Verb First
Linguistik Aktuell/Linguistics Today Linguistik Aktuell/Linguistics Today (LA) provides a platform for original monograph studies into synchronic and diachronic linguistics. Studies in LA confront empirical and theoretical problems as these are currently discussed in syntax, semantics, morphology, phonology, and systematic pragmatics with the aim to establish robust empirical generalizations within a universalistic perspective.
Series Editors Werner Abraham
Elly van Gelderen
University of Vienna
Arizona State University
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Ian Roberts
University of Venice
Cambridge University
Günther Grewendorf
Ken Safir
J.W. Goethe-University, Frankfurt
Rutgers University, New Brunswick NJ
Liliane Haegeman
Lisa deMena Travis
University of Lille, France
McGill University
Hubert Haider
Sten Vikner
University of Salzburg
University of Aarhus
Christer Platzack
C. Jan-Wouter Zwart
University of Lund
University of Groningen
Volume 73 Verb First: On the syntax of verb initial languages Edited by Andrew Carnie, Heidi Harley and Sheila Ann Dooley
Verb First On the syntax of verb initial languages
Edited by
Andrew Carnie Heidi Harley Sheila Ann Dooley The University of Arizona
John Benjamins Publishing Company Amsterdam/Philadelphia
8
TM
The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information Sciences – Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ansi z39.48-1984.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Verb First : On the syntax of verb initial languages / edited by Andrew Carnie, Heidi Harley and Sheila Ann Dooley. p. cm. (Linguistik Aktuell/Linguistics Today, issn 0166–0829 ; v. 73) Includes bibliographical references and indexes. 1. Grammar, Comparative and general -- Word order. 2. Grammar, Comparative and general -- Verb. 3. Grammar, Comparative and general -- Syntax. I. Carnie, Andrew, 1969- . II. Dooley, Sheila Ann. III. Harley, Heidi. IV. Linguistik aktuell ; Bd. 73. P295.V47 2005 415--dc22 isbn 90 272 2797 7 (Eur.) / 1 58811 610 7 (US) (Hb; alk. paper)
2004062250
© 2005 – John Benjamins B.V. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form, by print, photoprint, microfilm, or any other means, without written permission from the publisher. John Benjamins Publishing Co. · P.O. Box 36224 · 1020 me Amsterdam · The Netherlands John Benjamins North America · P.O. Box 27519 · Philadelphia pa 19118-0519 · usa
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Table of contents
Contributors
vii
Acknowledgements
ix
Abbreviations
xi
Introduction: When verbs come first Andrew Carnie, Heidi Harley, and Sheila Dooley
1
I. VP movement vs. head-movement What fronts? On the VP-raising account of verb-initial order Sandra Chung
9
Coordination and constituency in St’át’imcets (Lillooet Salish) Henry Davis
31
Two derivations of VSO: A comparative study of Niuean and Tongan Yuko Otsuka
65
Force first: Clause-fronting and clause typing in San Lucas Quiaviní Zapotec Felicia Lee
91
V1 and wh-questions: A typology Kenji Oda
107
Preverbal particles in verb-initial languages Dirk Bury
135
A note on predicates and heads in Irish clausal syntax James McCloskey
155
Seediq: Antisymmetry and final particles in a Formosan VOS language Arthur Holmer
175
VP-internal structure in a VOS language Lisa deMena Travis
203
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Table of contents
II. Categories, information structure, and prosodic factors Lexical categories, lack of inflection, and predicate fronting in Niuean Diane Massam
227
Word order without syntactic categories: How Riau Indonesian does it David Gil
243
Nominal properties of vPs in Breton: A hypothesis for the typology of VSO languages Mélanie Jouitteau
265
On the parallelism of DPs and clauses: Evidence from Kisongo Maasai Hilda Koopman
281
Ordering clitics and postverbal R-expressions in Tagalog: A unified analysis? Loren A. Billings
303
The syntax of Chalcatongo Mixtec: Preverbal and postverbal Monica Macaulay
341
Accounting for verb-initial order in an Australian language Mary Laughren, Rob Pensalfini, and Tom Mylne
367
References
403
Index
427
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Contributors
Loren Billings Department of Foreign Languages and Literature National Chi Nan University Puli, Nantou County, Taiwan 545
[email protected] David Gil Department of Linguistics Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Inselstrasse 22 D-04103 Leipzig, Germany
[email protected] Dirk Bury Department of Phonetics and Linguistics University College London Gower Street London WC1E 6BT, UK
[email protected] Arthur Holmer Helgonabacken 12 SE-223 62 Lund, Sweden
[email protected] Andrew Carnie, Heidi Harley, Sheila Dooley Department of Linguistics Douglas 200E University of Arizona Tucson AZ 85721, USA
[email protected] [email protected] [email protected] Sandra Chung Department of Linguistics University of California Santa Cruz 1156 High Street Santa Cruz, CA 95064-1077, USA
[email protected] Henry Davis 1866 Main Mall, Buchanan E265 University of British Columbia Vancouver, British Columbia Canada V6T 1Z1
[email protected] Mélanie Jouitteau Université de Nantes 5, rue de Saintonge 44 000 Nantes, France
[email protected] Hilda Koopman UCLA Linguistics Dept. 3125 Campbell Hall Los Angeles CA 90095-1543, USA
[email protected] Mary Laughren, Robert Pensalfini, Tom Mylne School of English, Media Studies and Art History The University of Queensland Brisbane, Australia 4072
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Contributors
Felicia Lee 1555 Mesa Verde Drive E., Apt. 5A Costa Mesa, CA 92626, USA
[email protected] Monica Macaulay Department of Linguistics University of Wisconsin 1168 Van Hise Hall 1220 Linden Drive Madison, WI 53706-1557, USA
[email protected] Diane Massam Department of Linguistics University of Toronto 130 St. George Street, room 6076 Toronto, Ont. M5S 3H1, Canada
[email protected] James McCloskey Department of Linguistics University of California Santa Cruz
1156 High Street Santa Cruz, CA 95064-1077, USA
[email protected] Kenji Oda Department of Linguistics University of Toronto 130 St. George Street, room 6076 Toronto, Ont. M5S 3H1, Canada
[email protected] Yuko Otsuka 569 Moore Hall 1890 East-West Road Honolulu, HI 96822, USA
[email protected] Lisa deMena Travis McGill University Department of Linguistics 1085, Dr. Penfield Montréal, Québec, H3A 1A7, Canada
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Acknowledgements
This book came about due to the hard work of many people. Elly van Gelderen, Werner Abraham and Kees Vaes from John Benjamins have been extremely supportive and patient in bringing this text to print and offered us invaluable advice and comments. Steve Jensen was very helpful with the references to this volume. Sherrylyn Branchaw compiled the index. The editors would particularly like to thank the following people who graciously agreed to review the papers from this volume: David Adger, Mark Baker, Luis Barragan, Susanna Bejar, Robert Chametzky, Peter Cole, Chris Collins, Sandy Chung, Henry Davis, Ferdinand de Haan, Mark Donohue, Eithne Guilfoyle, Paul Hagstrom, Heidi Harley, Randy Hendrick, Arthur Holmer, Eloise Jelinek, Alana Johns, Simin Karimi, Hilda Koopman, Terry Langendoen, Felicia Lee, Julie Legate, Monica Macaulay, Diane Massam, Jim McCloskey, Yuko Otsuka, Andrea Rackowski, Elizabeth Ritter, and Andrea Zukowski. The workshop that these papers were presented at was funded by the National Science Foundation,1 the Department of Linguistics, and the College of Social and Behavioral Sciences at the University of Arizona. Jianyuan Wang was a fantastic student coordinator without whom we never could have brought the workshop to fruition. Other students at the University of Arizona graciously donated their time working the registration table, helping speakers, and hosting student visitors. These included: William Alexander, Luis Barragan, Lynnika Butler, Lika Chtareva, Erin Good, Charles Lin, Peter Norquest, Naomi Ogasawara, Kazutoshi Ohno, Meg O’Donnell, Emily Kidder, Dan Siddiqi, Azita Taleghani, Alina Twist, and Ben Tucker. The staff at the University of Arizona were invaluable in helping to arrange the conference, especially Yolanda Becerra, Rosemary Emery, and Gwen Weber. A number of our faculty colleagues also assisted in the organization and implementation of the conference: Andy Barss, Ferdinand de Haan, Mike Hammond, Eloise Jelinek, Simin Karimi, Terry Langendoen, Janet Nicol, and Elizabeth Winkler. We hope we haven’t missed anyone, but if we have, you know who you are and you are greatly appreciated too.
Note . Grant number BCS: 0131761.
