization can control a reflexive or (at least marginally) a reciprocal in the adverbial. That is to say, Object Shift does not behave like passivization with regard to binding, regardless of whether the shifted object is a pronoun or a full DP. The importance of the observation that pronouns and full DPs behave alike with regard to Object Shift and binding will become apparent below. We conclude that the landing site of Scandinavian Object Shift is a mixed position, in terms of the usual A/A-bar dichotomy. This supports explained as a consequence of the subject-orientedness of the reflexive possessive (see Hellan (1989)). The reciprocal is, however, not strictly subject-oriented, as shown by (i). (i) Jag talade med Per och Martin om varandra. (Swe) I talked to Per and Martin about each other

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Webelhuth's (1989) claim that German scrambling involves a mixed type of position (called a "weakly L-related position" in Chomsky (1991)), namely adjunction to a verbal projection. However, the mix of properties exhibited by Scandinavian Object Shift is very different from that exhibited by German scrambling. In fact, if Webelhuth is right concerning German scrambling and we are right concerning Scandinavian Object Shift, these two constructions have opposite properties on almost all the points discussed in this section. According to Webelhuth (a) German scrambling is sensitive to cross-over, (b) it licenses a parasitic gap, (c) it is not to a Case-licensed position, and (d) the scrambled object can control an anaphor. Virtually the only thing they have in common would be that German scrambling is clausebounded in the same way as Scandinavian Object Shift. See Vikner (in press) for a comparison of Object Shift and German scrambling. To complete the argument we ought to provide an explanation of the particular mixture of properties exhibited by Object Shift. However, before doing so, we will eliminate some other alternative hypotheses concerning the nature of Object Shift. 6.3.3

Object Shift is not a PF-rule

There is one solution which would immediately explain almost all of the properties discussed above: Object Shift is a rule of PF. As such it would not create an operator-variable relation, hence no parasitic gaps or crossover effects. Since it would apply after coindexing, it would not induce a relative minimality violation and could not affect anaphora. The strict locality conditions which Object Shift obeys do not fall out directly, but could do so, given an articulated theory of locality, government, Case, etc. in PF. The hypothesis that Object Shift is a PF rule is, however, falsified if it can be shown that Object Shift applies prior to any of the rules which affect properties of the sentence which are represented in LF. Holmberg (1986) provides a construction where Object Shift has applied prior to topicalization, a rule which affects the focus properties of the sentence, hence applies before LF. The construction is the following: (6.19) Trogen var han henne inte. faithful was he her not "He wasn't faithful to her."

(Swe)

Trogen "faithful" belongs to a class of adjectives which can take an object (assigned an Experiencer role) without a preposition. The object can be preposed to the adjective (and has to be, in Norwegian and Danish), in which case it can undergo Object Shift, if other conditions are satisfied (the object is a light pronoun and the governing verb has


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moved out of VP). This yields for instance (6.20a), with the analysis (6.2Ob) (ignoring subject movement, for the sake of simplicity). Since vara is an ergative verb there is no Act in the construction. (6.20) a. b.

Var han henne inte trogen? Varj [IP han [p Ij [yp hennej [yp inte [VP[V q [AP ej trogen]]]]]]]

In (6.19) the AP in such a construction has been topicalized.' Given that only maximal phrasal projections can be topicalized, Object Shift must have applied before topicalization, the structure of (6.19) thus being (6.2!):» (6.21) [CP [AP e; trogen ]k [c1 varj [ip han [p Ij [VP henne; [yp inte [yp[v Vj ek ]]]]]]]] That topicalization of the AP affects the focus properties of the sentence is shown by the contrast between (6.22a,b): (6.22) a. b.

HAN var henne inte trogen. HE was her not faithful "HE wasn't faithful to her (but perhaps someone else was)." *Trogen var HAN henne inte.

The fronted AP blocks focusing of the subject. This is accounted for if, following Chomsky (1972) and May (1985), we analyze focusing as involving fronting of the focused constituent in LF, and if fronting of the AP applies before LF.9 We conclude that Object Shift does apply before LF, hence is not a rule of PF. ' Thefollowingare two additional Swedish examples of the same construction: (i) a. Direkt fra'mmande ar det mej inte att stalla upp i kornmunalvalct. Totally strange is it me not to stand up in the local elections "I'm not a total ly opposed to the idea of standing in the local elections" b. Riktigt hangiven blev hon oss aldrig, men hon stannade hos oss i alia fall really devoted became she us never but she stayed with us in any case "She didn't ever become really devoted to us, but she stayed with us all the same." ° This means that the Object Shift chain (henne, e) is checked by the various conditions applying to chains either before AP-topicalization or after reconstruction of the topicalized AP back into VP. The fronted AP may also contain other elements which require checking either before topicalization or after reconstruction, e.g. the negative polarity item si varst: (i) Sa varst trogen var han henne *(inte). so very faithful was he her not " Focusing the subject is blocked either because the fronted adjective simply occupies the position to which the focused item should move, or by virtue of some version of Relativized Minimality.

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6.3.4


Object Shift is not movement to Spec-AgrO

Recently there have been proposals according to which Object Shift is not adjunction to the predicate, but movement to the spec-position of an abstract functional head, identified as object agreement (the AgrO of Chomsky (1991): see Mahajan (1990) and especially Johnson (1991). The structure would be roughly as in (6.23): (6.23) laste; [ip studenterna Ij [AgrOP den; [AgrO1 AgrOj [VP inte [V ej ej ]]]]] The verb moves via AgrO0 and 1° to C°. AgrO is furthermore coindexed with the pronoun in Spec-AgrOP. Assuming a category AgrO in Scandinavian is in a sense against the spirit of the present work. We have argued that the MSc. languages have no Agr in I, i.e. no AgrS (subject-verb agreement) in Chomsky's (1991) notation. This presupposes that AgrS is not universal, but an optional functional category (like clitic pronouns, possessive affixes, various kinds of modal particles and affixes, etc.). If this is true of AgrS it is presumably true of AgrO. If absence of subject-verb agreement morphology is a sign of absence of AgrS, as we have proposed, then absence of object-verb agreement morphology is presumably a sign of absence of AgrO. In chapter 2, section 2.2, we mentioned the possibility of viewing absence of overt subject-verb agreement in MSc. as not being a sign of absence of AgrS, but of weak AgrS, where AgrS is so weak as to be phonetically unrealized. For the most part the theory assuming absence of AgrS and the theory assuming weak AgrS are, we believe, notational variants. With respect to AgrO there is a difference, though. If we assume a phonetically unrealized, totally abstract AgrS in MSc., there is obviously no principled reason not to assume a totally abstract AgrO. We do not, however, find the arguments that have been presented in favour of an AgrO-based theory of Object Shift convincing. Note also that the primary function of AgrO in Chomsky (1992), that of checking structural accusative Case, is handled by another functional category in the present theory, namely the head Act (see chapter one, section 1.3.2 for a note on Act and object agreement). There are at least two reasons of a more empirical nature to reject the AgrO-based analysis of Object Shift: First, if Spec-AgrOP is an Aposition, as is standardly assumed, it fails to predict the few A-barmovement-like properties which Object Shift exhibits, discussed above: it may cross the predicate-internal subject position and the shifted


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object fails to control an anaphor. 10 Second, according to the AgrObased theory of Object Shift there is no licensing relation between I and the shifted object. The shifted object is Case-licensed by virtue of spec-head agreement with AgrO. There are, however, reasons to believe that there is a crucial licensing relation between I and the shifted object, a relation which we have identified as Case-licensing. In particular, there is a strict adjacency requirement between the shifted object and I: the shifted object must be the leftmost category of the predicate, nothing intervening between it and I, as discussed by Vikner (in press).11 (6.24) a. b. c.

aS beir lasu bokina ekki allir. that they read the-book not all a 8 beir lasu ekki allir bokina. " a5 beir lasu ekki bokina allir.

(6.24a) is OK, as is (6.24b). In (6.24a) the object has shifted to the position next to I, containing the verb. In (6.24b) the object remains in situ. In (6.24c) the object is shifted from its base-position, but not shifted far enough, the negation intervening between it and I, which results in near ungrammaticality. This is explained if Case-licensing requires adjacency between the licensing head and the argument. 6.3. Si Object Shift is not cliticization Another possibility which ought to be considered is that Object Shift involves cliticization of the pronoun to V° or to 1°. A description along these lines has recently been proposed by Josefsson (1992). The cliticization analysis is, of course, only applicable to Object Shift of pronouns, since lexical, definite DPs can hardly be analyzed as incorporated into heads. Thus the analysis presupposes that Object Shift of pronouns and Object Shift of lexical DPs are two distinct

10 See, however, Chomsky (1992) for a theory where such crossing of A-chains is permitted. It should also be noted that in the constructions which Mahajan (1990) describes (scrambling-type constructions in Hindi) the moved category can control an anaphor, so those constructions may, indeed, involve movement to Spec-AgrOP. 11 This is true of most varieties of Scandinavian but not all. Most varieties of Swedish permit Object Shift to intermediate positions, as shown in (i), in contrast with for instance Norwegian in (ii). (i) a. De laser (den) troligen (den) garna (den) alia (?den). (Swe) they read (it) probably (it) with-pleasure (it) all (it) b. De leser (den) sannsynligvis (*den) gjerne (*den) alle (*den) (Nor) We do not have any interesting explanation of this variation, although we will suggest an account of (apparent) absence of Object Shift in Swedish in section 6.5.2.

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The Role of Inflection in Scandinavian Syntax,

phenomena, one falling under head movement, while the nature of the other is unclear. As discussed in Holmberg (1986, 1990) the shifted pronoun has clitic-like properties; it must be unstressed and morpho-syntactically simple, and, as shown above, it is adjacent to I. This suggests that the shifted pronoun could be cliticized to I. If so, it would be similar to pronominal clitics in e.g. the Romance languages, which are cliticized to I at least in finite clauses (according to Kayne (1991) cliticization in Romance is always to a functional category, even in infinitival constructions). We take the following to be a plausible analysis of the object clitic construction in French, combining the hypothesis that the empty category in clitic constructions is pro (see Borer (1984)) and the head movement hypothesis of clitic climbing (Kayne (1991)). (6.25) exemplifies a clitic construction in a sentence with an auxiliary verb, (6.26) in a sentence with a single verb. (6.25) a. b. (6.26) a. b.

Jean 1'a vu. Jean her+has seen "Jean saw/has seen her." Jean [j laj a ] ... [VP [V [V ej [V vu ]] ej ]]] Jean le connait Jean him+knows Jean [l lej connait]; ... [VP [V V: ej ]]

The empty object is pro, licensed by V° which contains the clitic trace and thus contains nominal features identifying pro. In (6.25) the clitic moves from head to head, subject to the Head Movement Constraint (HMC), which accounts for the highly local nature of clitic climbing. In (6.26) the clitic either moves along with the verb to 1°, or the verb and the clitic move independently of each other, both subject to the HMC. Under a clitic or head movement analysis the Scandinavian pronominal Object Shift construction would be essentially similar to the Romance pronominal clitic construction. There are some crucial differences, however, between Object Shift and Romance clitic constructions which lead us to reject the cliticization hypothesis. First, unlike the Romance clitics, the Scandinavian object pronoun is not able to move independently of the verb. In other words, there is no overt evidence of clitic climbing.^

'' It is possible to combine the XP-movement hypothesis with the cliticization hypothesis: The object would first move and adjoin to the predicate, as in HolmbergVikner's analysis, and subsequently, if it is a weak pronoun, cliticize to I. The two analyses would then be virtually indistinguishable. Such a two-step analysis is proposed by

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(6.27) *Johan bar den inte sett. Johan has it not seen Second, unlike clitics in e.g. French, the Scandinavian shifted pronoun does not move with 1° to C°. Compare (6.28a) and (6.28b,c): (6.28) a. b. c.