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Introduction When verbs come first Andrew Carnie, Heidi Harley, and Sheila Dooley University of Arizona
Carnie and Guilfoyle (2000a) pose the following conundrum: Languages that put their verbs first in the sentence – that is languages with Verb-Subject-Object (VSO) and Verb-Object-Subject (VOS) orders – seem, at least on the surface, to have a number of typological similarities in common. This is counterbalanced by the fact, however, that these languages come from widely separated geographic areas and genetic stocks.1 A common, although of course not universal, assumption in generative approaches to syntax is that VSO and VOS orders are derived from some different underlying order. In the case of VSO languages, this assumption has been driven by the apparent lack of a surface VP constituent in tensed clauses, but the appearance of such a structure in other contexts (McCloskey 1983, 1991 and many others). In the case of VOS order, the debate has been most recently driven by the controversial claims of Kayne (1994) that the universal underlying order is SVO and the literature on VP- and VP-remnant movement that has grown up around this assumption (see Koopman & Szabolci 2000 as a typical example). There is a wide range of analyses that have been proposed for the derivation of V-initial order. For VSO order, these range from head-movement of the V to some functional projection higher than the subject (i.e. T or C) (as first suggested in Emonds 1980); lowering of the subject into the VP (Chung 1990; Choe 1987); leftward movement of the object from an underlying VOS ordering (England 1991);2 and most recently, the leftward movement of a VP remnant into the specifier of some position higher than the subject and object (Massam 2000a; Lee 2000a). The last of these is of particular interest because it dovetails with recent work on VOS languages, where it has been shown that there is evidence for VP movement (Rackowski & Travis 2000). The obvious question emerges then as to whether there is actually a universal means by
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which languages become verb-initial, or if the surface similarities in word orders are merely a coincidence. Carnie and Guilfoyle (2000a) challenge researchers working on these languages to determine whether, if a universal derivation of verb initial order can be justified, this order has any explanatory power in accounting for the apparent typological properties that seem pervasive in these languages. There are really two parts to this challenge: (1) Are there really any typological properties that all these languages have in common and (2) is there a universal derivation of verb initial order (or at least a universal derivation of VSO and a universal derivation of VOS)? It was in the face of this challenge that the current editors organized a US National Science Foundation3 -sponsored workshop on the syntax of V-initial languages, which was held in Tucson, Arizona, February 21–23, 2003. We invited 17 speakers who worked on a wide variety of verb-initial languages from a wide variety of theoretical perspectives. Sixteen of these papers are presented here.4 It appears that the answer to both the questions above is, at least tentatively, no. Among the similarities that Carnie and Guilfoyle (2000a) discuss are a lack of the verb have, be-less copular constructions, initial particles, and a “nominal” character to verbal constructions. The papers in this volume, however, show these are not universal properties of V-initial languages (see for example, the extensive discussion in Macaulay’s contribution about the structure of Chalcatongo Mixtec). Similarly, there is no agreement over the derivation of V-initial order. For example, a number of papers in this volume take opposing views on the relative merits of VP-remnant movement vs. head-movement analyses. Take the case of the Celtic languages: using data from clause typing and the structure of wh-constructions, Oda argues that VP-remnant movement is appropriate for Irish. By contrast, in looking at particles, Bury’s paper argues that head-movement is the correct approach for these languages. Jouitteau adopts a head-movement analysis on the basis of parallels between CP and NP constructions in Breton. McCloskey’s paper looks at both copular constructions and verbal constructions, and argues that the predicate-initial character of Irish isn’t uniform even within the language, with some constructions being underlyingly predicate initial, and others being derived through head-movement. Even though the results of the two driving questions of the workshop turned out to be negatives, a number of interesting patterns, themes and results emerged from the papers and the discussion that followed the workshop. One important topic that came out in the discussion was the role of methodology and data sets in determining how V-initial order is derived. It seems likely that the kinds of data one looks at affect which analysis is adopted. Those analyses that focus on nominal predicates, particles, and incorporated forms tend to argue for VP(-remnant) movement (although see Otsuka’s paper for an exception); those that focus on adverbial positioning, ellipsis and adverbial effects tend to argue for
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Introduction
V-movement (but again, see Travis’s paper for an exception to this generalization); finally those that focus on coordination tend to give a subject lowering analysis. Davis’s paper in this volume, in addition to its empirical and theoretical contributions, discusses this methodological point in some depth. Using the Salish language St’át’imcets as a testing ground, he examines VP constituency from the perspective of the different kinds of tests that have been applied in V-initial languages. Chung’s contribution also bears on this issue. She considers the question of what kinds of evidence are required to distinguish VP-raising from V-raising and notes that a VPraising account seems to be relatively well motivated for languages such as Seediq and Malagasy, but much less so for a language like Chamorro. Continuing the debate over the derivation of V-initial order, Otsuka uses evidence from both noun-incorporation and non-verbal predicates and their interaction with pronominal clitics and scrambling to argue that VP-raising is appropriate for Niuean, but not for the closely related language of Tongan. As mentioned above, McCloskey also argues that predicate-initial order may well have more than one source, even within one language. Travis’s paper uses evidence from ellipsis phenomena to show that VP fronting is the best analysis for VOS order in Malagasy. Also dealing with a VOS language, Holmer argues that certain sentence-final particles are evidence for VP-remnant movement. Lee’s paper also concerns final clausetyping particles; she argues that these are evidence for VP-remnant movement in the VSO language Quiavaní Zapotec. Oda’s paper also focuses on clause-typing; he argues that wh-constructions in Irish are predicate initial pseudo-clefts5 that are most consistent with a VP-remnant fronting approach. Bury’s paper takes the exact opposite position. He claims, using a set theoretic system for describing phrase structure, that any language that derives its V-initiality through head movement will necessarily have preverbal particles, needed in order to disambiguate the constituent tree. On such an account, a V-initial language with preverbal particles must use head-movement. On a different track, a number of the papers argue that syntax-external pressures may drive V-initiality. Laughren et al. argue that focus and information structure is a driving force in word order derivation in Wanyi, a V-initial language from Australia. Macaulay’s contribution also looks extensively at the role of information structure in VSO order. She argues that V-initial order is due to head movement of the verb to the Focus head. Gil’s paper operates in a very different framework but comes to similar conclusions; predicate initiality is due to the interaction of head-initiality and information structure. Billings argues that a complex set of factors including phonological weight, a subject-final tendency, and the voice system determine the order of post-verbal constituents in Tagalog. One recurring theme in the papers in this volume was the role of part of speech category and the apparent nominality or acategoriality of many V-initial languages. There are two major versions of this category-argument. First we have
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the observation that many V-initial languages aren’t just verb-initial, but are more properly predicate-initial. Copular clauses without verbal be-like elements often place the non-verbal predicate first in the clause. Second, we have the apparent parallels between the structure of clauses and DPs. As Ritter (1988) first noticed, predicate-initial languages also often have DP-internal orderings that appear to follow principles similar to those ordering full clauses. The former idea is explored in depth for Niuean by Massam’s paper. She argues that the predicate-initial character of the language is a direct consequence of the lack of verbal categories in the language. Gil’s paper takes a similar approach, but from the perspective of functional linguistics. The importance of nominal and other non-verbal predicates for determining word order is also highlighted in the papers by Oda, Otsuka, and McCloskey. The latter observation (that there are parallels between DP and clausal constructions) are highlighted in two of the papers in this volume. Koopman argues that all DPs in Maasai are really [DP CP] complexes. In both clausal and nominal constructions, she argues for massive leftwards remnant movement triggered by Force, Focus, Case and other features. Jouitteau also looks at the parallels between CPs and DPs, but argues that they are due to the fact that Breton clauses, and not those of languages like English, have a [+D] feature on the little v category. While the present state of understanding seems to show that there are many derivational sources of V-initial order, contra the hypothesis that motivated this volume, we are proud to present these papers as the next step in investigating the syntaxes of these interesting and complex languages. Comparative work such as this informs us as to the kinds of questions we should ask about standard analyses of more studied languages and thus provides an important impetus to refining our understanding of our capacity for human language.
Notes . For example Verb Initial languages are found in Austronesian, Polynesian, Semitic, Celtic, Romance, Mayan, Nilo-saharan, Zapotecan, Chinantecan, Mixtecan, Salish, Wakashan genetic stocks to name just a few. The papers in this book cover mainly Celtic, Polynesian, Salishan, Austronesian, Nilosaharan, Mixtecan, and a language from Australia (Wanyi). The geographical and language family omissions from this book are entirely accidental. . England’s analysis was actually about diachronic evolution rather than synchronic derivation. However, it is included here under the assumption that diachronic and synchronic processes are presumably linked to one another. . National Science Foundation award number BCS-0131761.
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Introduction . The paper presented by Aoun and Li appears as part of their book Essays on the Representational and Derivational Nature of Grammar: The Diversity of wh-Constructions (2003), Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. . Interestingly, Koopman’s paper makes a nearly identical claim for Maasai, and similarly argues for VP-remnant fronting.
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P I
VP movement vs. head-movement
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What fronts? On the VP-raising account of verb-initial order* Sandra Chung University of California, Santa Cruz
Kayne’s (1994) theory of antisymmetry has inspired a range of analyses in which verb-initial order is derived from a core SVO clause structure when VP raises, intact or as a remnant, to satisfy the Extended Projection Principle. Such analyses lead to the larger theoretical question of whether VP-raising is invariably involved in the derivation of verb-initial order. This paper considers the sorts of empirical evidence that might be brought to bear on this question, focusing on Austronesian and Mayan languages whose pragmatically neutral clauses are VOS.
.
Introduction
My aim here is to pose a question and then contemplate what sorts of evidence would have to be assembled for it to be answered. The question – revealed already in the title – is whether the word order of clauses in which the verb (V) surfaces at the left, preceding its complement (O) and the subject (S), is invariably a consequence of VP raising. This question emerges from a strand of thinking that originates with Kayne (1994). In Kayne’s theory of antisymmetry, linear order is determined rigidly by hierarchical relations: the (original) order of elements within a maximal projection is invariably Specifier Head Complement, and the order of clauses, which are projected from Tense (T) or equivalent, always has the subject preceding the predicate phrase or VP. Clauses in which the verb surfaces to the left of the subject must therefore be derived by movement. Kayne’s leading idea has been fleshed out by Diane Massam and others in some tantalizing proposals for the clause structure of verb-initial languages – languages whose pragmatically neutral clauses are VOS or VSO. These proposals take VOS order to be derived from a core SVO clause structure by raising of VP (Massam 2000a, 2001b; Lee 2000a; Rackowski & Travis 2000) or of some maximal projection
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dominating VP (Pearson 2001; Aldridge 2002). The landing site for VP raising is held to be the specifier of T, or some specifier located even higher in the functional layer of the clause (but see Carnie 1995 for a different view).1 VSO order is derived similarly, by raising of a remnant VP – a VP from which everything but V has previously been extracted (Massam 2000, 2001a, b; Lee 2000a; Rackowski & Travis 2000). See the schematic derivations in (1). (1) a.
TP T’ vP
T DP
v’ v
VP V’ V
b.
DP
TP T’ vP
T DP
v’ v
VP V’ V
DP
What is the motivation for VP raising? Within the minimalist framework developed by Chomsky (1995), the answer must be the need to check some strong feature. That, plus the properties of the landing site usually assumed for VP raising – the specifier of TP – has led Massam and others to hypothesize that VP raises to satisfy some version of the EPP. Originally formulated as the principle that clauses must have subjects (Chomsky 1982: 10), the EPP is recast in minimalist terms as the demand that T’s [D] feature must be checked (by raising of DP to T’s specifier; see Chomsky 1995: 232).2 The principle is invoked in just this form
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by Alexiadou and Anagnostopoulou (1998) (A&A) to derive the VSO order of languages, such as Irish and Greek, in which V is overtly inflected for agreement. A&A propose that in such languages, V raises to T so that the nominal feature of V’s agreement morphology can check T’s [D] feature. From this proposal it is not that far to the hypothesis that the VP raising that is claimed to be responsible for verbinitial order is also a response to the EPP. On this view, verb-initial languages differ from subject-initial languages in precisely which of T’s features must be checked for the EPP to be satisfied. In subject-initial languages, the hypothesis goes, the EPP demands that T’s [D] feature be checked. In verb-initial languages, it demands the checking of a feature of T variously identified as [V] (Davies & Dubinsky 2001b), [Pred] (Massam 2000a, 2001a, b; Aldridge 2002), or [T] (Massam & Smallwood 1997; Pearson 2001). Such a hypothesis is clearly part of the larger effort, going back at least to Emonds (1976, 1980), to reduce exotic word orders to familiar constituent structures, acted on by familiar movements in accordance with familiar principles. What makes the current hypothesis special is its attempt to give a unified account of verb-initial order that encompasses both VOS and VSO. Much of the verb-initial research that has explored this strand of thinking has been content to maintain that there are languages for which VP raising gives a superior account of verb-initial order (see the references just cited). But lurking in the background is a much stronger claim, namely, that the VP raising account of verbinitial order is not only possible but necessary.3 If so, every language with verbinitial order in pragmatically neutral clauses would have such clauses derived from a core SVO structure when VP raises, intact or as a remnant, to satisfy the EPP. Is the much stronger claim tenable? In what follows, I try to get at this question by asking what linguistic patterns are expected if the stronger claim is correct, and to what extent these expectations are borne out. My evidence will be drawn from languages whose pragmatically neutral clauses have VOS order (see Chung forthcoming), either alternating with VSO (e.g., Chamorro, M¯aori) or as the only option (e.g., Malagasy, Seediq, Tzotzil). (I will therefore be ignoring languages, such as Irish (see McCloskey this volume), whose pragmatically neutral clauses are exclusively VSO.) Because much of the crucial evidence from languages of these types remains to be collected, my discussion will be speculative rather than conclusive. Still, a therapeutic point will emerge: the issue of whether all verb-initial order is derived via VP raising, in response to the EPP, is one on which empirical evidence can, and should, be brought to bear. Section 2 presents some evidence that in VOS clauses, the verb and its complement form a surface constituent. Section 3 investigates the extent to which this clause-initial VP has the profile of a phrase that has undergone movement. Section 4 examines the claim that VSO clauses are produced by movement of a remnant
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VP. Finally, Section 5 explores the idea that when VP raises, either intact or as a remnant, it does so to satisfy some version of the EPP.
. Evidence for a clause-initial VP In principle, Kayne’s theory of antisymmetry offers two routes by which an SVO clause structure could surface with VOS order: the entire VP might move leftward, or V and its complement might raise separately past the subject (Kayne 1994: 47). Some evidence that favors the first route is supplied by VP coordination. In many languages with VOS clauses, it is possible for the predicative material preceding the subject – the material that normally consists of the verb plus its complement – to be coordinated (see Keenan 1978a: 319–321). If one makes the traditional assumption that coordination is limited to constituents, such a pattern could be produced only if the material preceding the subject forms a constituent – presumably, VP. Particularly clear evidence of VP coordination can be found in Malagasy, an Austronesian language with fixed VOS order (see, e.g., Keenan 1976b, 1978a; Paul 2000; Pearson 1996, 2001; Rackowski & Travis 2000). Consider the examples in (2), in which the material preceding the subject is a coordinate structure, each of whose (bracketed) conjuncts consists of a verb plus its complement. The conjuncts are separated by the conjunction sy ‘and’, which is used elsewhere to conjoin constituents smaller than clauses. If the constituents being coordinated here are VPs, this is what we expect. Malagasy [Misotro toaka] sy [mihinam-bary] Rabe. drink alcohol and eat-rice Rabe “Rabe is drinking alcohol and eating rice.” (Keenan 1978a: 320) b. [Henon-dRabe] sy [najeren-dRakoto] ny mpihira gasy. heard.tt-Rabe and watched.tt-Rakoto art folk singer “The folk singer was heard by Rabe and watched by Rakoto.” (Pearson 1996)
(2) a.
Similar coordination patterns are found in Seediq, another Austronesian language with fixed VOS order (Aldridge 2002), and Chamorro, an Austronesian language in which VSO alternates with VOS (Chung 1998). See also Davis (this volume) for an enlightening discussion of coordination in St’at’imcets (Lilooet Salish). Even when VP coordination is, for whatever reason, not allowed, it is sometimes possible for other types of predicates preceding the subject to be coordinated. For instance, in M¯aori, a Polynesian language in which VSO alternates with VOS, the predicate can be of any major category type. (M¯aori word order is, therefore, better described as XSO alternating with XOS; see Bauer 1993, 1997 as well as
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Massam this volume). Coordinate VPs are rare or nonexistent in M¯aori. But coordinate nonverbal predicate phrases occur freely. In the examples in (3), taken from an English-M¯aori dictionary, the predicative material preceding the subject consists of conjoined phrases that are at least as large as PP (3a) or DP (3b). (In these examples, the relevant dictionary entry is cited in boldface.) (3) a.
[Kai roto], [kai waho] r¯anei te t¯ake hokohoko i tam.at inside tam.at outside q the tax trade in M¯aori t¯enei kaute? this account “Is this account G.S.T. inclusive or exclusive?” (Ngata 1994: 137) b. [He mahi roa], [he mahi manawanui] te whakapiata pred.a work long pred.a work patient the shine pounamu. greenstone “Working with greenstone is a long and patient enterprise.” (Ngata 1994: 346; entry for “polish”)
Of course, the evidence just cited leaves open the possibility that there might also be VOS clauses in which the verb and its complement do not form a surface constituent. To speed the rest of the discussion, I simply assume that this is never the case: instead, in every pragmatically neutral VOS clause, the verb and its complement form a surface VP. From Kayne’s perspective, this would mean that VOS clauses would always be derived by raising of VP or equivalent, where by “equivalent” I mean a predicate XP or some even more inclusive constituent.4 Let me now ask what evidence can be brought to bear on the claim that this constituent has reached its surface position via movement.
. The clause-initial VP as moved constituent Although different generative syntactic theories give different accounts of movement and its motivation, almost all such theories agree that moved constituents have the following profile. First, both phrases and heads can move. But whereas phrasal movement can cross clause boundaries, head movement evidently cannot (see Baker 1996: 453–454).5 Consider the English examples in (4), which are intended to illustrate the ability of moved phrases – subject DPs in (4a) and moved wh-phrases in (4b) – to surface a potentially unlimited number of clauses from their origin site. (4) a. Jill seems [ __ to be unlikely [ __ to complain]]. b. What [do they think [ __ that you believe [ __ that they saw __ ]]]?
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Second, moved constituents are islands to extraction (the Freezing Principle of Culicover & Wexler 1977: 17). In the language of Principles and Parameters theory, if the only legal destinations of phrasal movement are specifiers or adjoined positions (see Chomsky 1986), then moved phrases are islands. If heads have only words as their content, then – whether moved or not – they are ‘anaphoric islands’ in the sense of Postal (1969). (See also Carnie 1995 on the claim that elements that have undergone head movement are islands.) Consider the ungrammatical examples in (5), which illustrate the islandhood of English DPs that been moved leftward by passive (5a) and Italian VPs that have undergone VP preposing (5b). (5) a. *Whoi do you think that [many rumors about __i]j were spread __j by Kate? b. ?*Quali melei credi che [mangiato __i]j Mario non abbia __j ? (Which apples do you think that [eaten __ ] Mario has not?) (Longobardi 1985: 172) Now if the clause-initial VPs of VOS clauses are moved constituents, they should conform to this profile: they should be able to raise across clause boundaries, but should themselves be islands. The rest of this section investigates the extent to which these expectations are realized.
. VP raising across an apparent distance Can the VP of a VOS clause raise across clause boundaries? Evidence from at least one verb-initial language, Chamorro, indicates that it cannot. To see this, consider the Chamorro complex sentences in (6), which contain an infinitive VP (6a) or a finite embedded clause (6b). (6) a.
Ti ha-na’siña [bumaila] si Jose. not agr-make.possible infin.dance Jose “Jose didn’t manage to dance.” b. Malägu’ si Carmen [pära un-fattu gi gipot-ña]. agr.want Carmen fut agr-arrive at party-agr “Carmen wants that you come to her party.”
Chamorro
In a VP raising analysis, these sentences would at some point in the derivation have a structure in which the embedded VP has raised to the specifier of the embedded T, as shown in the schematic tree in (7). (Subsequently, (6a) would be produced by raising the entire matrix VP, including the infinitive complement, to the specifier of the matrix T; (6b) would be produced by first extracting the CP complement from the matrix VP and then raising the VP remnant.)
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(7)
TP m
T’ vP
T DP
v’ v
VPk V’ V
TP VPi
T’ T
vP v’ v
ti
The question is whether the embedded VP in (7) can raise further, to the specifier of the matrix T – the position represented by the circle. In fact, further raising of this sort is systematically disallowed. Compare (6) with the examples in (8), in which an attempt has been made to move the embedded VP (8a) or some more inclusive constituent (8b) to the specifier of the matrix T. The results are severely ungrammatical.6 Chamorro (8) a. *[Bumaila]i si Jose ti ha-na’siña __i. infin.dance Jose not agr-make.possible (Jose didn’t manage to dance.) b. *[Pära un-fattu gi gipot-ña]i si Carmen malägu’ __i. fut agr-arrive at party-agr Carmen agr.want (Carmen wants that you come to her party.) What is responsible for the inability of the embedded VPs in (8) to raise across a clause boundary? One might be tempted to think that the pattern could be made to follow from some general demand that movement must affect the closest potential target (see Chomsky 1995: 311). On such a view, further raising of the embedded VP (VPi ) in (7) would be blocked by the presence of a closer VP that could be targeted for movement, namely, the matrix VP (VPk ). Although such a view
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might seem attractive, it encounters a difficulty: current versions of the claim that movement must affect the closest potential target define ‘closest’ in such a way that two potential targets count as equally close when one dominates the other (see McCloskey 2000: 59–60). But then the two VPs in (7) ought to count as equally close, since VPk dominates VPi . This difficulty could perhaps be surmounted.7 Still, given the fact that VPs cannot raise across a clause boundary, the most one could conclude would be that Chamorro lacks one type of evidence for the claim that its clause-initial VPs have undergone movement. The observation raises a question. Are there languages with pragmatically neutral VOS clauses in which VP can raise across a clause boundary? Such languages, if they exist, would offer clear positive support for the VP raising hypothesis.