Ou 1'a-t-il vu? where her+has he seen? *Hvor s5 henne Jon? where saw her Jon *Las hana Jon ekki? read it Jon not

(Nor) (Ice)

It is logically possible that the object pronoun is cliticized to I but left behind by I-to-C in Scandinavian, for some reason. This is what Josefsson (1992) assumes. The analysis presupposes the possibility of cliticization to a trace. If, following Kayne (1991), we rule this out in principle, then a cliticization analysis of Object Shift is out of the question. However, even if we allow cliticization to a trace under some conditions (see Roberts (1991)), the cliticization hypothesis of Object Shift is unattractive in the absence of an explanation that the presumed clitic must be left behind in I in Scandinavian but not in, for instance, Romance. An attractive property of the cliticization plus head movement analysis is that it avoids both of the problems associated with the Amovement hypothesis discussed above. If Object Shift is cliticization to I we do not expect the pronoun to be able to bind an anaphor; depending in part on the precise formulation of the hypothesis, we also avoid the problem posed for Relativized Minimality by the predicateinternal subject. However, as shown above in (6.18), not only pronouns but also full DPs moved by Object Shift are unable to bind an anaphor. Hence the problem remains, under the cliticization hypothesis, of explaining why a shifted full DP cannot bind an anaphor, and whatever the explanation, it will probably carry over to pronouns as well. In general Object Shift of lexical DPs has exactly the same properties as Object Shift of weak pronouns, except for one: the former is optional while the latter is obligatory (in most varieties of Scandinavian). This is exemplified in (6.29): (6.29) a.

Lasu studentarnir greinina/hana ekki allir? read the-students the-article/it not all

Cardinaletti (1992) for Romance cliticization, but is explicitely rejected for Scandinavian object shift.

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Lasu studentarnir ekki allir greinina/*hana?

If this difference can be explained by some independently motivated principle, then no motivation remains for regarding the two as separate processes. Hence a third argument against the cliticization hypothesis of Object Shift is that it must be supplemented with a theory of Object Shift of full DPs, which theory will account for all the properties of Object Shift of weak pronouns except one, namely its obligatoriness. It is clear, nevertheless, from the facts studied in Holmberg (1986) that pronominal elides and Scandinavian weak pronouns have something in common which sets them both off from strong pronouns and full DPs. We return to this matter in section 6.4. 6.3.6

A note on long Object Shift in Swedish

As noted in Holmberg (1984) and discussed in Josefsson (1992), Swedish is exceptional among the Scandinavian languages in permitting weak pronouns to precede the subject under certain conditions. That is to say, the word order in (6.28b,c) is not always ungrammatical in Swedish. Some examples are given in (6.30). (6.30) a. b. c.

Klarar sej barnen pa egen hand? manage them-REFL die-children on own hand "Do the children manage on their own?" Plotsligt slog honom en fruktansvard misstanke. suddenly struck him a terrible suspicion Varfor gor mej Helge alltid sa irriterad? why makes me Helge always so irritated "Why does Helge always make me so irritated?"

(Swe)

See Josefsson (1992) on the conditions on "Long Object Shift". Josefsson considers the possibility of Long Object Shift to be an argument in favour of the cliticization hypothesis of Object Shift. Note, however, that the light object pronoun in presubject position is not necessarily adjacent to C° (containing V°). As shown in (6.31b,c) one or several presubject adverbs may intervene between C° and a presubject pronoun. (6.31) a.

Nu manar oss ju inte langre nagon myndighet att a'ta sex till now urges us as-you-know not longer any authority to eat six atta brodskivor om dagen. to eight slices of bread per day "We are no longer urged by any audiority to eat six to eight slices of bread per day."

Object Shift and the Role of Case d. e.

157

Nu manar ju oss inte langre nagon myndighet att... Nu manar ju inte langre oss nagon myndighet att...

This suggests that the presubject pronoun is adjoined to IP and freely ordered with respect to other IP adjuncts (although the preferred position of the presubject pronoun seems to be adjacent to the verb). To maintain that the presubject pronoun is cliticized to C° we have to assume that the presubject adverbs in (6.31b,c) are also cliticized to C°, which presupposes a very broad definition of cliticization. 6.4

Explaining the mixed character of Object Shift

The property which Object Shift has in common with standard cases of A-movement is that the landing site (= the position of the head of the chain derived by the movement) is a Case-licensed position (properly governed by I containing the features of Act+V). Hence the shifted object can function as the head of an A-chain. We will make the stronger assumption that being Case-licensed, it must be the head of an A-chain. In other words, we assume that a Case-licensed category cannot head an A-bar chain, i.e. cannot be an operator, even if it happens to be an adjunct, as in the case of Object Shift. This is expressed formally in the following definition of "A-chain" (Chomsky's (1986a) Chain Condition is here incorporated in the definition). Here, as in chapters 2-5, we use the notion "Case-licensed" in the sense "structurally Casechecked", to be kept distinct from "lexically Case-checked"; see chapter one, section 1.3, and below section 6.5.4, where the distinction between lexical and structural Case-checking will be crucial. (6.32) A sequence C (ai...an) is an A-chain if and only if (a) ai is Case-licensed, and no other aj in C is Case-licensed, (b) a n is assigned a 0-role, and no other ai in C is assigned a 9role, (c) every ai antecedent-governs ai + i. A possible name for the kind of position which the shifted object occupies is "Case-licensed A-bar position". That is to say, we distinguish two kinds of A-bar positions: Case-licensed ones and non-Case-licensed ones. Only the latter can host an operator, such as a wh-phrase or focused phrase. We therefore prefer to use the term "O(perator) chain" instead of the more familiar "A-bar chain". We suggest (6.33) as a partial definition of "O-chain":^ 13 These are necessary but not sufficient conditions on a well formed O-chain. Condition (b) entails that adjunct positions, including the position of the shifted object, cannot host a variable. We leave open the question what the relation between a j and a i + 1 is in O-

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(6.33) A sequence C (ai...an) is an O-chain if (a) a j is not Case-licensed, and (b) a n is in A-position. Now if the shifted pronoun or DP is Case-licensed, the trace must not be Case-licensed, since a chain can have only one Case-licensed member. This, in turn, means that the trace cannot be a variable. From this the properties exemplified in (6.13), (6.14), and (6.15) follow. Consider (6.13c), repeated here as (6.34): (6.34) *Hon anslg hanj/honomj tydligen [(att) [jp ej var oduglig]. she considered he/him apparently that was incompetent The trace in (6.34) is in a Case-licensed position. In terms of the theory expounded in chapter 2 the trace must have nominative Case in order to license [+F], the finiteness element. Consequently it cannot be a nonhead member of an A-chain, i.e. it cannot form an A-chain with the pronoun ban in the matrix clause. The pronoun han/honom is also in a Case-licensed position, i.e. it is a non-operator. Consequently the pronoun and the trace cannot form an O-chain either, hence the sentence is ungrammatical. Consider next the fact that Object Shift does not license a parasitic gap. The example sentence was (6.14c), repeated here as (6.35): (6.35) *Jag kastade den inte t, innan jag hade last e. I threw it not before I had read

(Swe)

The basic property of parasitic gap constructions can be stated as in (6.36); see Chomsky (1982: 36ff.) and references there.1 ^ (6.36) A parasitic gap e is licensed by a gap t if a. t is a variable, and b. t does not c-command e. By assumption the trace of Object Shift cannot be a variable, hence condition (a) is not satisified. Consider finally the fact that Object Shift is insensitive to weak cross-over. The example sentences were (6.l5a,b), repeated here as (6.37a,b): chains, whether it is antecedent-government, like in A-chains, or some less local relation: see Chomsky (1986a). 14 ^ The precise analysis of parasitic gap constructions is a controversial issue (see Chomsky (1982, 1986), Hoekstra (1991)), but not in a way which would affect the present argument.

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Object Shift and the Role of Case (6.37) a. b.

?Vemj tilldelade dom i hansj franvaro ej priset? who awarded they in his absence the-price Dom tilldelade honomj i hansj franvaro ej priset. they awarded him in his absence the prize

Koopman and Sportiche (1982) proposed the following principle (the so-called Bijection Principle) to account for weak cross-over effects (the principle is reformulated slightly to accord with our terminology): (6.38) Every variable is locally bound by one and only one operator and every operator locally binds one and only one variable. (6.37a) violates (6.38) since the fronted wh-phrase locally binds two variables: the pronoun bans and the trace. Since the trace of Object Shift cannot be a variable, the principle does not apply to (6.37b). Object Shift differs from standard cases of A-movement in that the landing site is not a spec-position but an adjunct position. From this, we assume, it follows that Object Shift may cross Spec-ActP without violating Relativized Minimality and that the shifted object cannot control an anaphor. As for Relativized Minimality, Rizzi (1990) claims, on the basis of observations which have nothing to do with Object Shift, that adjuncts do not count for Relativized Minimality. This is stated as condition (i) in Rizzi's definition (Rizzi (1990: 27)): (6.39) Relativized Minimality: X a-governs Y only if there is no Z such that (i) Z is a base-generated position, (ii) Z is a-GT compatible with Y, 1 * (iii) Z c-commands Y and does not c-command X. If Rizzi is right, nothing more needs to be said about Object Shift and Relativized Minimality. F6 As for Object Shift and anaphora, we propose '' For a discussion of the concept GT-compatible (Government Theory compatible), see Rizzi (1990: 26) Given the theory of Case outlined in 1.3, we may also consider the following alternative formal explanation of the fact that Object Shift and subject movement do not interfere with each other. Consider a typical Object Shift construction: (i) a. Laste Johan den inte . read Johan it not "Didn't Johan read it?" b. laste; [ip Johanj I; [ActP de"k [ActP inte [ActP ej [Act' A«i [VP [V vi eir byggdu hus fyrir Johannes. they built (a) house for Johannes

That is to say, (7.34a,b,c, d) are excluded as a form of Case Filter violation. It should be noted that free benefactives do occur in Icelandic under one condition, that is when the benefactive is a (short) reflexive pronoun (Halldor Sigurdsson, p.c.). (7.36) a. b. c.

Eg baka3i mer koku. I baked me (a) cake Johannes byggcH ser hus. Johannes built him-REFL (a) house • • Johannes byggSi mer hiis. Johannes built me (a) house

The Double Object Construction d.

203

• -Johannes byggQi sjalfum ser hiis. Johannes built himself (a) house

(7.46c,d) show that the benefactive must be a short reflexive pronoun: a non-reflexive pronoun or a long reflexive yield the same unacceptability as a lexical DP. We know from other constructions that short reflexives can occur in positions where other nominal categories violate Case checking conditions. For instance, unlike any other Germanic language Swedish does not allow the word order V - object - particle (turn the light out) in verb-particle constructions but only V - particle - object (turn out the light), regardless of whether the object is a pronoun or not, with one exception. If the object is a short reflexive the order V object - particle is usually allowed, and this order is sometimes obligatory. ^ (7.37) a. b. c.

*Hon kastade Johan/honom ut. she threw Johan/him out Hon kastade ut Johan/honom. she threw out Johan/him Hon kastade sej ut. she threw REFL out

For some reason short reflexives are not subject to the same Casechecking conditions as other nominal categories. Whatever the explanation, it will probably explain the exceptional distribution of short reflexives in (7.36) without affecting the theory of free benefactives advocated here. 15 With regard to free benefactives, Faroese patterns like MSc., not like Icelandic (data provided by Eivind Weyhe): (7.38) a. b. c. d.

Eg baka8i mammu mini eina kaku. (Far) I baked mother my(D) a cake Teir bygdu Johannesi hiis. they built Johannes(D) (a) house Hann maladi Fri'Qu ein malning. he painted Frida(D) a painting Eg keypti soni mfnum ein nyggjan sukkul. I bought son my(D) a new bicycle

"See Holmberg (1986: 203f.) for another case where short reflexives are exceptionally licensed, and a suggested explanation. 15 We have recently learned that many Norwegian speakers do not accept free benefactives other than short reflexives, while others apparently do. This obviously weakens the argument in the text, since it may be the case that free benefactives are ruled out in Icelandic for the same reason as in the more restrictive variety of Norwegian, thus independently of whether the IO is lexically selected or not.