. The islandhood of VP Does the VP of a VOS clause constitute an island? Preliminary investigation leads to a range of answers, as I now show.
.. VPs are islands in Seediq Keenan (1972) was the first to observe that there are languages in which VPs do indeed constitute islands. In many Western Austronesian and Formosan languages with VOS clauses, subjects can be targeted by wh-movement but nonsubject arguments cannot. This is exactly what is expected if VOS order is derived from a core SVO structure by VP raising. One paradigmatic example of this type is provided by the Formosan language Seediq, a language with fixed VOS order, which has been investigated by Aldridge (2002) (see also Holmer this volume). Aldridge claims that Seediq clauses are ergative-absolutive clauses in which the ergative is a subconstituent of VP but the absolutive lies outside VP, in the structural position traditionally associated with subjects. For simplicity’s sake I adopt her terminology, but my primary focus will be not on ergativity but rather on whether a given DP originates internal or external to VP.8 Aldridge shows that Seediq observes the equivalent of Keenan’s ‘subjects only’ restriction on wh-movement: DPs that are external to VP (her absolutives) are accessible to wh-movement, but other arguments and adjuncts are not. Consider the constituent questions in (9), which are cleft constructions in which the interrogative phrase is a higher predicate and the rest of the sentence forms its subject, a headless relative clause. In these constructions, some element within the headless relative clause has undergone wh-movement – by assumption, a null operator, which is represented as O in the examples. (One could imagine that wh-movement
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has affected some other type of element within the relative clause; but whatever that element is assumed to be, it must have no phonological realization.) When the null operator originates outside VP (as an absolutive, according to Aldridge), wh-movement is legal (9a). But when this operator originates inside VP, as an argument (e.g., an ergative in (9b) or an adjunct (9c)), wh-movement is ill-formed. (The outer set of brackets in these examples surrounds the headless relative clause, while the inner set surrounds the embedded VP.) Seediq Maanu ka wada [O [burig-un na Ape] __ ]? what? abs perf buy-trans erg Ape “What did Ape buy?” (from Aldridge 2002) b. *Ima ka wada [O [burig-un __ ] patis-ni]? who? abs perf buy-trans book-def (Who bought this book?) (from Aldridge 2002) c. *Inu [O [m-n-ari patis __ ] Ape]? where? anti-perf-buy book Ape (Where did Ape buy books?) (from Aldridge 2002)
(9) a.
The only route by which VP-internal arguments in Seediq can undergo whmovement is indirect: they must be externalized, that is, realized in the structural position traditionally associated with subjects, before they can be targeted by wh-movement. (This externalization, which also occurs independently of whmovement, is signaled by voice morphology on the verb.) Aldridge takes the overall pattern to argue that VPs are islands, and therefore clauses in Seediq are derived by VP raising. Observe further that the cleft construction illustrated in (9) is simply not available when the interrogative phrase is a locative adjunct. Instead, locative interrogative phrases must surface in situ, as shown in (10). (10) [M-n-ari inu patis] Ape? anti-perf-buy where? book Ape “Where did Ape buy books?”
Seediq (from Aldridge 2002)
If VPs are islands, we can understand this pattern in the following way. Suppose that in Seediq, locative adjuncts cannot be externalized, and it is also impossible for them to be stranded by VP raising. Then the only option for questioning such an adjunct would be to use a construction, such as (10), in which the adjunct is not targeted by syntactic wh-movement at all. In short, Seediq VPs are islands. In this respect, the language conforms perfectly to the predictions of the VP raising hypothesis.
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.. VPs are not islands in Tzotzil Significantly, there are also languages with fixed VOS order in which VPs evidently are not islands. One such language is Tzotzil, a Mayan language investigated by Aissen (1987, 1996). Aissen shows that in Tzotzil, subjects, nonsubject arguments, and adjuncts can all be targeted by wh-movement. Consider the constituent questions in (11), in which the interrogative phrases that surface at the left are a subject (11a), a direct object (11b), and a goal (11c). (11) a.
Buch’u s-pas mantal __? who? a3-do order “Who’s giving the orders?” b. K’usi av-il __? what? cmpl.a2-see “What did you see?” c. [Buch’u ta s-na] ch-a-bat __? who? to a3-house incmpl-b2-go “To whose house are you going?”
Tzotzil (Aissen 1996: 451)
(Aissen 1996: 451)
(Aissen 1996: 470)
How do we know that these constituent questions are derived by wh-movement, and not base-generated constructions that involve a null resumptive pronoun? Some telling evidence is provided by the phenomenon of pied piping. Aissen shows that when the interrogative phrase is the possessor of a DP that is a prepositional object or the subject of a transitive verb, the constituent question is not legal unless the interrogative phrase has raised to the specifier of the PP or subject DP and the entire PP or DP has been pied piped to the left. The result of pied piping is illustrated in the subtree in (12). (12)
CP PP whi
C’ P’
P
DP ti
D’
Compare the examples in (11c) and (13a), in which raising and pied piping have occurred, with the ungrammatical (13b, c), in which the constituent that surfaces at the left consists of the interrogative phrase alone.
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(13) a.
[Buch’u x-ch’amal] y-elk’an chij __? who? a3-child a3-steal sheep “Whose child stole sheep?” b. *Buch’u cha-b-at [ta s-na __]? who? incmpl-b2-go to a3-house (Whose house are you going to?) c. *[Buch’u y-elk’an chij [x-ch’amal __]? who? a3-steal sheep a3-child (Whose child stole sheep?)
Tzotzil (Aissen 1996: 460)
(Aissen 1996: 469)
(Aissen 1996: 460)
If constituent questions were base-generated constructions involving null resumption, the contrast between (11, 13a) and (13b, c) would be difficult to explain. The problem is this: were null resumption generally available, the questions in (13b, c) ought to be grammatical. There would be no reason to expect them to be ruled out, given that comparable nonquestions containing null pronouns, such as (14), are well-formed. (14) I-kom [ta s-na pro]. cmpl-remain to a3-house “He remained at his house.”
Tzotzil (Aissen 1996: 468)
On the other hand, if constituent questions are derived by wh-movement, then an account of the contrast between (11–12) and (13) is at hand. Pied piping is a familiar side-effect of wh-movement, one often explained in terms of movement-related principles. Aissen’s account of Tzotzil pied piping, for instance, appeals to the Empty Category Principle and the Wh-Criterion – key principles of movement in Principles and Parameters theory. The details of her account need not concern us. What is important is that any such account commits us to the view that interrogative phrases in Tzotzil do not originate in their surface position, but rather must have arrived there as a consequence of movement.9 Recall now that wh-movement in Tzotzil can affect subjects (11a) as well as nonsubject arguments (11b) and adjuncts plausibly attached to VP (11c). The conclusion seems to be that Tzotzil VPs are not islands, contrary to what the VP raising hypothesis would predict.
.. Are VPs islands in Malagasy? Finally, in Malagasy, the issue of whether VPs are islands remains interestingly unresolved. Malagasy at first glance appears to be a classic example of a fixed VOS language in which VPs are islands. As in Seediq, the only arguments accessible to wh-movement are those external to VP (i.e., subjects; see Keenan 1972). But, as Keenan (1976b) and subsequent authors have noticed, Malagasy also permits certain adjuncts – instruments, locatives, and temporal phrases – to be targeted
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by wh-movement in the focus construction. Consider the examples in (15), in which the adjuncts that have been focused are an instrument (15a) and a temporal phrase (15b). Malagasy Amin’ity savony ity no manasa lamba Rasoa. with.this soap this foc wash clothes Rasoa “It’s with this soap that Rosa is washing clothes.” (Keenan 1976b: 269) b. Taorian’ny mpampianatra no niteny aho. pst.after.gen.art teacher foc pst.at.speak I “It’s after the teacher that I spoke.” (Paul 2000: 103)
(15) a.
What is the derivation of these focus constructions, and how does it bear on the islandhood of VP? One attractive possibility is that instruments, locatives, and temporal phrases in Malagasy might originate external to VP, adjoined to some higher constituent in the functional layer of the clause. If so, the islandhood of VP would not interfere with their ability to be targeted by wh-movement. Such an analysis makes a clear prediction. Matrix adjuncts should be able to undergo wh-movement, as in (15). But adjuncts embedded within a CP complement to V should be blocked from undergoing wh-movement across an apparent distance to the specifier of the matrix C. The reason is that such movement would involve extraction out of an island – the island created when the VP dominating the CP complement undergoes VP raising in the matrix clause. See the diagram in (16). (16)
CP m
C’ TP
C VPi
T’
V’ V
T CP PP
vP DP
v’ v
ti
This prediction raises a larger issue: are there any types of embedded CPs from which adjuncts can be extracted in Malagasy? Keenan (1976b) and others have claimed that in this language, it is impossible for arguments to move out of CP complements to V, but possible for them to move out of CP subjects. The first pattern offers yet another indication that VPs are islands. The second pattern calls for further scrutiny. Can adjuncts – or, for that matter, arguments – undergo wh-
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movement out of CP subjects? And where do these so-called CP subjects surface in clause structure – as complements to unaccusative predicates, as specifiers of the abstract verbal head v, or as specifiers of some higher licensing head (see Lee 2000a)? The answers should shed further light on the system of assumptions with which this section began. If CP subjects are specifiers of v or of some higher licensing head, then in current thinking they should be islands. On the other hand, if they are complements to V and VP raising causes VPs to be islands, then any movement that crosses the VP boundary should be blocked as well. Further investigation is clearly needed, both of the empirical patterns and of their theoretical consequences.
. Remnant VP raising and its motivation The discussion has so far concentrated almost exclusively on VOS clauses. I want now to turn to VSO clauses and to the possibility that they are produced by raising of a remnant VP – a VP from which everything but the verb has exited. Perhaps the most pressing question that confronts the remnant VP raising hypothesis is the question of exactly how remnant VPs arise. What independently motivated principles would force a maximal projection to exit from VP? The types of considerations most often appealed to involve Case licensing and scope. For instance, Massam (2000a, 2001a) proposes that in Niuean, a Polynesian language with fixed VSO order, DP complements must exit from VP to check their Case in the specifier of a licensing head. Lee (2000a) suggests that in Quiaviní Zapotec, another fixed VSO language, CP complements must similarly raise out of VP to be licensed. Rackowski and Travis (2000) posit that when DPs exit from VP in Niuean, they do so in order to escape existential closure. While these proposals seem quite reasonable, it is harder to tell a convincing story about why there are VSO languages in which PPs are evidently forced to raise out of VP. Niuean, for instance, does not permit indirect objects, goals, or other apparent PP complements to surface next to the verb, but rather requires them to follow the subject. (See Massam this volume and Otsuka this volume for additional discussion of word order in Niuean.) Consider (17) To fanogonogo a au ki a koe. fut listen abs I to prop you “I’ll listen to you.”
Niuean (Seiter 1980: 147)
Given that PPs do not need to be Case-licensed, it is unclear what would cause the PP in (17) to exit from VP prior to VP raising.10
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Massam (2001a) addresses this issue by suggesting that Niuean simply has no complement PPs at all. Rather, every Niuean PP is adjoined to VP or even higher, in such a way that it must necessarily be stranded by VP raising. Such a view makes a prediction. If all PPs are adjuncts, it should be uniformly impossible for them to undergo wh-movement out of a weak island (assuming that Niuean has weak islands to begin with). It is a very interesting, as yet unanswered question whether this is indeed so. A different sort of issue arises in verb-initial languages in which VOS alternates with VSO. In Chamorro, for instance, complements of all category types can surface to the left or to the right of the subject. The pairs of examples in (18– 20) illustrate this word order freedom for various complement types (in brackets): definite direct object DPs (in (18)), locative PPs (also in (18)), nonspecific DPs (19), and embedded CPs (20). (In these and other Chamorro examples cited in this chapter, si is the marker of ‘unmarked’ morphological case for proper names; see Chung 1998.) (18) a.
Pära u-po’lu [i trastes-ña siha] [gi hälum kahun] i fut agr-put the things-agr pl loc inside box the infitmera. nurse “The nurse is going to put her things in the box.” b. Pära u-po’lu i infitmera [i trastes-ña siha] [gi hälum fut agr-put the nurse the things-agr pl loc inside kahun]. box “The nurse is going to put her things in the box.”
(19) a.
Ha-na’-fam-ahan yu’ [katni] si Sandy agr-make-anti-buy me meat Sandy “Sandy had me buy meat for dinner.” b. Ha-na’-fam-ahan yu’ si Sandy [katni] agr-make-anti-buy me Sandy meat “Sandy had me buy meat for dinner.”
(20) a.
pära sena. for dinner pära sena. for dinner
Mämpus hobin [pära um-äsagua] si Francisca. too agr.young for infin-marry Francisca. “Francisca is too young to get married.” b. Mämpus hobin si Francisca [pära um-äsagua]. too agr.young Francisca for infin-marry “Francisca is too young to get married.” Chamorro
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From a VP raising perspective, such word order alternations suggest that complements can optionally exit from VP. What motivates this exit when it occurs, and why is the motivation sometimes suspended? By way of response, one could try to maintain that the complements in (18– 20) have invariably exited from VP, even when they surface next to the verb. If so, the material preceding the subject in the (a) examples would not be merely VP, but rather VP plus some additional constituent(s). Such a view raises some complicated issues. For instance, evidence from coordination argues that even in the (a) examples above, the material preceding the subject forms a single constituent. In (21), this constituent serves as the left conjunct of a coordinate structure whose right conjunct consists simply of a verb. (21) a.
[Ha-huchum i mata-ña] ya [humaha] si Maria. agr-close the eye-agr and agr.yawn Maria “Maria closed her eyes and yawned.” b. [Dumandan gitala] yan [kumanta] si Juan. agr.play guitar and agr.sing Juan “Juan plays the guitar and sings.”
Chamorro
The traditional wisdom concerning coordination is that only constituents of like categories can be conjoined. If we accept this, then what categories are being conjoined in (21)? Notice further that the left conjunct in these examples seems to consist of (at least) a transitive V(P) plus its direct object. If this constituent is identified as some functional projection that properly contains VP – for instance, AgrOP, – can the same functional superstructure be motivated for the lone intransitive verb that occupies the right conjunct? (More specifically, if hahuchum i mataña ‘closed her eyes’ is an AgrOP in (21a), then is humaha ‘yawned’ in this example an AgrOP as well, despite the fact that the verb ‘yawn’ has no direct object for AgrO to license? Notice that if humaha is merely a VP, then it is not obvious that the conjuncts in this example – AgrOP and VP – are like categories.) Investigation of these questions should help to determine the feasibility of bringing VSO clauses under the wing of the VP raising hypothesis.
. The motivation for VP raising The preceding sections of this chapter have surveyed some types of evidence that could be brought to bear on the core claim of the VP raising hypothesis, namely, that the VPs of verb-initial clauses have invariably reached their surface position via movement. I should emphasize that my aim has been neither to establish that the VP raising hypothesis is correct nor to argue that it is incorrect, but rather to
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explore some empirical pathways that might ultimately help to resolve the issue. Let me now, finally, turn to a different question. Suppose, for the sake of argument, that VPs do indeed raise in verb-initial clauses. What would drive this movement? As mentioned earlier, the motivation most often given for VP raising involves appeal to some version of the EPP. It is worth pausing to clarify what the appeal consists of. Although some current work in minimalist syntax (e.g., Chomsky 2000) has reinterpreted the EPP as a diacritic for movement in general, the EPP relevant to us here is one that specifically demands the raising of some constituent to the specifier of T. The claim that VP raises to satisfy the EPP, then, amounts to the claim that VP raises to T’s specifier, and this movement is obligatory – forced, in minimalist terms, by the need for some designated feature of T to be checked. What sorts of empirical evidence could be brought to bear on the claim that VP raises to satisfy the EPP? A promising line of investigation is suggested by Miyagawa (2001) in an important discussion of the EPP and scrambling in Japanese. Miyagawa shows that in Japanese, certain universally quantified subjects must generally take wide scope with respect to sentential negation. But it is possible for these subjects to have narrow scope just in case an object has been scrambled to the left. His account of this pattern builds on three familiar assumptions. First, in order for an element to have narrow scope with respect to negation, it must be c-commanded by the functional head Neg, which is lodged below T but above the abstract verbal head v (which is the functional head immediately above V) in clause structure. Second, all of the predicate’s arguments originate within vP. Third and finally, T has an EPP feature which is checked when a DP raises to its specifier. Miyagawa’s key insight is that in Japanese, any DP – subject or nonsubject – can raise to check T’s EPP feature. When the subject raises, the result is an SOV clause in which the subject must have wide scope with respect to negation. But when the object raises (via a movement characterized as A-scrambling in other work), the result is an OSV clause in which the subject remains in situ, within vP, where it is possible for it to have narrow scope. The broader message of this account is that the scope and specificity effects traditionally associated with subjects (by, e.g., Keenan 1976a) are not, after all, inherent attributes of these DPs. Rather, they flow from the syntactic position in which these DPs typically surface – the specifier of T. Suppose we accept this and hold further that in verb-initial clauses, VP must raise to the specifier of T. Then it follows that no other constituent can also raise to T’s specifier; in particular, the subject cannot. But then the subject should remain within vP, and its typical association with scope and specificity effects should be suspended: the subject should not necessarily have to take wide scope or be specific. Can this be shown to be so? For the most part, information concerning quantifier scope in verb-initial languages is not readily available (but see Keenan 1976b on
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Malagasy and Chung 1998 on Chamorro). Some progress can be made, however, by considering the issue of specificity effects. There are verb-initial languages that seem not to require the subject DP to be specific in any sense. For instance, consider Tongan, a Polynesian language closely related to Niuean in which VSO alternates with VOS (see Otsuka this volume). In Tongan, it is possible for both subjects and nonsubjects to be headed by the nonspecific article ha, which generally takes narrow scope with respect to sentential operators (see Churchward 1953). Compare the nonspecific prepositional object in (22a) with the nonspecific subject in (22b). Tongan Na’a ku fa’o ia ki ha puha. tam I put it at a box “I put it into a box (some box or other).” (Churchward 1953: 271) b. ‘Oku tapu ke h¯u ha sela tangata ki he tam forbidden tam enter a warder male to the ‘api p¯opula. prison “It is unlawful for a male warder to enter a prison.” (Churchward 1953: 59)
(22) a.
This pattern conforms to expectations if Tongan VPs raise to the specifier of T and the subject remains in place, within vP, and therefore within the domain of existential closure (see Diesing 1992). (On this view, raising of (a remnant) VP would strand the subject in the specifier of vP, leading to the surface word order seen in (22b). In (22a), the subject is a pronominal clitic and something further must be said to account for its surface position.) In contrast, other verb-initial languages seem to impose a specificity requirement on (certain) subject DPs. According to Chung and Ladusaw (2004), M¯aori demands that subjects that are external arguments must be specific. Subjects of this type can be headed by the indefinite article t¯etahi, which can take wide scope with respect to sentential operators. But they cannot be headed by the indefinite article he, which must have narrow scope. Compare the examples in (23) and (24). M¯aori E k¯orero ana t¯etahi wahine. tam speak a woman “A (particular) woman was speaking.” (Chung & Ladusaw 2004: 57) b. Ka katakata e¯ tahi, ka umere e¯ tahi, ka kohete e¯tahi. tam laugh a.pl tam applaud a.pl tam scold a.pl “Some laughed, some applauded, some scolded.” (Waititi 1974: 86)
(23) a.