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As far as we understand, Faroese does not exhibit the same variation concerning the Case of the IO as Icelandic, in triadic verb constructions (and constructions involving experiencers in general). Rather, the Case of the experiencer is always dative (or else expressed as a PP). This means that the Case of the experiencer can be licensed by a rule, just like in MSc., except that the rule in Faroese licenses dative m-case: (7.39) Dative is licit in Spec-VP. Lexical representations are correspondingly simplified, no Case being lexically specified for the experiencer. This entails that free benefactives can be added, licit with dative, whenever the semantics of the verb allows it. 16 7.7.2

The to-construction

The absence or marginal status of the to-construction with gefa-verbs can be directly derived from the lexical representation: The lexical representation of gefa-verbs (see (7.32)) requires an experiencer with dative. A PP cannot have dative Case, hence cannot satisfy the lexical selection requirements of the verb. Thus (7.40a,b) violate the selection requirements of the verb.1? (7.40) a.

*?Hun gaf bokina til Jons, she gave the-book to Jon

* If it is correct that a certain variety of colloquial Icelandic, namely the variety suffering from "dative sickness" (see footnote 12) has a rule "Dative is licit in Spec-VP", we predict that free benefactives should be acceptable in this variety. We do not know whether this prediction is correct. We have been informed that there is variation among Icelandic speakers concerning free benefactives, where some speakers appear to be more liberal than others, but we do not know whether this variation correlates with dative sickness. *' This is a simplification. At least some gefa -verbs (including gefa) do allow the toconstruction, but under the condition that IO is interpretable as a "pure goal", not an experiencer. Hence the IO should preferably be inanimate, e.g. an institution (see Ott6sson 1991): (i) Eg gaf bokina til haskolans/*til Jons. I gave the book to the university/to Jon This suggests that a possibly crucial difference between MSc. and Icelandic is that the verbs in question can assign an experiencer role across the preposition in MSc. but not in Icelandic. Note that the verb skila can take the fo-construction with an animate IO (see 7.41a). According to Halldor A. SigurSsson (p.c.) the gefa-verb senda "send" can take a PP complement with an animate object: (i) Eg sendi brefi3 til Jons. I sent the-letter to Jon However, the interpretation tends to be that although the letter is addressed to Jon, it is not for him: He is the goal but not the receiver/new possessor of the letter.

205

The Double Object Construction b.

*Eg sagSi soguna til beirra/fyrir beim. I told the story to them/for them

By contrast, verbs in the skila/r<ena class generally permit the reconstruction. (7.41) a. b. c.

Hun skila8i bokinni til Jons. she returned the-book(D) to Jon f>eir aetlu3u a9 rasna veskinum af mer. they intended to rob the-purse(D) from me Jon leyndi sannleikanum fyrir Mariu. Jon concealed the-truth(D) for (i.e. from) Mary

Verbs in this class either specify that the Case assigned to the IO is optional (skila) or do not specify any Case at all for the IO (r<ena, leyna). (7.42) shows that skila, unlike gefa, is perfectly acceptable without an IO: (7.42) a. b.

Hun hefur ekki skila5 bokinni. she has not returned the-book *-Hun hefur ekki gefiQ bokina.^ she has not given the book

That is to say, neither skila nor r<ena/leyna require an IO with a specific Case (in more traditional terms, neither assign Case obligatorily). Hence the experiencer argument can be realized as a PP. (For certain instances of skila/r^na-verbs there may be more or less idiosyncratic restrictions which prevent such an alternative realization of the argument.) 7.7.3

Inversion

Now consider the inverted DOC. Some examples are given in (7.43): (7.43) a. b. c.

Jon setlar a3 gefa bokina einhverju bokasafni. Jon intends to give the book(A) (to) some library(D) Hann s^ndi bokasafni3 ollum n^jum studentum. He showed the library(A) (to) ^all new students(D) Hvers vegna gaf hun bokina JONI, en ekki mer? what reason gave she the-book (to) JON(D) but not me "Why did she give the book to Jon and not to me?"

1 This example is perfectly o.k. with the

meaning 'give away' (Halldor Sigur3sson (p.c.)).

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Widi verbs of the gefa-chss, the order of DO and IO may be inverted. The examples above all have an indefinite and/or heavy (complex or heavily stressed) IO. However, neither heaviness nor indefiniteness per se are crucial. Instead the crucial condition appears to be that the IO should be focused, and the DO consequendy non-focused (i.e. be part of the presupposition), as noted by Ottosson (1991).^ An indefinite DP is usually interpretable as focus, and so is a heavy DP. The following examples illustrate this condition ((7.44a-f) are based on Ottosson (1991), (7.44g) is provided by Halldor A. Sigur3sson): (7.44) a. b. c. d. e. f. g.

Eg aetla ad gefa bokina einhverju bokasafni. I will give the-book(A) some library(D) • 'Eg xtla a8 gefa bok einhverju bokasafni. 1^ will give a book(A) some library(D) Eg setla ad gefa einhverja bok einhverju bokasafni. I will give some book(A) some library(D) *Eg a;tla ad gefa einhverja bok bokasafninu. I will give some book(A) the-library(D) *Eg seda aS gefa einhverja bok bokasafrii. I will give some book(A) a-library(D) Eg setla a5 gefa bokina bokasafni. I will give the-book(A) a-library(D) *Eg ajtla aQ gefa bokina bokasafninu. I will give the-book(A) the-library(D)

(7.44c) shows that the accusative DO may be indefinite provided the IO is also indefinite and hence can be interpreted as the focus. (7.44g) shows that it is not enough that the accusative DO be definite. Taken together the examples show that the status (in terms of definiteness) of the DO is of secondary importance in relation to the status of the IO. Essentially following Falk (1990) and Holmberg (1991) we propose that the structure of the inverted DOC is as shown in (7.45):

2 In Ottosson's words "the [DOJmust preferably be unfocussed, it seems, or at least not more focussed than the [IO] " (Ottosson (1991)). We assume (following Czepluch's (1991) description of corresponding German data) that the crucial condition is that the IO should be focused.

207

The Double Object Construction (7.45)

ActP

DP

Act'

^~x^

Act

VP

DP

V V

hann

syndij

bokasafm

e

DP

i ollum stiidentum

The idea is, informally speaking, that the inverted DOC is a toconstruction without a preposition but with m-case and focus instead. In other words, dative m-case and focus together are taken to satisfy the same syntactic conditions as the preposition does in MSc., but without violating the lexical selection properties of the verbs in question the way a preposition would do. Consider again (the relevant part of) the lexical representation of ge/iz-verbs: (7.46) gefa [ expj), Act ] The verb takes an obligatory experiencer argument with a specified Case, namely dative. The structural position of the argument is not specified. Hence the verb may assign the Case to the lower argument in (7.45). The DO will be assigned the ordinary structural accusative Case by Act+V. Note that the DO is formally a specifier, not a complement, of V in (7.45), since (dative) Case is checked in V (cf. (7.25 )). The DO is still within the checking domain (government domain) of V and Act. In MSc. inversion in the DOC is ruled out regardless of focus. (7.47) *Han ska ge boken nagot bibliotek. he will give the-book some library

(Swe)

Note that given the way we have formulated the IO Case rule ("accusative is licit in Spec-VP"), (7.47) is not ruled out for Case reasons: both objects are properly checked just as in the uninverted DOC. However, as mentioned earlier, by virtue of the theta-hierarchy the higher object will be assigned the experiencer role and the lower object the theme role, resulting in absurdity in this case. Why is the Icelandic inverted DOC not ruled out in the same way? We assume that the thematic m-case "protects" the IO from being assigned the theme role, which hence can be assigned to the higher object. It should be

208


noted that the dative IO cannot be a "pure experiencer" in the inverted DOC. In fact, it seems to have very much the same thematic properties as the PP in the MSc. (and English) fo-construction: It need not be a "pure goal" (see footnote 16), but it cannot be a "pure experiencer". Consider (7.48): (7.48) a. b.

Han gav alia larare huvudvark. (Swe) he gave all teachers (a) headache • • Han gav huvudvark at alia larare. he gave (a) headache to all teachers

As well known, not all triadic predicates allow the ^-construction. The ill-formedness of (7.48b) is explained by the universal theta-hierarchy, according to which theme is lower than experiencer but higher than goal (see (7.27) above). Hence the third argument in (7.48b) must be a goal. However, a headache is not an entity which can be transmitted from a source to a goal, but rather is a sensation which can be caused by something or somebody to be experienced by somebody. The IO in (7.48) is a "pure experiencer". Now consider the following cases of inversion in the DOC: (7.49) a. b. (7.50) a. b.

Hann gaf ollum kennurum sama tsekifaeriS. he gave all teachers(D) (the) same chance(A) *Hann gaf sama txkifaeriS ollum kennurum. he gave (the) same chance(A) all teachers(D)

(Ice)

£>etta gaf nokkrum basndum bessa hugmynd. this gave certain farmers(D) this idea(A) *&etta gaf bessa hugmynd nokkrum baendum. this gave this idea(A) certain farmers(D)

The expressions gefa taekiferift "give a chance" and gefa hugmynd "give an idea" do not allow inversion.•> Note that the DO is definite and the IO indefinite, so the inverted constructions do not violate the focus requirement (cf. (7.44)). Presumably they are ruled out for the same reason as (7.48b): The inverted IO must be a goal, due to the universal theta-hierarchy, but chances and ideas are like headaches in that they are not transmittable from a source to a goal, but rather are experienced. Hence the inverted constructions (7.49b) and (7.50b) are unacceptable. As mentioned, inversion is possible only with gefa-verbs. (7.51) a. b.

--Hann skila9i peningunum einhverju logreglumanni. he returned the-money(D) some policeman(D) *&eir leyndu sannleikanum oil born.

3•* The expression gefa hofuQverk "give a headache" does not exist in Icelandic.

209

The Double Object Construction they concealed the-truth(D) all children(A)

This claim needs some modification, though, since at least some verbs of the skila-rtena class marginally permit inversion of the two objects, but crucially the IO must then be truly heavy, containing for instance a relative clause. (7.52) a. 'l>eir leyndu sannleikanum [alia sem tillheyrSu ekki flokknum]. they concealed the-truth(D) all(A) who belonged not the-party "They concealed the truth from all those who didn't belong to the party." b. • • Sjorinn svipti manninum [gomlu konuna sem bjo a eyjunni]. the-sea deprived the-husband(D) old the-woman(A) who lived on the-island "The sea deprived of her husband the old woman who lived on the island." We assume, following Ottosson (1991), that these are derived by Heavy NP Shift of the IO, which is to say that they have quite another analysis than the inversion construction (7.45). We propose the following analysis for the VP part of (7.52a):

Act'

(7.53)

Act

VP

VP

-DP

V

DP

leynaj

e

j

v

DP

ei

sannleikanum

alia sem...j

See Ottosson (1991) for evidence that the IO in the DOC may undergo Heavy NP Shift provided it is very heavy. We will shortly discuss some additional evidence in favour of the distinction between inversion and Heavy NP Shift. For the moment, let us accept that skila/r<ena-verbs do not permit inversion, i.e. do not permit the analysis (7.45). How does our theory derive this property? The absence of inversion with skila/r<ena-verbs follows straightforwardly from the status of the Case of the DO. With verbs of the skila/r<ena class, the DO has an idiosyncratic Case, checked by a strict subcategorization feature (see (7.32)). This entails that the Case can only be assigned to a complement. But unlike the situation in the

210


^-construction, the DO in the inverted DOC does not count as a complement, since the verb checks the Case of the IO. (7.54) a. b. (Ice)

gei [VP boken [y V] [pp all nagot bibliotek]]] (Swe) gefai [VP bokina [y Vj [&p einhverju bokasafni]]] give the-book (to) some library

In (7.54a) V does not check Case in V, hence the argument boken counts as a complement of the verb. In (7.54b) V checks the dative Case of the inverted IO in V, hence the argument bokina does not count as a complement; see the definition of "complement" in (7.25) above. Now consider the case of skila, whose lexical representation includes the following features (see discussion around (7.32)): (7.55) skila (7.56) a. b.