(24) a. *E k¯orero ana he wahine. tam speak a(ny) woman. (A(ny) woman was speaking.)
(Chung & Ladusaw 2004: 57)
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b. ?*E patu poaka ana he t¯angata. tam kill pig a people (A(ny) people were killing pigs.) (Chung, Mason, & Milroy 1995: 438) How might this specificity effect be handled? If we continue to assume that vP is the domain of existential closure, then the examples in (23–24) would seem to indicate that subjects in M¯aori must, for some reason, raise out of vP. But to what destination would they raise, and what could motivate this raising? Notice that the answer cannot be that subjects raise to the specifier of T, since – by assumption – VP must occupy this position. But it is not obvious that there is another conceivable destination site whose existence could be independently motivated. Following proposals made by Pearson (2001) for Malagasy and Aldridge (2002) for Seediq, one might think of trying to derive the M¯aori specificity effect illustrated in (23–24) from some different demand. For instance, if external arguments in M¯aori had to be licensed as topics, via raising to the specifier of a functional head such as Top, then the specificity effect illustrated in (23–24) might not be directly relevant to subjecthood after all. It is not immediately obvious that such an approach would work for M¯aori. Although M¯aori does have topics, most of which are also subjects, these topics have a morphosyntax that distinguishes them from the subjects shown in (23): they do not surface to the right of the verb, but rather at the left edge of the clause, preceded by the particle ko (see Bauer 1997: 654–659). Consider (25) Ko te nuinga ia i mea. top the majority contr tam say “The majority, however, said [the following].”
M¯aori (Bauer 1997: 655)
The contrast between the subjects in (23) and the topic in (25) suggests that in the end, the pattern in (23–24) might simply have to be acknowledged as characteristic of subjects that are external arguments. If so, the presence of this specificity effect would run counter to the predictions of the VP raising hypothesis. Different evidence pointing to a similar conclusion can be found in Chamorro. Chamorro is a negative concord language: it permits multiple instances of morphosyntactically negative items to be interpreted as expressing a single semantic negation. Now, nonsubject arguments and adjuncts can be realized as negative concord DPs, but subjects cannot (see Chung 1998). The examples in (26–27) illustrate this point for a direct object (26a), a locative adjunct (26b), and various subtypes of subjects (27a–c). (26) a.
Ti in-kässi [ni háyiyi ha’ na palao’an]. not agr-tease not any emph lnk woman “We didn’t tease any girls.”
Chamorro
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b. Ti in-li’i’ si Dolores [ni mánunu ha’]. not agr-see Dolores not anywhere emph “We didn’t see Dolores anywhere.” (27) a. *Ti mamahlao nu hagu [ni unu]. not agr.ashamed obl you not one (No one is ashamed of you). b. *Ti metgot-ña [ni unu] kini si tata-mu. not agr.strong-compare not one than father-agr (No one is stronger than your father.) c. *Ti ha-akka’ yu’ [ni háfafa ha’]. not agr-bite me not anything emph (Nothing bit me.) One widely accepted approach to the semantics of negative concord DPs holds that they are interpreted as narrow-scope indefinites (see Ladusaw 1992). If we adopt this view, then the inability of subjects to be realized as negative concord DPs looks very much like a specificity effect. As before, this would seem to suggest that subjects must raise out of vP, the domain of existential closure. But to what destination would they raise, and for what reason? Once again, the absence of independently motivated answers to this question runs counter to the expectations generated by the VP raising hypothesis. In sum, subjects in Tongan evidently lack specificity effects, but subjects in M¯aori and Chamorro evidently display them. (See also England 1991 for discussion of verb-initial Mayan languages, such as K’iche’ (K’ichee’ or Quiché), in which subjects must be definite.) This nonuniformity is reminiscent of the sorts of evidence that led A&A (1998) to draw a distinction between the EPP, on the one hand, and the issue of whether some constituent must raise to T’s specifier, on the other. In the system that they end up with, the EPP is localized to a separate head in the functional layer of the clause, Agr, whose requirements are independent of T’s requirements. One could, of course, think of pursuing a similar strategy here. The challenge then for the VP raising hypothesis would be to locate other sorts of empirical evidence that could bear on the issue of whether VP raises to the specifier of T or to the specifier of some other head.
. Conclusion Where does this leave us? Clearly, more sustained investigation is necessary before any of the issues raised in the preceding sections can be considered to be resolved. What is clear is that languages with VOS clauses differ significantly from one another in the transparency with which they conform to the predictions of the VP
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raising hypothesis. The evidence from Seediq and Malagasy for the islandhood of VP is automatically explained if VPs in these languages must raise to the specifier of TP. But the evidence from word order patterns and specificity effects in Chamorro seems far less amenable to a VP raising account. These initial indications of diversity could be pursued in two ways. One could take them to reveal that the VP raising account of verb-initial order is indeed possible, but by no means necessary; in other words, the ‘much stronger claim’ identified in the introduction is not tenable. On this view, which I have advocated elsewhere (see Chung 1998), there are various pathways to verb-initial order, one of which is (remnant) VP raising; the next tasks are to solidify the evidence against any monolithic account and to identify the full range of pathways. On the other hand, one could take these initial findings as an invitation to refine the theory, and fill out the empirical picture, until all the patterns presented above can be accommodated within the VP raising hypothesis. On this view, the ‘much stronger claim’ is ultimately correct, and the task is to demonstrate that this is so. Whichever approach is taken, it strikes me that there is much more empirical work to be done. In delineating the profile of expectations associated with VP raising, I hope to have taken this side of the investigation a bit further.
Notes * Earlier versions of this work were delivered at the Workshop on the Syntax of VSO Languages held at the University of Stuttgart in May 2002, and at UCLA. Thanks to Andrew Carnie, Heidi Harley, and Sheila Dooley-Collberg for agreeing to take the current version in lieu of the paper I actually delivered at the Verb-Initial Syntax Workshop, and to them, James McCloskey, and two reviewers for comments. The written version of this chapter was completed while I was a Visiting Erskine Fellow in the Department of Linguistics, University of Canterbury, Christchurch, New Zealand, and I wish to acknowledge both the Department and the Fellowship Program for their support. Some of the empirical material discussed here draws on the description of VOS clauses given in Chung (forthcoming). . See, for instance, Pearson (2001) and Aldridge (2002) for treatments of VOS clauses in which the VP-like constituent that undergoes VP raising is more inclusive than VP, and its landing site is the specifier of a functional head significantly higher than T in clause structure. To simplify the exposition, I will gloss over these differences of detail and simply refer to the constituent that undergoes VP raising as ‘VP or equivalent’, and to its landing site as the specifier of T, which I take to be the clausal head. . Of course, T’s [D] feature can in principle also be checked by the raising to T of some head valued for the [D] feature. For relevant discussion, see, e.g., Massam and Smallwood (1997), as well as Alexiadou and Anagnostopoulou (1998), Jouitteau (this volume), and Oda (this volume).
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What fronts? . The claim that verb-initial order is invariably produced by VP raising is central to, and explicitly stated by, Koopman (this volume); see also Koopman and Szabolcsi (2000) for an account of verbal complexes that assumes that all movement is phrasal movement. For the view that verb-initial order has two sources, V raising and VP raising, see, e.g., Oda (this volume). . Other perspectives could, of course, be entertained. On the proposal that some VOS clauses have the specifier of the clausal head projected to the right, see, e.g., Chung (1998) and the references cited there. . The extent to which the clitic climbing phenomenon conforms to this generalization is a question that I leave for another time. . Recall that Chamorro is a language in which VOS alternates with VSO. Complex sentences with clausal complements also exhibit this word order alternation, so (6a) could just as well have the infinitive occurring to the right of the subject, and (6b) could just as well have the finite embedded clause occurring to the left of the subject. For further discussion of the issues raised by such word order alternations, see Section 4. . For instance, one could think of invoking the A-over-A principle to force the dominating VP to be chosen as the constituent to be moved. A reviewer suggests that intuitively, the reason why VPs cannot move across a distance is that every clause must have a VP. For Chamorro, a language in which many clauses lack VPs, the intuition could perhaps be recast as follows: every clause must have a predicate of some sort. The challenge then would be to formulate the relevant constraint so that a violation would ensue when VP raises across a distance, but not when it raises within its clause. It is not obvious (to me) how to meet this challenge within frameworks in which movement leaves behind some footprint of the moved element, either a complete copy or a trace. . One alternative to Aldridge’s analysis of clausal syntax would be to assume that Seediq is a nominative-accusative language that makes heavy use of passive (as in Keenan’s 1976b analysis of Malagasy). On this view, Aldridge’s ergative-absolutive clauses would be reanalyzed as passive; her antipassive clauses would be reanalyzed as active transitive; and (9a–b) would illustrate that derived subjects of passive are accessible to wh-movement but by-phrases are not. It is completely irrelevant for current purposes whether one adopts this alternative or Aldridge’s original analysis. . As a reviewer observes, the discussion in the text makes the prediction that the pied-piping patterns found in Tzotzil will not be obligatory in any language whose whconstructions are routinely formed via resumptive pronouns. . Andrew Carnie has suggested to me that similar issues might arise with respect to VP adverbs. In fact, Niuean adverbs do not follow the subject, but rather occur in a fixed order to the immediate right of the verb. See Rackowski and Travis (2000) for an analysis of adverbial order in Niuean that relies crucially on remnant VP raising.
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Coordination and constituency in St’át’imcets (Lillooet Salish)* Henry Davis University of British Columbia
Salish languages form the largest family of predicate initial languages in North America, yet fundamental issues about their structure and constituency remain undecided. In this paper, I examine the issue of configurationality in the Northern Interior Salish language St’át’imcets (Lillooet), applying tests for subject-object asymmetries (strong and weak crossover, bound variable anaphora, superiority), as well as those that test directly for VP constituency (VP anaphora, coordination). I conclude that – irrespective of post-predicative word order – all tests save coordination unambiguously argue for a conventional hierarchical structure. I then argue that the special status of coordination in St’át’imcets is a property of coordinate structures in general, not of St’át’imcets in particular. This conclusion has obvious implications for the use of coordination as a structural probe in the investigation of V-initial systems.