[ _ D, (expo), Act]

"return"

*skila [yp bokunum [y Vj [DP einhverju bokasafm]]] return the-book(D) some library(D) skila [yp bokunum [y Vj [pp til einhvers bokasafhs]]] return the-book to some library(G)

In (7.56a) the verb checks (dative) Case in V, hence the higher object counts as a specifier, not a complement. But the verb cannot check idiosyncratic Case on a specifier but only on a complement. Hence the construction is ill-formed. In (7.56b) the verb does not check Case in V (the experiencer role-with-dative is optional with this verb, as discussed), hence the higher object does count as a complement, and thus its Case can be checked by V. The same argumentation can be applied to all the verbs in the skila/r<ena class. We predict that the DO (the theme) can serve as antecedent of an anaphor in the IO (the experiencer/goal) in the inverted DOC construction, just as in the MSc./English Zo-construction. This prediction is confirmed (as noted in Zaenen, Maling & Thrainsson (1985), who credit Rognvaldsson (1982) with the observation): (7.57) Jon gaf ambattinaj konungi sinumj. Jon gave the-maidservant(A) king(D) REFL(D) "Jon gave the maidservant to her king." We predict that skila/rcena-verbs should not behave like gefa-verbs with respect to anaphora. As discussed, skila/r<ena-verbs also permit the order DO-IO, provided the IO is very heavy. As first noted by Rognvaldsson (1982) they do not then allow an anaphor in the IO (the experiencer/goal) to be bound by the preceding DO (the theme). Example (7.58a) is from Rognvaldsson (1982):

The Double Object Construction

211

(7.58) a. *Sjorinn svipti manninumj [gomlu konuna sinaj sem ...]. the-sea deprived the-husband(D) old woman REFL(A) who... b. • -I?eir rxndu veskinu [einhvern sem tok batt i raSstefnunni]. they robbed the-purse(D) somebody(A) who took part in theconference c. *I?eir rxndu veskinuj [ eigendur sfnaj, sem ...]. they robbed-the-purse(D) owner REFL(A) who... If grammatical, (7.58a) would mean roughly "The sea deprived the old woman of her husband"; compare (7.52b). The problem in (7.58a,c) is that the theme cannot bind the reflexive in the experiencer. The contrast between gefa-verbs and skila/rcena-verbs follows from our analyses of the inverted constructions. With the latter class of verbs the inverted construction has the analysis (7.53), a result of Heavy NP Shift of the IO. The phrase containing the anaphor is left-adjoined to VP, and is hence not c-commanded by the (potential) antecedent. 7.7.4

Ottoson's objections

As mentioned, the analysis according to which the inverted DOC is a base-generated structure was first proposed by Falk (1990) and Holmberg (1991). In a couple of recent papers Kjartan Ottosson argues against the Falk-Holmberg hypothesis, claiming instead that the inverted order is a result of DO movement leftwards (Ottosson (1991,1992)). He gives two empirical arguments: First he notes, following Rognvaldsson (1982), that while an IO can be Heavy-NPShifted across a DO, a DO cannot be Heavy-NP-Shifted across an IO. This is shown by the contrast between (7.59a,b): (7.59) a. ?Eg gaf unnustu sfnaj [ piltinum sem hafQi be9i3 I gave fiancee REFL(A) the-boy(D) who had waited obreyjufullur i morg ar]j. impatiently for many years "I gave his fiancee to the boy who..." b. *Eg gaf unnusta sinumj [still kuna sem allir strakarnir voru a I gave fiance REFL(D) the girl(A) who all the-boys were hottunum eftir]j out for

212


(7.59a) shows that a Heavy-NP-Shifted IO can bind a reflexive in the DO.^ The antecedent of the reflexive is (presumably) the trace of the shifted IO; or, expressed in terms of reconstruction, the shifted IO is reconstructed into the position of the trace in Spec-VP whence it functions as antecedent of the anaphor. Note that this presupposes that the trace is a variable, which in turn presupposes that it is in a basegenerated position (cf. Chomsky (1981: 185f.), Mahajan (1991: 34ff)).5 (7.59b) is ungrammatical, however. Ottosson points out that this is unexpected if both orders (IO DO and DO IO) are base-generated. Schematically, given our theory, rightwards movement is fine in (7.60a), but not in (7.60b) (where v is the trace of the verb moved to Act): (7.60) a.

b.

V [yp ej [y v DO]] IOi

V [yp ei [y v IO] DO;

Why, Ottosson asks, can the shifted DO in (7.60b) not be reconstructed in the same way as the shifted IO can in (7.60a), if the traces in both cases are in base-generated positions, hence are (potentially) variables? Ottoson's second argument is based on his observation that the DO in the inverted DOC must be non-focus. As Ottosson points out, the conditions on Icelandic inversion are essentially the same as the conditions on IO-DO inversion in German DOCs with verbs like geben: compare (7.61) and (7.44). (7.61) a. c. d.

Ich will das Buch einem Jungen geben. I will the book(A) a boy(D) give "I will give a book to the boy." *Ich will einen Buch dem Jungen geben. I will a book(A) the boy(D) give Ich will einen Buch einem Jungen geben. I will a book(A) a boy(D) give

If the German inverted construction is derived by scrambling, i.e. movement and adjunction of the DO to the left of the IO, as commonly assumed (see Webelhuth (1989)), then it is reasonable to assume that the same is true of Icelandic. It could be noted here that our theory of VP-structure, unlike the theories in Falk (1990) and Holmberg (1991), and in fact unlike the theory of Ottosson (1991,1992), provides a landing site for the DO scrambled leftwards: it can adjoin to VP.

4

Ottosson takes "the mild deviance of [(7.59a)] to reflect the preference for the reflexive to follow rather than precede its antecedent"; Ottosson (1991)). ^ This entails that the heavy N'P is construed as an operator at LF. Construing HeavyNP-Shift as an A-har-binding relation is consistent with the behaviour of Heavy-NPShift with respect to parasitic gaps, as first noted by Engdahl (1983).


213

(7.62) gefaj [VP bokina; [VP einhverju bokasafhi [y1 Vj e: ]]] Note that the governor of the trace of the scrambled argument is an empty verb, just like in the Object Shift construction (see chapter 6). If this is how the inverted DOC is derived, the facts in (7.59) above follow: the IO cannot contain an anaphor bound by the trace of a heavy -NP-shifted DO, since the trace into which the heavy-NP-shifted DO will be reconstructed is the base-generated trace under V (given that a trace can be a variable only if it is in a base-generated position), and this trace does not c-command the IO. Nevertheless, we will reject a scrambling analysis of Icelandic inversion, for the following reasons: (a) The movement in (7.62) violates Relativized Minimality; this will be discussed in more detail in section 7.7.5. (b) The Object Shift analysis predicts that inversion would be grammatical in MSc. with a (weak) pronominal DO. But (7.63) is just as ungrammatical (as a case of inversion) with a pronominal DO as with a lexical DO. (7.63) *Jag har gett den/boken ett bibliotek. (Swe) I have given it/the-book a library (c) The facts in (7.48-50), illustrating the parallel thematic properties of Icelandic inversion and the MSc./English ^-construction, are not predicted under the scrambling analysis. (d) The base-generation analysis is compatible with the facts in (7.59) as well as with the parallel behaviour of Icelandic and German. We think that Ottosson has shown convincingly that inversion in the Icelandic DOC is essentially the same phenomenon as inversion in the German DOC. However, this does not entail that it is derived by scrambling, i.e. leftwards movement of the DO. Czepluch (1991), following Scherpenisse (1986), and Haider (1992), following Hohle (1982), have both argued that the German inverted DOC with verbs of the geben class is not derived by scrambling of the DO. We follow Haider-Hohle in assuming that the inverted construction is an alternative basegenerated structure which can be projected by the verbs in question. We may apply essentially the same theory to inversion in German as we did to Icelandic: Inversion presupposes that the IO has a "thematic" incase, that the DO does not have an idiosyncratic Case (a Case checked by a strict subcategorization feature), and that the IO has focus. Why is focus required, though, on the IO in the inverted DOC but not in the straight DOC? We suggest that focus is required to substitute for structural Case-checking. Recall that each category with Case is subject to lexical and structural Case-checking (see chapter one, section 1.3). The intuition is that focus on a category, e.g. an argument, is a way of giving prominence to the argument, thus diminishing the need for

214


the syntactic context to indicate its presence. In the straight DOC the DO is lexically checked by V, and structurally checked by Act, by virtue of being governed by the trace of V moved to Act. The IO is lexically checked by the role+Case feature [expo] (see (7.32)). We suggest that the assignment of this role+Case feature to the canonical experiencer position, that is Spec-VP, means that the Case need not be structurally licensed. In the inverted DOC, where the role+Case feature is assigned to V-Compl, forcing a goal interpretation of the argument, the Case must be structurally licensed. On the assumption that Act can license only one argument with Case, and that this can only be the DO, the IO must have some other form of additional licensing. This is provided by focus. We conclude that the focus condition on inversion in the Icelandic DOC is compatible with the Falk-Holmberg hypothesis. Furthermore, we contend that the asymmetry regarding Heavy NP Shift and anaphora in the DOC which was schematically represented in (7.60), is explained by the focus condition. We repeat the crucial example and the schematic representation: (7.64) *Eg gaf unnusta sfnumj [stulkuna sem allir strakarnir voru a hottunum eftirjj I gave fiance REFL(D) the girl(A) who all the-boys were out for (7.65) V [Vp ei [V v IO] DOj In the inversion construction the IO must be focus (to make up for the lack of structural Case-checking), and (hence) the DO must be part of the presupposition. But Heavy NP Shift always requires focus on the shifted constituent. This is why Heavy NP Shift of the DO is incompatible with inversion. Note that the DO can be heavy-NP-shifted across the PP in the ^-construction in e.g. Swedish. Compare (7.64) and (7.66), where an anaphor in the PP is bound by a shifted DO, or perhaps more correctly, by the trace of the shifted DO. (7.66) Jag aterlamnade till sin ratta agare [den dar boken som jag hittade bakom soffan]. (Swe) I returned to its-REFL rightful owner that there book that I found behind the-couch This contrast between (7.64) and (7.66) is predicted by our theory. The constructions are the same, the only difference being that while the IO in (7.64) must be focused to be licensed, the IO in (7.66) need not be, since it is structurally (as well as lexically) licensed by the preposition. From this it follows that the DO may be heavy NP-shifted in (7.66) but not in (7.64).

215


7.7.5

The passivization asymmetry

With regard to passivization of the DO in the DOC the dividing line does not run between ISc. and MSc./English. All the languages accept passivization of the IO, but while Icelandic, Faroese, Norwegian, and somewhat marginally Swedish also permit passivization of the DO, Danish and English do not. Furthermore, Icelandic permits DOpassivization only with gefa-verbs (as discussed by Zaenen, Maling & Thrainsson (1985)). (7.67) a. b. c. d. (7.68) a. b. (7.69) a. b.

Joni voru gefnar baikur. (Ice) Jon(D) were given the-books(N) Bjekurnar voru gefnar Joni. Joni var skilafi bokunum. Jon(D) was returned the-books(D) Bsekunum var skilaQ (*J6ni). the-book(D) was returned Jon(D) Jens blev givet bogen. Jens was given the-book *Bogen blev givet Jens.

(Dan)

Jon ble gitt boken. Jon was given the-book Boken ble gitt Jon.

(Nor)

As mentioned in chapter one (sections 1.2.4 and 1.3.2), passives differ from actives in that the passive verb forms project a head Pass instead of Act, where Pass does not assign a role to Spec-PassP and does not license accusative Case on V-Compl. We assume Pass licenses a nonthematic spec-position which may host a DP moved there if other licensing conditions are satisfied (cf. chapter 5) or an intermediate trace of a DP moved to Spec-IP. The verb moves to Pass, in overt syntax (but see footnote 10), to have its passive morphology checked. This is all we need to know about the passive construction, in the present context. Let us put Norwegian and Swedish aside for the moment, and consider only Danish and Icelandic. We will adopt a proposal made by Vikner (1990) according to which ungrammatical instances of DOpassivization violate Relativized Minimality. Consider the structural descriptions of (7.70a,b); for the sake of convenience we regard it as an embedded clause, and also omit from the trees the additional VP-node projected by the auxiliary verb):

216


(7.70) a. b.

[IP Jensi [I blev [p ass P ei [p as s' [Pass givetj ] [yp ej [y Vj bogen ]]]] [IP Bogenj [i blev [p ass p ei [pass givetj ] [VP Jens [y Vj ei]]]]]

In (7.70b) the DO has moved across the IO in Spec-VP, hence the structure violates Rizzi's (1990) Relativized Minimality, which basically says that in a configuration X...Y...Z, X cannot govern Y if there is a closer potential governor Z for Y. In (7.70b) the subject or its trace in Spec-Pass cannot antecedent-govern the trace in V since Spec-VP is a closer potential antecedent-governor. (7.70a), by contrast, respects Relativized Minimality. Now consider Icelandic. Example (7.67) illustrates the fact that while IO passives are acceptable with both types of triadic verbs (gefaverbs as well as skila/rcena-verbs), DO passives are possible with gefaverbs but not with skila/r<ena verbs. Following Falk (1990) and Holmberg (1991) we propose to relate this to another difference between gefa-verbs and skila/r<ena-verbs, discussed in the previous section: gefa-verbs but not skila/r<ena-verbs allow inversion, i.e. they can project two alternative predicate structures, one with the IO in Spec-VP, one with the DO in Spec-VP. Consequently a DO passive can be derived without violating Relativized Minimality, with gefa-verbs, if the D-structure is the inverted DOC. (7.71a) is the structure of (7.67a) and (7.71b) is the structure of (7.67b): (7.71) a. b.

[IP Jonii [p [l voru] [p a ssP (ei) [Pass gefnarj ][yp ef [y Vj bskur ]]]]] [ip baskurnarf [p [j voru] [passP ei [Pass gefnarj ][yp e; [V'VjJoni]]]]]

Both structures respect Relativized Minimality. (7.67d), a DO passive headed by a verb in the skila-r^ena class, is ruled out since, (a) these verbs do not allow the inverted DOC for reasons discussed in the previous section, and (b) deriving a DO passive from the straight DOC violates Relativized Alinimality. This theory makes two predictions. First, it predicts that DO passives should be ruled out with skila /r<ena-verbs only when the IO is realized as a DP, since Relativized Minimality is implicated only in the presence of a non-prepositional IO. Recall that the IO is generally optional with these verbs, and (hence) can also be realized as a PP. This is a correct prediction, as shown by (7.72) (7.72) a. b.

Bolcunum var skilaS (til bokasafns). the-books was returned to (a) library Sannleikanum var leynt (fyrir mer). thc-truth was concealed from me


217

Second, since inversion in the active DOC is well-formed only if the IO is focused, we predict that the IO in a DO-passive must be focus. This prediction is correct in that the DO-passive, a somewhat marginal construction altogether, is most natural if the IO is focused (indefinite, stressed, or complex). Consider the following data (the grammaticality judgements are provided by Halldor A. Sigurdsson): (7.73) a. b. c. d. e. f.

J>eim var gefin hun. they(D) was given it(N) Hun var gefin einhverjum bornumA-'beim. it(N) was given some children(D)/them(D) I3eim var s|nd hun. they(D) was shown it(N) Hun var s$nd einhverjum bornum/'beim. it(N) was shown some children(D)/them(D) £>eim var sog3 hun. they(D) was told it(N) Hun var sog9 einhverjum bornum/' 1 beim. it(N) was told some children(D)/them(D)

As shown an IO passive (the (a,c, and e)-examples) is acceptable regardless of the focus of the DO. A DO passive is clearly preferred if the IO left behind in VP is a category which can be focused naturally, hence not for instance a weakly stressed pronoun. The prediction is incorrect in that focus does not seem to be a crucial condition the way it is in the active inversion construction. We do not, at present, have any interesting explanation of this difference between active and passive inversion. Note, however, that in preferring the IO to be focus in DOpassives Icelandic contrasts sharply with English, where a DO-passive is marginally possible but only if the IO is a light pronoun: The book was given him/*John. It also contrasts with Norwegian and Swedish where focus-properties of the IO play no role in DO-passives. We will come back to the case of Norwegian and Swedish below. At present we are content to have at least a partial explanation of the focus properties of Icelandic DO-passives. 7.7.5

DO passives in Norwegian and Swedish

As mentioned DO-passives are fully acceptable in Norwegian and more marginally acceptable in Swedish, in contrast with Danish and English. (7.74) a. b.

Jon ble gitt en bok. (Nor) Jon was given a book En bok ble gitt Jon.

218

The Role of Inflection in Scandinavian Syntax a book was given Jon

(7.75) a. b.

Johan forarades en medalj. Johan was-presented a medal Medaljen forarades Johan. the-medal was-presented Johan

(Swe)

There is another difference between Norwegian/Swedish and Danish which is relevant in this connection: As noted in chapter 6, section 6.5.5 a full DP IO in the DOC may undergo Object Shift in Norwegian and more marginally in Swedish, but not in Danish. The Danish versions of the following sentences are all ill-formed. (7.76) a. b. c. (Swe)

Jeg viser gjestene gjerne bildene mine. I show the-guests gladly the-pictures my De ga Marit ikke blomstene. they gave Marit not the-flowers Vi ger barnen alltid vad de vill ha.

(Nor) (Nor)

we give the-children always what they want (to) have The structure of (7.76a) is (7.77) (see chapter 6): (7.77) Jegi viserj .. [ActP gjestenek [ActP gjerne [ActP ei (Act1 Actj [VP ek [V v j bildene mine]]]]]] This indicates that the IO in Norwegian and (some varieties of) Swedish has some form of invisible m-case, lacking in Danish. We suggest that this invisible m-case is what makes DO-passives possible in Norwegian and (some varieties of) Swedish. 6 Recall that the construction

6 Faroese seems to pattern like Norwegian and Swedish. The following data were provided

by Michael Barnes: (i) a. Hestarnir voru givnir honum. the-horses(N) were given him(D) b. Hestarnir voru honum givnir. (ii) a. Eg vi'si b0rnunum fegin rnyndir mi'nar. I show the-children(D) happily pictures my b. Hann gav Siggu eingi blomstur. he gave Sigga(D) no flowers (ia) shows that Faroese has DO-passives. Inversion in the DOC is impossible (according to Barnes (1992)), so the construction presumably involves movement of the DO across the IO. (ib) may be derived cither by non-application of V-raising to Pass or by Object Shift of the IO (apparently lO-passives also p e r m i t two orders: Honum voru givnir hestamir/tlonum voru hestarnir givnir). (iia) is a clear case of Object Shift of a lexical IO. Object Shift of lexical DP is not otherwise permitted in Faroese (as discussed in chapter 6). (iib) also provides evidence of Object Shift of a lexical IO. As shown by Christensen (1986) negated NP objects (such as ingen 'nobody', inga backer 'no books', etc.) always


219

corresponding to (7.74b) and (7.7Sb) in Danish was assumed to be ruled out as a violation of Relativized Minimality. This implies that the invisible m-case makes the IO invisible for Relativized Minimality. If we are right concerning passivization in the Icelandic DOC, visible (dative) m-case does not make an argument invisible for Relativized Minimality: we argued that DO passives are possible if and only if the source structure was the inverted DOC. We propose that the invisible m-case in Norwegian and Swedish DOCs is an empty preposition, and the IO consequently a PP.7 Conceivably a PP does not induce Relativized Minimality for Amovement of a DP. ( The analysis of (the relevant part of) (7.75b) will be (7.78), where (a) is the D-structure and (b) the S-structure (p = empty preposition): (7.78) a- [PassP [Pass1 Pass [yp [PP p Johan] [y forarades medaljen]]]] b. medaljenj ... [p ass p ej [p ass ' [p ass foraradesj] [yp [ p p p Johan] [V Vj ej ]]]] An alternative hypothesis is that the source of the DO passive is a reconstruction with an empty to heading the PP (as suggested by Stowell (1981) for English). In that case relativized Minimality would not be implicated. However, the word order in impersonal passives of DOCs (possible in all the MSc. languages but not in Icelandic) suggests that this is incorrect: (7.79) a. b.

Det ble gitt Jon en bok. it was given Jon a book *Det ble gitt en bok Jon.

Why would (7.79b) be ill-formed, if this construction is the source of a DO passive? We will now provide three pieces of evidence in favour of the hypothesis that an empty preposition is involved in the Norwegian and Swedish DOC. 1. While DO-passives of simple triadic verbs like ge "give", visa "show", skicka "send", etc. in Swedish are very marginal , DO-passives of move to the position of the negation in Scandinavian. Thus (lib) cannot be derived without Object Shift of the IO, across the negated NP, 7 This analysis was proposed in Holmberg (1986), following Czepluch (1982) and Kayne (1984) for English. We now assume that the analysis does not extend to English or Danish, since neither language allows DO-passives, and Danish furthermore does not allow Object Shift of a full DP IO. There are problems associated with the PP-analysis of IDs in MSc., in particular in relation to Object Shift: PPs with overt heads do not undergo Object Shift, in e.g. Icelandic. See Holmberg (1986) and Vikner (1990) for discussion.

220


compound verbs containing an incorporated preposition are fully acceptable (as discussed by Falk (1990)). The incorporated preposition (boldface in (7.80)) is often till "to" but may also befran "from". (7.80) a. b. c. d.

• 'Den har boken har inte getts Johan. this book has not been-given Johan Detta uttryck brukar tillskrivas Churchill. this expression is-usually ascribed Churchill Varningen tilldelades honom for sent, the-warning was given him too late Medaljen frantogs Johnson. the-medal was from-taken Johnson

This suggests that the problem with (7.80a) is that ge "give" does not quite suffice to license an empty preposition in Swedish (while it does in Norwegian). Verbs like tilldela, tillskriva, etc. do license an empty preposition by virtue of containing an incorporated preposition.^ 2. As mentioned, in Norwegian and Swedish DO-passives the focus properties (heaviness, definiteness, etc.) of the IO are irrelevant (unlike the situation in both Icelandic and English). In this respect the IO in the DO passive (7.81a) behaves just like the IO in (7.81b), where it is governed by an overt preposition. (7.81) a. Boken ble gitt ham/Jon/en student som jeg aldri har truffet. (Nor) the-book was given him/Jon/a student who I never have met b. Boken ble gitt til ham/Jon/en student som jeg aldri har truffet. 3. The following is yet another fact which supports the hypothesis that the variation between Norwegian/Swedish and Danish with regard to DO-passives has to do with empty prepositions. Pseudopassives (prepositional passives) are common in Norwegian, more marginal in Swedish, and excluded in Danish (data from Vikner (1990)): (7.82) a. b. c. o

8

at Fetter ble ledd av. (Nor) that Peter was laughed at (-)att Peter skrattades at. (Swe) *at Peter blcv grinet af. (Dan)

The preposition need not be incorporated in the syntax. The verbs containing a prepositional morpheme often have a highly lexicalized meaning. Even the prefixes for- as in Jo'rara "present" and er- as in erbjudu "offer", which are not (historically) incorporated prepositions in Swedish seem to have the effect of licensing an empty preposition. See (7.75b).


221

Assume that pseudopassives involve some form of reanalysis of V and P as a complex V (despite the objections which have been made to this hypothesis; see L0drup (1991)).9 Assume that this "reanalysis" involves preposition movement, so that the S-structure of (7.82a) contains the substructure (7.83): (7.83) Peterj ... [y [V ledd av] [pp p e{ ]} The variation among the MSc. languages exemplified in (7.74) then follows if Norwegian permits empty prepositions happily, Swedish marginally, and Danish not at all. The same constraint may explain the variation with regard to DO-passives and with regard to Object Shift of the IO.10' n

9 The main argument against reanalysis is that there may be material in between the verb and the preposition, as in (i): (i) Ungen har inte blivit bytt blojor pa. the-lcid has not been changed diapers on We would have to say either that the reanalysis is abstract (cf. Baker's (1988) notion 'abstract incorporation') or that the reanalyzed verb is bytt bliyor pa. The fact that the intervening DP cannot be definite may be regarded as support of the analysis where it is reanalyzed with the verb (ii) *Ungen har inte blivit bytt blojorna pa. the-kid has not been changed the-diapers on *^ The pattern of variation is disturbed by the fact that English has pseudopassives although it disallows DO-passives in DOCs. 11 Our theory would be strengthened considerably if it were shown that the varieties in Swedish which happily permit DO-passives of give-verbs are the .same as permit Object Shift of a lexical IO, and are most liberal with regard to pseudopassives. This remains to be investigated. As it happens, one of the authors of this book rejects Object Shift of lexical IO, and is not happy either with DO-passives of give-type verbs (except it they contain a prepositional element) or with pseudopassives. The other author is definitely more liberal with respect to Object Shift of a lexical IO, and possibly more liberal also with respect to DO-passives and pseudopassives.