.
Introduction
As work on the syntax of predicate-initial languages has progressed, it has become clear that even though they constitute a small minority of the world’s languages, their grammars exhibit considerable internal diversity. For example, whereas a V(head)-raising analysis has become fairly standard for VSO languages such as Irish (following pioneering work by McCloskey 1991, amongst others), a VP(predicate)-raising analysis has met with greater success in accounting for VOS systems such as Malagasy (Pearson 1998b; Rackowski & Travis 2000), as well as VSO systems such as Zapotec (Lee 2000a) and Niuean (Massam 2000a, 2001a). These analyses are based on underlying SVO order, with subsequent movement of the verb or one of its projections (see Julien 2001); but it has also been argued that some V-initial systems have base-generated VOS order (for example, Berber, as an-
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alyzed by Choe 1987 and Chamorro, as analyzed by Chung 1990, 1998), with VSO order derived by movement of the subject. To add to the diversity, there are also less well-studied differences in word order flexibility. Some verb-initial systems exhibit quite rigid word order (including all those mentioned above save Niuean and Chamorro), whereas others alternate between VSO and VOS orders. Word order alternations are themselves either governed by grammatical factors (for example, the definiteness of the object in Niuean) or are fairly free (as in Chamorro). Furthermore, some predicate initial languages also allow an SVO alternate infinite clauses (Chamorro) whereas others do not (Irish). In assessing this situation, it is important (though often very difficult) to distinguish between different structural properties and different structural analyses.1 For example, if the diagnostic tests used to probe structure in two predicate-initial languages are very different (which is sometimes unavoidable, given independent restrictions on which tests work within a given language) it is possible that the analyses that emerge for those two languages will also be very different, even if their actual structures are identical. In other words, we must try to adopt as uniform a standard of comparison as possible, while at the same time trying to be as careful as possible about what exactly a given test tells us. That way, we can sort out genuine diversity from differences that result from the analytical tools we employ. (For related discussion see the introduction to this volume.) In this paper, I will be particularly concerned with the interaction of three types of test, which have all been used as structural probes in the analysis of predicate-initial languages – more specifically, as tests for VP constituency. The first type consists of diagnostics that establish a hierarchical asymmetry between subject and object, thereby indirectly supporting the existence of a lower constituent including the object but excluding the subject. The second type includes tests based on VP anaphora, including ellipsis. The third type consists of tests based on coordination, which have a particularly significant (though controversial) status in the analysis of predicate-initial languages in that they are the primary data supporting Chung’s influential subject-lowering account of Chamorro. The empirical testing ground for this investigation will be St’át’imcets (Lillooet), a predicate-initial Salish language spoken in British Columbia, Canada. Like most other members of its family, St’át’imcets shows a great deal of flexibility in post-predicative word order. Moreover, it also exhibits an interesting dialect split: one dialect has canonical VOS order, with a VSO alternate; the other has canonical VSO order, with both VOS and SVO alternates. (The dialects are mutually intelligible.) My strategy will be first of all to elucidate the clausal structure of St’át’imcets by applying diagnostic tests from the first two types outlined above. I will then turn to coordination in order to see whether it yields compatible results. My overall goal is
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twofold: on the empirical side, to build up a relatively comprehensive picture of the configurational properties of an under-described predicate initial language; on the methodological side, to sharpen our tools of analysis so that we meet the desiderata of accurate cross-linguistic comparison. The paper is organized as follows. In Section 2, I will give the necessary background to an investigation of clausal structure in St’át’imcets. In Section 3 I will turn to configurationality diagnostics, first investigating subject-object asymmetries, then VP anaphora, before turning to coordination data in Section 4. Sections 5 to 7 explore the implications of the results, first for clausal structure, then for the typology of V-initial systems, and finally for the methodology of cross-linguistic syntactic investigation.
. Background: A brief rundown on St’át’imcets . The language and its speakers The Salish family consists of twenty-three languages spoken or formerly spoken in the Northwestern USA and Southwestern Canada, thus constituting the third largest language family in North America. About half of these languages are extinct or nearly so; the rest are critically endangered and not expected to survive as first languages into the next generation. St’át’imcets (Lillooet) is one of the three members of the Northern Interior subdivision of Salish. It is spoken by less than two hundred people in Southwest Interior BC, with two major dialects: Upper St’át’imcets (spoken around the town of Lillooet and to the Northeast), and Lower St’át’ímcets (spoken around the town of Pemberton and to the Southwest). There are substantial phonological, syntactic and lexical differences between the dialects, but they are fully mutually intelligible.
. Basic morphosyntactic properties Like all Salish languages, St’át’imcets is of the radical head-marking type: arguments of a predicate (subject and primary object) are obligatorily marked on the head by agreement morphology, in the form of either clitics or affixes, sometimes null. Correspondingly, lexical (non-pronominal) arguments are optional, and usually omitted if their content is recoverable from prior discourse. (1) t’iq(=Ø)2 arrive(=3su) “S/he arrived.”
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(2) áts’x-en-(Ø)-as see-dir(-3obj)-3erg “S/he saw him/her/it.” Lexical (non-pronominal) arguments take the form of DPs, obligatorily introduced by proclitic determiners. In St’át’imcets, existence-asserting determiners (see Matthewson 1998, 1999) are accompanied by an existential enclitic =a (glossed ‘exis’ below). (3) t’iq(=Ø) ta=kúkwpi7=a arrive(=3su) det=chief=exis “The chief arrived.” When there is a single overt DP in a transitive sentence with two third persons, the DP is almost always interpreted as the object (this is the so-called One Nominal Interpretation Effect of Gerdts 1988).3 (4) áts’x-en(-Ø)-as ta=kúkwpi7=a see-dir(-3obj)-3erg det=chief=exis “S/he saw the chief.” *“The chief saw him/her.” In order to circumvent this constraint, either passive (5) or a cleft construction with the special non-topical subject marker -tali (6) is employed: see Davis (1994b). (5) áts’x-en(-Ø)-em e=ta=kúkwpi7=a see-dir(-3obj)-3pass by=det=chief=exis “The chief saw him/her.” (Literally: “S/he was seen by the chief.”) (6) nilh ta=kúkwpi7=a ats’x-en-táli cop det=chief=exis see-dir-nontopical.su “The chief saw him/her.” (Literally: “It was the chief who saw him/her.”) It is important for what follows to emphasize that I do not adopt a ‘pronominal argument’ analysis for St’át’imcets, such as that proposed for Straits Salish by Jelinek and Demers (1994). In other words, agreement is non-argumental (though it may license pro), and argument DP’s are in conventional argument positions, not in right dislocated adjunct positions. There is abundant evidence against the Pronominal Argument Hypothesis for St’át’imcets, much of which extends across the entire Salish family: see Davis (1994a), Davis (2001), Davis and Matthewson (2003).
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. Word order Like all other Salish languages, St’át’imcets is essentially predicate initial: (7) a.
t’iq ta=kúkwpi7=a arrive det=chief=exis “The chief arrived.” b. smúlhats ta=kúkwpi7=a woman det=chief=exis “The chief is a woman.” c. léxlex ta=kúkwpi7=a smart det=chief=exis “The chief is smart.” d. áts’x-en-ts-as ta=kúkwpi7=a see-dir-1sg.obj-3erg det=chief=exis “The chief saw me.”
There is a dialect split with respect to the possibility of pre-predicative subjects. Lower St’át’imcets allows them, Upper St’át’imcets does not:4 (8) Lower Dialect: a. ti=kúkwpi7=a t’iq det=chief=exis arrive “The chief arrived.” b. ti=kúkwpi7=a syáqtsa7 det=chief=exis woman “The chief is a woman.” c. ti=kúkwpi7=a smaot det=chief=exis smart “The chief is smart.” d. ti=kúkwpi7=a áts’x-en-ts-as det=chief=exis see-dir-1sg.obj-3erg “The chief saw me.” SV(O) sentences in Lower St’át’imcets are not allowed discourse-initially and may not occur in subordinate clauses. Moreover, their subjects may not be indefinite, and generally show topic-like properties, in contrast to post-predicative subjects (Davis 1999). The two dialects also split with respect to the ‘basic’ (canonical) word order in transitive sentences: the basic order is VOS in the Upper dialect, and VSO in the Lower.
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(9) a.
Lower Dialect: VSO áts’x-en(-Ø)-as ti=kúkwpi7=a ti=syáqts7=a see-dir(-3obj)-3erg det=chief=exis det=woman=exis “The chief saw the woman.” b. Upper Dialect: VOS áts’x-en(-Ø)-as ta=smúlhats=a ta=kúkwpi7=a see-dir(-3obj)-3erg det=woman=exis det=chief=exis “The chief saw the woman.”
In both dialects, however, pragmatic factors such as animacy can overrule basic word order: (10) Lower Dialect: VSO preferred a. ts’aw’-án(-Ø)-as=ha ti=snúk’wa7-sw=a wash-dir(3obj)-3erg=ynq det=friend-2sg.poss=exis ti=káoh-sw=a det=car-2sg.poss=exis “Did your friend wash your car?” (preferred) b. ts’aw’-án-as=ha ti=káoh-sw=a wash-dir(3obj)-3erg=ynq det=car-2sg.poss=exis ti=snúk’wa7-sw=a det=car-2sg.poss=exis “Did your friend wash your car?” (possible) (11) Upper Dialect: VOS preferred a. ts’aw’-án(-Ø)-as=ha ta=káoh-sw=a wash-dir(3obj)-3erg=ynq det=car-2sg.poss=exis ta=snúk’wa7-sw=a det=friend-2sg.poss=exis “Did your friend wash your car?” (preferred) b. ts’aw’-án(-Ø)-as=ha ta=snúk’wa7-sw=a wash-dir(3obj)-3erg=ynq det=friend-2sg.poss=exis ta=káoh-sw=a det=car-2sg.poss=exis “Did your friend wash your car?” (possible) Flexible post-predicative word order is not confined to subjects and direct objects. In both dialects, the order of theme and goal arguments in double object structures is also reversible, as shown in (12); see also Davis and Matthewson (2003).5 (12) a.