Chapter Eight: Conclusions This book has focused on a number of syntactic differences between primarily two groups of Scandinavian languages: the Insular Scandinavian (ISc.) languages, i.e. Icelandic, Faroese, and Old Scandinavian, and the Mainland Scandinavian (MSc.) languages, i.e. modern Swedish, Danish, and Norwegian. We have shown that these differences can all be related to two parameters of variation concerning the system of inflections, one concerning subject-verb agreement, and the other concerning case. First, the ISc. languages have a category Agr in 1°, and furthermore "strong" Agr, that is Agr with nominative case, while the MSc. languages have no Agr. Second, the ISc. languages have morphological case (incase), while the MSc. languages have no m-case, except with pronouns. However, since Faroese has "weak" m-case it patterns with the MSc. languages with regard to several properties which depend on m-case. The differences we have discussed do not exhaust the variation between ISc. and MSc., not even the variation which is due to the two inflection parameters. In previous work we have discussed some other points of variation. For instance, no ISc. language has pseudopassives, while among the MSc. languages Norwegian and Swedish do have them. In Holmberg & Platzack (1991) we argued that absence of m-case, in particular m-case selected by prepositions, is a precondition for pseudopassives.1 Another difference is that VP fronting, in particular fronting of a finite VP, is excluded in ISc., being allowed in all the MSc. languages. (1)

a. b.

Vann gjorde jag. won did I "Win I did." *Vann gerSi eg.

(Swedish) (Icelandic)

1 Barnes (1992) claims that Faroese has pseudopassives. This is probably incorrect, though. The example Barnes gives is (i). (i) Olav varo altid tosa 6 nogv urn. Olavur(A) was always talked much about We believe that this is not a pseudopassive but a topicalization of the object of the preposition, with an empty expletive subject. This is confirmed by the fact that (ii) is illformed (according to Eivind Weyhe p.c.), while (iii) is well-formed, (ii) *Var3 Olav altid tosaS nogv um? was Olavur(A) always talked much about (iii) VarS (ta8) altid tosaS nogv um Olav? was it always talked much about Olavur(A) The same phenomenon is discussed for Icelandic in Maling & Zaenen (1985).

224


Without going into details, it is clear that V-raising to 1°, which as we have shown is characteristic of ISc., makes impossible fronting of a VP containing a finite verb. In MSc., on the other hand, the finite verb stays in VP (in overt syntax), and consequently may be topicalized with the VP, provided other conditions are met. Since, as we have argued, the presence of (nominal) Agr in 1° is what triggers V-raising to 1° in ISc., the agreement parameter is crucially involved in the variation exemplified in (1). Incidentally, pseudopassives and VP-fronting are both cases where overt Case or agreement inflection has the effect of restricting rather than increasing freedom of word order. There is more variation still which may be related to the Case and agreement parameters (see Holmberg & Platzack (1991) for an overview). Even if we leave out the uncertain cases, the remaining cases, which include those discussed in the present work, provide ample support for one of the central claims made by the parametric theory of syntactic variation: a relatively minor change in the morphological system of a language (minor in terms of the number of morphemes affected) may have a wide range of effects in various parts of the syntax. As we have seen, there is a truly wide range of syntactic differences between the ISc. and the MSc. languages, most of which are due to the presence or absence of subject-verb agreement and m-case, if we are right. The reason that the Scandinavian languages are still perceived as having a certain syntactic affinity is that they have the same values for all other major parameters, including in particular head-complement order and the V2 parameter, and the fact that the set of lexical categories is basically the same. A question which we have not discussed explicitly is the relation between m-case and agreement, and correspondingly between what we have called the agreement and m-case parameters. It is surely striking that almost all varieties of the Scandinavian languages either have both subject-verb agreement and m-case, or neither (excepting pronouns and the possessive genitive). Could it be that we are really dealing with only one parameter? Totally missing among the Scandinavian languages (as far as we know) is a variety which has lost subject-verb agreement but retains the old m-case system/ The usual progression of change, as it emerges from the historical records, seems to have been first a change in the status of the m-case system, eventually with loss of m-case (with the exceptions noted), followed by a change in the status of subject-verb agreement, eventually with loss of subject-verb agreement. A comparison of current Scandinavian dialects indicates that this has been 2 There are a few dialects in Norway and Sweden which retain dative Case, more or less

productively, selected by certain verbs or adjectives (see Reinhammar (1972, 1987)), but have no subject-verb agreement. As far as we know, no MSc. dialect retains a morphological distinction between nominative and accusative.

Conclusions

225

the progression of change throughout Scandinavia. Modern Faroese is an interesting live illustration of this process. We have suggested that in modern Faroese a change from "strong" to "weak" m-case is more or less completed, while a corresponding change in the status of subject-verb agreement is still underway. Interestingly, the weakening of m-case in Faroese is not reflected in an obvious way in the morphological paradigm. At a certain level of abstraction the grammatical function of m-case and agreement is the same: both provide a morphologically visible link between a head and its argument(s). This is well known and accepted. But this is done by formally quite different mechanisms in the two cases: a nominal morpheme attaching to nonnominal heads in the case of agreement, but an (arguably) nonnominal morpheme attaching to nominal heads in the case of m-case. Thus it is by no means obvious why they could not change quite independently of each other. In the Scandinavian languages, and perhaps more generally the Germanic languages (see van Kemenade (1987) on English) they seem to have changed together, but observing the order noted above. In Swedish, for instance, m-case is finally lost at the end of the 15th century. At this time we also find the first examples of the modern subordinate word order with the finite verb remaining in VP. As shown in chapter three, this word order indicates the loss of (personal) agreement. In a way the theory which we have presented provides a formal connection between m-case and subject-verb agreement, and a partial explanation of the progression of change. We have argued that subjectverb agreement in ISc., as in many other languages, is a nominal category encoding nominative Case. That is to say, the category Agr in 1° is a form of m-case. We have argued, furthermore, that Agr has undergone a change in French, English, and MSc. whereby its nominative case feature has been lost. In MSc. the process has led to the total loss of Agr. This change can now be viewed as a step in a more general change affecting m-case. A possibly fruitful way of looking at the progression of change is that it has started at the bottom of the tree (the lexical part of the tree), gradually working its way upwards, eventually affecting the m-case in 1°, that is the nominative Case of Agr. Matters are complicated, however, by the fact that the change in the m-case system which MSc. has gone through has left some parts of the system intact, in particular the category of weak pronouns, discussed in chapter 6. Correspondingly, although subject-verb agreement has totally disappeared in almost all varieties of MSc., all varieties retain some form of subject agreement with predicative adjectives.-* The

* In some varieties of Swedish, in particular in a variety of northern Swedish, m-case distinctions have been drastically reduced even in the pronominal system; see Holinberg (1986b).

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relation between the agreement and m-case parameters is one of many issues which we leave for future research.

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Zwart, C.J.W. (1991) Clitics in Dutch: Evidence for the Position of INFL. Groningen Arbeiten zur germanistischen Linguistik 33: 71-92. Zwart, C.J.W: (1992a) Verb Movement and Complementizer Agreement. GLOW Newsletter 28: 58-59. Zwart, C.J.W. (1992b) Subject Initial Verb Second in West Flemish: A Reply to Haegeman. Groningen Arbeiten zur germanistischen Linguistik 35: 72-91. Zwart, C.J.W. (1993) SOV Languages are Head Initial. Paper presented at the Eight Workshop on Comparative Germanic Syntax, Troms0 November 1992.


Index of Languages The main part of the book is about differences between Mainland Scandinavian (Danish, Norwegian, Swedish) and Insular Scandinavian (Icelandic, Faroese, Old Scandinavian). Since Icelandic examples are given to illustrate general properties of Insular Scandinavian, and Swedish examples to illustrate general properties of Mainland Scandinavian, references to Icelandic and Swedish are found all over the book, and these languages are therefore not mentioned in the index.

Afrikaans 71,73,74. Austro-Asiatic 9. Bavarian 110, 111. Celtic languages 52, 57 f. Chinese 9,27. Continental Germanic 74, 76, 77. Danish 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, 10, 17, 44, 47, 71, 73, 75, 78, 86, 97, 100, 104, 150, 161, 164, 172, 181, 182, 189,201,215,217,218,219, 220, 221, 223. Dialect of Hallingdalen (Norwegian) 25. Dialect of Alvdalen (Swedish) 8. Dutch 7, 44, 71, 73, 74, 78, 79, 192, 193. Early New Swedish 122,139. East Scandinavian 8. English 4, 7, 8, 9, 17, 18, 19, 27, 29, 31, 32, 38, 43, 44, 45, 46, 52, 55, 61 f., 63-68, 72, 76, 79. 100, 146, 172, 174, 175, 177, 178, 180, 185, 186, 188, 189, 198, 201, 208, 210, 213, 215, 217, 219, 220, 221, 225.

Finno-Ugric languages 52. French 17, 18, 43, 45, 46, 47-51, 52, 53, 54, 55, 57, 62, 63-68, 76, 154, 155, 174, 177, 178, 198, 225. Frisian 71, 73, 74, 78, 80. Gbadi 56 f., 73. German 7, 8, 14, 45, 71, 73, 78, 79, 100, 105, 108, 109, 112, 150, 160, 186, 193,212,213,225. Hindi 153. Hungarian 22,58-61.

Icelandic dialects 96. Icelandic, see text above. Insular Scandinavian (ISc.), See Old and Modern Icelandic, Old Mainland Scandinavian, partly Faroese. See also text above. Irish 58. Italian 53-55, 57, 58, 60, 67, 99, 107, 174. Italian child language 55. Japanese 9, 27, 180, 182. Korean 9. Kru-languages 52, 56-57,73. Latin 8.

Faroese 3, 5, 6, 7, 8, 10, 12, 29, 38, 39,73,75,76,88,96, 104, 112, 115, 160, 164, 172, 173, 174, 175, 176, 177, 187, 203, 204, 215, 218, 219, 223, 225. Finnish 38, 39, 40, 41, 187, 200.

Mainland Scandinavian (MSc.), postmedieval Danish, Norwegian, and Swedish. See also text above. Middle English 63, 65, 66, 73, 112. Middle French 63, 68, 75.

242


North Germanic 6. Northen Italian dialects 67. Norwegian 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 10, 47, 71, 73, 75, 86, 88, 90, 97, 100, 104, 114, 125, 150, 153, 162, 164, 172, 174, 181, 182, 186, 189, 190, 201, 203, 215, 217, 218, 219, 220, 221, 223. Norwegian dialects 25,88,224. Old English 73,74. Old French 63, 65, 67, 73, 109, 111, 112. Old Icelandic 105,109,110. Old Mainland Scandinavian 97. Old Scandinavian 3, 5, 8, 12, 29, 75, 77, 112, 187,223. Old Swedish 77, 86, 87, 116, 139. Old Yiddish 74. Older Swedish 115,121,122. Romance 18, 52-56,67, 154, 155. Russian 29.

Sino-Tibetan 9. Southern French dialects 67. Spanish 53. Swedish dialects/varieties 8,164, 172, 179,218,221,224,225. Swedish, see text above. TokPisin 22. Turkish 176. Valtotain 119. Vata 56 f., 73. Welsh 20,57f.. West Flemish 111. West Germanic 6, 110. West Scandinavian 8. Yiddish 45, 71, 73, 75, 78, 81, 82, 112.

Index of Names Aass, K. 88. Abney, S. 180. Adams, M. 67, 111. Afarli, T. 105, 142, 178, 179, 181, 197. Anderson, S. 89,94. Andersson, L.-G. 79,86. Andrews, A. 112. Anward, J. 197. Baker, M. 27, 28, 180, 221, Baltin, M. 163. Barnes, M. 10,12, 38, 76, 88, 96, 115, 173, 174,218,223. Barss, A. 186, 191. Bayer,J. 111. Belletti, A. 18, 28, 54, 106, 134. Bennis, H. I l l Besten, H. den 72, 73, 76, 78, 79, 193. Blake, B.J. 9. Bondre.P. 90. Borer, H. 14, 154. Burzio, L. 22, 36. Cardinaletti, A. 117, 155, 163, 175. Chomsky, N. 4, 14, 15, 16, 24, 27, 28, 29, 32, 33, 49, 76, 85, 129, 150, 151, 152, 153, 157, 158, 160, 178, 185, 195, 212. Christensen, K. K. 104, 125, 219. Cinque, G. 164. Clahsen, H. 14. Comrie, B. 176. Creider, Ch. 105. Czepluch, H. 160, 186, 206, 213, 219. Delsing, L.-O. 7, 164. Diesing, M. 78, 81,82. Dooley-Collberg, S. 58. Einarsson, S. 88, 171.

Ejerhed, E. 7,15. Ellegard,A. 66. Emonds, J. 27, 39, 186, 198. En?, M. 92. Engdahl,E. 7,15,212. Everaet, M. 89. Faarlund, J.-T. 112. Falk, C. 27, 44, 77, 109, 115, 119, 134, 186, 191, 192,206,211, 212, 214, 216, 220. Falk, H. 88, 110. Frege, G. 23. Freidin, R. 29. Fukui, N. 180. Geilfuss,J. 73. Grimshaw, J. 199. Guasti, M.-T. 54. Gueron, J. 92. Guilfoyle,E. 57. Haan, G. de 78, 80. Haegeman,L. Ill Haider, H. 160,194,213. Hale, K. 21. Hamsun, K. 72. Harlow, S. 57. Haugen, E. 5. Hedlund.C. 131. Hellan, L. 90, 149, 186, 191, 192, 197. Herslund, M. 186. Hirschbuhler, P. 68. Hjartardottir, Th. 99, 109. Hoekstra, E. 192. Hoekstra, J. 110. Hoekstra, T. 92, 100, 158, 192. Holmberg, A. 7, 18, 19, 26, 34, 39, 65,80, 118, 141, 145, 146, 147, 150, 154, 156, 162, 165, 166, 168, 175, 178, 186, 191, 192,

244


203,206,211,212,214,216, 219, 223, 224, 225. Hooper.J. 79. Hornstein, N. 103. Huang, J. 27,99. Hulk, A. 63,64. Ho'hle, T. 213. Jaeggli, O. 197. Johnson, K. 152, 160, 168, 186, 191. Jonsson, G. 117, 118, 119. Josefsson, G. 153, 155, 156, 162, 165. Kayne, R. 46, 89, 118, 154, 155, 162, 186, 219. Kemenade, A. van, 63, 64, 66, 225. Keyser, S. J. 21. Kiss, E. 58. Koopman, H. 56, 73, 159. Kosmeijer, W. 27, 78, 79, 115. Kress, B. 188. Lamontagne G. 39. Lange, S. 13 f. Larson, R. 34, 191, 194, 195, 198. Larsson, C. 87. Larsson, Kent 77. Larsson. Kenneth 13 f. Lasnik.H. 186, 191. Law, P. 85. Lebeaux, D. 55. Lenertz.J. 109. L0drup, H. 221. Mahajan, A. 152, 153, 168, 176, 212. Maling, J. 36, 80, 87, 89, 90, 96, 114, 116, 118, 186, 188, 196, 201, 210, 215, 223. Mallison, G. 9. Maracz, L. 59, 110. Marantz, A. 192. May, R. 151.

Moed-van Walraven, C. 73. Moshagen, S. 88. Mulder, R. 100. Muller, G. 146. Mansson, P. 77. M0rck, E. 112. Nichols, J. 52. Nikanne, U. 41. Nordgard.T. 73. Ott6sson, K. 37, 113, 186, 192, 204, 206,209,211,212,213. Ouhalla, J. 13, 17. Pdlsson, G. 87. Pesetsky, D. 199. Platzack, C. 10, 26, 29, 55, 63, 64, 65, 68, 77, 79, 80, 100, 107, 109, 117, 119, 122, 178, 181, 198, 223, 224. Pollock, J. Y. 17, 18, 20, 27, 28, 43, 46, 49, 62, 67. Radford, A. 55. Reinhammar, M. 224. Reuland, E. 24,27. Rizzi, L. 25 f., 46, 54, 62, 72, 81, 102, 104, 105, 107, 111, 119, 129, 159, 166, 216. Roberts, I. 51,55,67, 102, 117, 119, 155. Rothstein, S. 23. Rouveret, A. 20, 28. Rognvaldsson, E. 78, 80, 81, 89, 105, 112, 115, 116, 117, 138, 139,210,211. Safir, K. 24, 106, 128. Sand0y, H. 104. Santorini, B. 78. Sapir, E. 14. Scherpenisse, W. 213. Schwarz, B. 72, 78.

245

Index of Names

SigurSsson, H. 15, 18, 29, 30, 33, 36, 46, 88, 89, 90, 93, 95, 96, 99, 101, 103, 105, 106, 109, 110, 113, 114, 118, 131, 132, 133, 134, 139, 143, 174, 181, 190, 202, 204, 205, 206, 217. Smari, J. 88, 116. Speas, M. 16, 21, 59, 61, 186, 191, 196, 199. Sportiche, D. 142, 159. Sprouse, R. 29. Sprout, R. 57. Steele, S. 46. Sternefeld, W. 146. Stowell, T. 100, 186, 219. Sundman, M. 112. Taraldsen, K. T. 7, 10, 104, 125, 164, 183. Thompson, S. 79. Thrainsson, H. 78, 80, 81, 88, 89, 90, 96, 97, 110, 114, 115, 116, 117, 118, 145, 171, 186, 188, 201, 210, 215. Todd,L. 22. Tomaselli, A. 107. Torp, A. 88, 110.

Travis, L. 39,72. Trosterud, T. 25,88. Vainikka, A. 41, 187, 200. Valian, V. 55. Valin, R. van 186. Vance, B. 63. Vergnaud, J.-R. 28. Vikner, S. 10, 72, 78, 80, 81, 82, 100, 132, 133, 134, 146, 147, 150, 153, 154, 172, 186, 215, 219, 220. Visser, F. 66. Webelhuth, G. 150, 160, 212. Wechsler, S. 80,86. Weerman, F. 78,79,80. Wesson, E. 77, 116. Weyhe, E. 203,223. Yip, M. 113, 186, 200, 201.

Zaenen, A. 114, 186, 188, 201, 210, 215, 223. Zagona, K. 53. Zwart,J.-W. 46,72,78.


Index of Subjects A-chain (6.32) 157, 159, 167,169. Abstract Case 28. Accusative case 22,152,160,169, 170, 173, 174, 185, 186, 187, 188, 193, 197, 198, 199, 200, 206, 207, 215, 224. Accusative lexical Case, see Lexical Case. Accusative morphological case 31. Accusative structural Case [-nom] 30, 33-36, 113. Act(P) 20, 22, 32, 35, 49, 113, 119, 130, 134, 141, 142, 143, 145, 147, 151, 152, 157, 159, 160, 161, 162, 164, 166, 167, 168, 169, 182, 186, 190, 194, 197, 198, 200, 207, 214, 215, inherently [-nom] Act0 31, 33,36. Actor 21,22, 113. actors never have a lexical Case 37, 41. Adjective (AP, Adjective Phrase) 150, 151, 164, 175, 198, 200. Adverb(ial) 18, 148, 156, 157, 165, 180, 181, 182. Affix Hop 26 f. Agent 21,37. Agr 6, 14, 15, 18, 19, 20, 25, 27, 49, 72, 73, 74-75, 107, 107, 108, 111, 117, 120, 174, 175, 179, 180, 190, 223. empty I weak I lack of Agr 50, 53, 54, 61, 91, 142, 152, 174, 177. inherently nominative Agr 31, 32, 34, 36, 53, 58, 60, 76-77, 82, 83, 85,90,94,97,99-112, 112-115, 115-21, 122, 125-140, 223, 225. interaction with V2 76-98. nominal Agr 53, 54, 55, 65-68, 131, 224, 225. loss of Agr 77.

Agreement NP-internal 9. subject-verb 4, 6, 8, 9, 10, 12, 14, 20, 65, 66, 77, 142, 152, 174, 223,224, 225. object-verb 35,152. morphology 49, 152, 178. Allative (Finnish local case) 38. Analytic languages 8 f. Anaphor 147, 148, 158, 155, 159, 160, 191, 195, 210, 213. (See also Reflexive, Reciprocal) Antecedent Government (1.24) 25, 26, 47, 128, 129, 130, 132, 136, 137. Auxiliary 61, 62, 66, 93, 134, 143, 216. a> (Icelandic complementizer) 92,93, 109, 110, 119. a> (Icelandic infinitive marker) 29, 117. Barrier 26,47. Benefactive 12,185,189,193,201204. Bijection Principle (6.38) 159. Binding 88, 89, 90, 93, 106, 128, 147, 148, 195. Burzio's Generalization 22, 36. C-approach to V2, see under Verb second. Case 15, 21, 22, 28-41, 159, 168f., 193, 199, 223..(See also Abstract Case, Inherent Case, Lexical Case, m(orphological)-case; Accusative, Dative, Genitive, Nominative) Case agreement 36,46. Case assignment (1.29) (Lexical Case Checking) 29, 30, 38, 160, 169, 170, 171, 174, 198. Case assignment domain 37.

248


Case checking, lexical see Case assignment. Case checking, structural, see Case licensing. Case feature 30,31,36. Case Filter 28, 29, 30, 31, 39, 202. Case licensing (1.31) (Structural Case checking) 29, 32, 38, 157, 160, 161, 166, 169, 170, 171, 182, 186, 198, 213, 214. Case morphology 6, 8, 9, 10, 12, 14. Chain Condition 32, 157, 166. Checking 27,28. Clitic(ization) 153, 154, 155, 156, 162, 163, 165, 198. subject clitic 63, 64, 68. clitic climbing 154, 163. Complement (7.25) 195. Complementizer 19, 45, 46, 50, 73, 78,79,85,93, 108, 110, 146. Complementizer agreement 110. Complementizer deletion 110. Compositional thematic role 192. Connectedness 89. Coordination 99. CP-recursion (also called C-recursion) 79-86, 91. Cross over 146, 147, 150, 158, 159. Dative 29, 30, 31, 32, 39-40, 41, 106, 160, 169, 170, 172, 174, 186, 187, 188, 189, 193, 199, 200, 204, 207, 210, 224. Dative sickness 200,204. Definite article / suffux 7, 163, 164, 175, 176, 177. Definite nominative in VP 137-139. Definiteness effect 106,134,137139, 197. der (Danish, Norwegian) 44,104. det (Swedish) 51, 100, 101, 103, 104. Discourse 180.

do (English) 62, 66, 67, 68. null form of 62, 66, 67. DOC, see Double Object Construction. Domino Effect 97 f. Double Object (Double Object Construction, DOC) 6, 12, 20, 21, 172, 174,185-221. (See also Triadic verb) Asymmetries in DOC 191-194. Differences between MSc. and ISc. as regards DOC 188-190. ECM (Exceptional Case Marking; Acl, Object with infinitive) 33, 35, 88, 144, 146, 173. ECP (Empty Category Principle) (1.25) 26,27. Elative (Finnish local case) 38, 39-40, 41. Embedded clause 6, 8, 10,11, 19, 71, 73, 74, 75, 76-87, 88, 90, 91, 177, 178, 182, 199, 225. (See also Root phenomena in embedded clauses and Root-embedded asymmetries) EMC: Embedded clause with main clause word order, see Root phenomena in embedded clauses. Empty Category Principle see ECP. Empty object 105, 112, 154. Empty subject 6, 14, 44, 119-120. and Agr 49, 57, 58, 65, 67-68, 99112. empty expletive subject, see expletive pro. empty referential subject, see referential pro. non-referential empty subject, see non-referential pro. EPP (Extended Projection Principle; (1.22)) 23,24,50,51,57,62, 106, 120, 130, 136, 137. er (Dutch) 44.

249

Index of Subjects

Ergative verb (unaccusative) 22,33,

113, 138, 151, 193, 194, 197, 200. inherently unspecifiedfor [±nom] 34, 35. Ergative-absolutive languages 52. Exceptional Case Marking, see ECM. Existential construction 7, 54, 100, 104, 106, 125-140. Experiencer 20, 22, 37, 113, 150, 162, 173, 185, 194, 196, 198, 199, 200, 204, 205, 207, 208, 210,211,214. Expletive chain 106, 126, 128, 129, 197. Expletive complementizer 85. Expletive pro 11, 50, 100, 103, 107, 108, 109, 121, 122, 136, 223. Expletive subject 11, 44,49, 51, 100, 102, 103-104, 198. (see also der, det, er, il, there) Extended Projection Principle, see EPP. External argument 16, 21, 22, 24, 37,41, 128, 131-137. Extraction 96, 192-193, 195. Extraposition 11,100,104,121. [+F], Abstract finiteness feature 23, 25, 26, 32, 35, 101, 102, 107, 112, 158, 160, 161, 168, 169, 179, 197. located in 1° (non V2-languages) 34,36,43,44,47-51,51-68. located in C° (V2-languages) 34, 36, 43, 44, 47-51, 63-68, 71-76, 80, 83-85, 86, 91-93, 94. and nominative Case 44-51,63-65, 158. licensing conditions for, (2.2.) 44, 51,52,53, 114, 120, 127. Finite(ness) 22, 23, 43-69, 90-98. (See also [+F]). Finiteness chain 90-98. Floated quantifier 142.

Focus 59, 60, 61, 147, 150, 151, 157,206, 207, 208, 212, 213, 214, 217, 220.

Free Benefactive 201-204.

Free Inversion 54. Full Interpretation 85.

Genitive 8, 29, 174, 180, 187, 188, 193, 200. Goal 204,208,210,211,214. Government, see Antecedent Government, Head Government, Proper Head Government, Theta Government. Greed 27,28. Head Chain 92 f., 94, 127, 128, 137139, 167. Head Government (1.23) 25,26,47, 50, 128. Head Movement 25,28. Head Movement Constraint 154. Heavy NP Shift 209-215. I to V lowering, see Affix Hop. I-account to V2, see under Verb Second. Idiom 192. Idiosyncratic case 209. il(French) 51,54. Imperative 23, 99. Impersonal Modal Construction 101, 121. Impersonal passive 100, 104, 121, 134, 198, 219. Impersonal Present Participle Construction 101, 121. Incorporation 220. Indefinite 176, 177, 206. Indirect Object (IO) 114, 185,186, 191, 192, 193, 197, 198, 199, 200, 201, 203, 204, 205, 206, 207,208,209,210,211,212,

250


213,214,216,217,218,219, 220, 221. Infinitive 18, 19, 29, 30, 38, 88, 116, 117, 148, 149, 179, 143. Case-marked subject of 30. Infinitival I owithout Agr 35. Infinitive marker 29,117. Inflection 49 f. lexicalist model of, 39, 49, 163. Inherent Case 171, 172, 173, 176. Inversion Indirect-Direct Object nversion 201, 205-215, 216, 217, 218, 219. Subject-verb inversion 45, 114. 10, see Indirect Object. hanske (Swedish) 50. KP (Kase Phrase) 39-40,174,175, 176, 177. LDR: Long Distance Reflexives 6, 11,87-98,138. Norwegian dialect with LDR 88. Semantic approaches to LDR 89 f. Syntactic approacehs to LDR 89, 90-98. Lexical Case (see also Case assignment) 30f., 36-37, 114, 157, 160. not preserved under passivation in Faroese 38. Lexical governor 131. Lexicon 15 f., 21. Local case, see Allative, Elative Inherent case licensing of local cases in Finnish 38. Locative 171, fronted, with null subject 44,100. Long Distance Reflexive, see LDR. m-case (morphological case) 10, 14, 28,29,30,31,32,37-41, 125, 141-183, 185, 186, 187, 188, 189,

190, 199, 204, 207, 213, 218, 219, 223, 224, 225. Malefactive 185,199, 200. Minimalist Program 49. Mirror Principle 28,180. Mood 22, 23, 27, 88, 89, 96, 178.

Neg(P) 16 f., 20, 62. Negation 6, 16 f., 18, 20, 76, 141, 143, 144, 161, 165, 178, 219. Nominal categories, conditions of 30. Nominative Case [+nom] 30,31,4369, 106, 112, 113, 158, 160, 168, 173, 174, 193, 197, 200, 225. direct licensing of (2.5a, also 5.6a) 46 f., 120, 127. indirect licensing of (2.5b, also 5.6b) 46 f., 120, 127, 128, 129131. Nominative chain 128. Nominative in VP 6, 35, 125-140, 197. in Spec-VP 131-137. Nominative object, see Nominative in VP. Nominative-accusative languages 52, Non-referential pro (see also Expletive pro and Quasi-referential pro) 101, 102. Null expletive , see Expletive pro. Null object, see Empty object. Null subject, see Empty subject. Number agreement 77. Object Shift 6, 12, 141-183, 213, 218,219,221. and Case 160-177. and m-case 168-177. in embedded clauses 143. in PRO-infinitivals 143. not A-bar movement 145-147. not standard A-movement 147150. not a PF rule 150-151.

251

Index of Subjects

not movement to Spec-AgroP 152153. not cliticization 153-156. Long Object Shift 156-157, 162. Short Object Shift 164-165, 167, 168. Oblique case [±nom] 31, 36, 169, 174. Oblique subject 11, 32, 38,102,105, 112-115, 119, 121, 122, 133, 137, 193. subject tests of 114. and A-movement properties 146150. Operator 157, 158, 166, 212. Optionally Ergative Construction 101, 121. Orthography 8. OV, see SOV. Parasitic gap 146, 150, 158, 212. Particle 203. Partitive 106, 134. Pass(P) 20, 22, 35, 141, 145, 198, 215,216,218. Passive 7, 22, 28, 29, 33, 38, 101, 113, 134, 148, 149, 173, 174, 189, 190, 193, 197, 198, 200, 201, 215-221. inherently unspecified for [±nom] 34. Past participle 116,126,131,134. Point of view 90, 95. Possessive (Possessor) 148, 164, 174. Predicate 23 f., 33-37, 128. Predicate linking 23 f.. Predication (Predication condition (1.20)) 24, 180. Predicative 19, 23 f., 225. Preposition (P, PP) 8, 31, 32, 161, 165, 166, 185,196, 197, 199, 200, 204, 214, 216, 219, 223. Inherent case licensing ofPP 31.

Invisible (empty) preposition 186, 219-221. Present participle 101. PRO 18. pro 50, 51, 54, 55, 67-68, 102, 104112, 117, 119, 121, 136, 154, 166. identifying of pro (4.22b) 104, 107-111. licensing of pro (4.22a) 104, 105107, 111, 166. See also Expletive pro, Quasi pro, Referential pro. Procrastinate 27,28,49. Projection Principle 15. Pronoun, see Reflexive, Strong pronoun, Weak pronoun. Proper Head Government (1.26) 26, 27, 51, 134 f., 137, 161. Pseudo-passive 220-221,223,224. Quasi argument 100, 107. Quasi pro 107,108,109,112,121, 122. Quirky subject, see Oblique subject. R-expression 106, 128. Raising to object 145. See also

ECM.

Reanalysis 221. Recipient 185. Reciprocal 148, 149, 160. Referential pro 99, 107, 108, 109, 110, 111,. Reflexive 87-98, 148, 149, 202, 203, 211,212. Relativized Minimality (6.39) 25, 47, 50,65,81, 82, 147, 151, 155, 159,213,215,216,219. Remnant verb second 62. Root phenomena in embedded clauses 77-87. interpretation ofEMCs 79, 80,

252


83, 85 f., 95, 96. (See also CP-recursion). Root-subordinate asymmetry in V2 languages 45 f., 50, 71, 73, 78.

Scope 191, 195. Scrambling 150, 160, 180, 181, 212, 213. Sentence adverbial 6,10,16,49, 61, 76, 177. (See also Adverb(ial)). SOV 45 f., 73, 74, 76, 78. Spec-VP 128, 131-137. Strong pronoun 164, 175. Structural Case checking, see Case licensing. Stylistic Fronting 3 f., 6, 11, 80, 102, 115-121, 122, 137, 143. Accessibility hierarchy for 116, 118. as head adjunction to I 117-121. of maximal phrases 115. Subject gap condition of 119-120. Stylistic Fronting vs. Topicalization (4.30) 116. Subordinate clause, see Embedded clause. SVO 46,56,63,73,75,76. Synthetic languages 8. T(ense) 7, 18, 22, 23, 25, 27, 28, 4950, 89, 94, 178, 179, 180. ta> (Faroese) 103. Thematic grid 15, Thematic role hierarchy 196,208. Thematic roles 16, 192. Theme 20, 37, 113, 185, 195,200, 207, 210. there (English) 44. Theta Government 26. To-construction 185, 190, 194, 199, 201, 204-205, 207, 208, 210, 213, 214, 219. (See also Triadic verb).

Topic Drop 99, 109, 110. Topicalization 7, 15, 44, 61, 63, 64, 65,80,81,95, 109, 114, 115, 116, 117, 146, 147, 150, 151, 223, 224. Topicalization vs. Stylistic Fronting (4.30) 116. Triadic verb (DOC and the Toconstruction) 185, 198, 199, 200, 201, 202, 204, 216, 220. (See also Double Object). fla> (Icelandic) 81,100,103. Unergative verb 21,22,23,200. V-to-COMP-analysis of V2, see Capproach to V2 under Verb Second. Verb movement / raising 18,19, to I 4, 5, 25, 26, 27, 49, 50, 5261, 63-68, 74-76, 78, 92, 117-118, 143, 147, 161, 165, 167, 173, 174, 177, 178, 224. to Act 20, 34, 143, 147, 190, 194, 198, 214. to Agr 49. to C. 6, 45, 50, 63-68, 72, 73-76, 78,92,143. (See also C-approach to V2 under Verb Second), to Pass 198,215,218. to T 50. Verb second 5,17,25,44-45,47-51, 71-87, 102, 107, 109, 224. C-account ofV2 (V-to-COMPanalysis) 72-76, 78, 79, 81. I-accountofV2 78,79,81,117, loss of V2 63-68. Verb second parameter (2.1) 44,47, 52, 63, 71, 72, 73. Verbal cluster 76. Verbal inflection 10. VOS 59. VP Fronting 223,224. VSO 46, 57, 59.

Index of Subjects

Weak pronoun 154, 155, 156, 161, 162, 163, 168, 171, 175, 198, 213, 225. Weather-verbs 100, 104. Wh 7, 15, 25, 27, 45, 81, 82, 109, 115, 120, 137, 157.

253

Word Order 6, 10, 13 f., 18, 44,45, 47, 50, 77, 134, 157, 161, 178, 180, 181, 182, 201, 203, 205-215, 217, 218, 219, 224, 225. (See also VO, SVO, VSO, 0V, SOV, root-subordinate asymmetry).

The Role of Inflection in Scandinavian Syntax

The Syntax of French (Cambridge Syntax Guides)

The Syntax of Spanish (Cambridge Syntax Guides)

The Syntax of Hungarian (Cambridge Syntax Guides)

The Syntax of German (Cambridge Syntax Guides)

The Syntax of Icelandic (Cambridge Syntax Guides)

The Syntax of Hungarian (Cambridge Syntax Guides)

The Syntax of Anaphora (Oxford Studies in Comparative Syntax)

The Syntax of Chinese (Cambridge Syntax Guides)

The Syntax of Spanish (Cambridge Syntax Guides)

The Syntax of Arabic (Cambridge Syntax Guides)

The Syntax of Chichewa (Cambridge Syntax Guides)

The Syntax of Anaphora (Oxford Studies in Comparative Syntax)

The Syntax of Anaphora (Oxford Studies in Comparative Syntax)

The Syntax of French

Play the Scandinavian

The Scandinavian Defense

The Scandinavian, 2nd

The Syntax of Spanish

The Syntax of Welsh

Scandinavian Cooking

Proceedings of the Third Scandinavian Logic Symposium

Scandinavian tales

Scandinavian Cooking

Explorations In Nominal Inflection (Interface Explorations)

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