úm’-en-as ta=ts’lá7=a ta=skícza7-s=a give-dir-3erg det=basket=exis det=mother-3poss=exis “She gave her mother a basket.”
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a.
úm’-en-as ta=skícza7-s=a ta=ts’lá7=a give-dir-3erg det=mother-3poss=exis det=basket=exis “She gave her mother a basket.”
Moreover, in both dialects, clausal and non-clausal (PP) adjuncts may be freely interspersed with post-predicative argument DPs. This is shown in (13) using examples from the Upper dialect; the Lower dialect works the same way, with subject and object reversed. Note that the temporal adjunct inátcwas “yesterday” in (13) is clausal (its literal meaning is “when in the past it was one day away from today”), whereas the locative adjunct lta lep’cáltena “in the garden” is a non-clausal PP. (13) a.
V-O-S-A order (Upper Dialect) ts’aqw-an’-ítas i=sq’wél=a i=sk’wemk’úk’wmi7t=a eat-dir-3pl.erg pl.det=berry=exis pl.det=children=exis i=nátcw=as/l=ta=nlep’cálten=a when.past=day=3conj/in=det=garden=exis “The children ate the berries yesterday/in the garden.” b. V-A-O-S order (Upper Dialect) ts’aqw-an’-ítas i=nátcw=as/l=ta=nlep’cálten=a eat-dir-3pl.erg when.past=day=3sbjv/in=det=garden=exis i=sq’wél=a i=sk’wemk’úk’wmi7t=a pl.det=berry=exis pl.det=children=exis “The children ate the berries yesterday/in the garden.” c. V-O-A-S order (Upper Dialect) ts’aqw-an’-ítas i=sq’wél=a eat-dir-3pl.erg pl.det=berry=exis i=nátcw=as/l=ta=nlep’cálten=a when.past=day=3sbjv/in=det=garden=exis i=sk’wemk’úk’wmi7t=a pl.det=children=exis “The children ate the berries yesterday/in the garden.”
. VP constituency Given the facts above, we can now ask the classic question: what is the constituency of V-initial structures in St’át’imcets?6 There are actually three separate questions here. First, what is the constituency of VOS structures? Second, what is the constituency of VSO structures? And third, what connects them? I approach these questions from three different directions. The first is via tests which establish (or fail to establish) a structural asymmetry be-
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tween subject and object, and therefore indirectly support (or fail to support) the existence of a VP constituent which includes the object(s) but excludes the subject.7 The second is through tests based on anaphora (including null anaphora) which have the potential to directly pick out a constituent including the verb and its internal argument(s) but excluding the subject. The results of these tests will be discussed in 3.1 and 3.2, respectively. The third approach involves investigating coordination, whose current status as a diagnostic for configurationality is somewhat problematic: though long employed as a constituency test, it is subject to a number of additional complications which mean it has been seldom used in the analysis of V-initial systems (a notable exception being the work of Chung 1990, 1998). Coordination data will be discussed in Section 4.
. Subject-object asymmetries As with many V-initial systems, detecting subject-object asymmetries in St’át’imcets is not just a matter of applying familiar tests (by and large derived from English) to an unfamiliar language and tabulating the results. This is because for independent reasons many standard tests are inapplicable or very hard to apply to the syntax of St’át’imcets. Consider, for example, the following: i.
All strong quantifiers prefer to occupy pre-predicative positions, either in SVO structures (Lower Dialect: Davis 1999) or via a separate operation of (overt) Quantifier Raising (Upper Dialect: Demirdache & Matthewson 1995). All weak quantifiers, in contrast, prefer to occupy predicate rather than argument positions. This means that tests based on the relative scope of quantifiers in argument position are largely inapplicable. ii. Polarity tests generally fail because all polarity-licensers are outside the smallest constituent containing the main predicate and its arguments (i.e. either a ‘big’ VP under the VP-internal subject hypothesis or a ‘small’ IP under the VPexternal subject hypothesis). (Licensers include aspectual auxiliaries, modal enclitics, interrogative particles, the irrealis complementizer, WH-predicates, intensional predicates, and (predicative) negation. See Matthewson 1998 on the polarity sensitive determiner ku, Davis 2001 on negation.) iii. Configurationality tests based on standard Binding Condition A are irrelevant because reflexives and reciprocals are formed by operations on the predicate, not its arguments. iv. Though St’át’imcets is quite rich in extraction asymmetries, none of them distinguish straightforwardly between subjects and objects. Absolutive arguments (subjects of intransitive predicates and direct objects of formally transitive verbs) extract directly. Ergative arguments (subjects of formally transitive predicates) either extract directly or (more frequently) trigger special extrac-
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tion morphology consisting of the ‘non-topical subject’ marker -tali. Oblique objects (objects of formally intransitive but semantically transitive verbs, and second objects of formally monotransitive but semantically ditransitive verbs) trigger nominalization (van Eijk 1997; Davis & Matthewson 2003). Nevertheless, several other tests provide evidence for a hierarchical asymmetry between post-predicative subjects and objects. I list four of them here in somewhat abbreviated form: see references for details and other tests. v.
Though Binding Condition C with R-expressions is violated inter-clausally (as will become relevant later on), and is extremely hard to test intra-clausally because of a combination of word order freedom and null anaphora, Strong Crossover configurations are uniformly ungrammatical, as shown in (14–15) (Demirdache 1997). On a standard (Condition C-based) account of Strong Crossover, violations are incurred when a variable is c-commanded by a coindexed pronoun; by hypothesis, when a pronoun in subject position induces a violation with a variable in object position, the subject must c-command the object. (14) swat ku=zwát-en-acw kw=a=s who det=know-dir-2sg.erg det(nom)=impf=3poss xwey-s-ás dear-caus-3erg “Whoi do you know s/hei*/j loves?” (i.e., cannot mean: for which x is it the case that you know x loves x) (15) ats’x-en-ítas ta=sqáycw=a ta=taw-en-táli=ha tákem swat see-dir-3pl.erg det=man=exis det=sell-dir-top=exis all who ku=púkw det =book “Theyi saw the man who sold everyonei*/j a book.” (i.e., cannot mean: for all x, x saw the man who sold x a book)
vi. There are superiority effects in sentences with multiple WH-phrases. Though not all speakers allow multiple WH-questions (since in situ WH-phrases are usually construed as indefinites), in any multiple WH structure, all speakers prefer to extract a subject as opposed to an object WH-phrase (Davis, Gardiner, & Matthewson 1993; Davis 2001). (16) a.
swat ku=ats’x-en-táli ku=stám’ who det=see-dir-top det=what “Who saw what” or “Who saw anything?”
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b. *stam’ ku=áts’x-en-as ku=swát what det=see-dir-3erg det=who “What did who see?” or “What did anyone see?” vii. Weak Crossover effects can also be detected: (17) ts’um’qs-án’-as kw-s-Mary ta=wá7 xwey-s-ás sqaycw kiss-dir-3erg det=nom=Mary det=impf dear-caus-3erg man (i) “The man shei/j loved kissed Maryi .” or (ii) “Maryi kissed the man shei/j loved.” (18) swat ku=ts’um’qs-án’-as ta=wá7 xwey-s-ás sqaycw who det=kiss-dir-3erg det=impf dear-caus-3erg man (i) “Whoi did the man she*i/j loved kiss?” or (ii) “Whoi kissed the man shei/j loved?” The relevant case is the missing bound reading in (18i). viii. Bound Variable Anaphora with post-predicative quantifiers distinguish between subjects and objects, as shown in (19–20) (which are identical save for the word order of subject and object, and have the same readings and judgments): (19) wa7 xwey-s-twítas i=kwekw7-í=ha tákem impf dear-caus-3pl.erg pl.det=grandmother-3pl.poss=exis all i=sqáycw=a pl.det=man=exis (i) “All the meni love theiri/j grandmothers.” (ii) “Their*i/j grandmothers love all the meni .” (20) wa7 xwey-s-twítas tákem i=sqáycw=a impf dear-caus-3pl.erg all pl.det=man=exis i=kwekw7-í=ha pl.det=grandmother-3pl.poss=exis (i) “All the meni love theiri/j grandmothers.” (ii) “Their*i/j grandmothers love all the meni .” The crucial case here is the contrast between the bound reading in (i) and its absence in (ii). The four tests given here do not exhaust the inventory of possible probes for a post-predicative subject-object asymmetry, but I believe they do argue rather decisively that such an asymmetry exists. Moreover, they do so irrespective of word order, as shown most clearly in (19–20): in either VOS or VSO sentences, the subject c-commands the object.
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. VP-constituency tests We now turn to constituency tests that directly support the conclusion that predicate-initial structures in St’át’imcets contain a VP-like constituent, which contains the verb and its internal argument but excludes the subject. I know of two such tests: VP ellipsis and VP anaphora with the pro-predicate xílem “do (so)”. I begin with VP ellipsis. St’át’imcets possesses a (hitherto undocumented) ellipsis construction, in which a VP (and only a VP) may be null, as long as an auxiliary verb can license the ‘deletion site’. (The most common such auxiliaries are the aspectual elements cuz’ “going to”, (p)lan “already”, wa7 “imperfective”.) (21) wa7 áma kw=s=Linda múta7 wa7 s=Lisa t’it impf good det=nom=Linda and impf nom=Lisa also “Linda’s doing okay and Lisa is (doing okay), too.” With transitive predicates, VP ellipsis targets the verb and its object, excluding the subject, irrespective of whether the latter is a pronominal clitic, as in (22), or a full DP, as in (23) and (24), and irrespective of the relative order of subject and object. (22) plán=lhkan tsukw-s n-s-7álkst=a múta7 plan already=1sg.su finish-caus 1sg.poss-nmz-work=exis and already s=Lisa t’it nmz=Lisa also “I’ve already finished my work and Lisa has already (finished hers) too.” (23) Upper Dialect (VOS) plan(=Ø) tsúkw-s-as ta=s-7álkst-s=a already(=3su) finish-caus-3erg det=nmz-work-3poss=exis kw=s=Linda múta7 plan s=Lisa t’it det=nmz=Linda and already nmz=Lisa also “Linda’s already finished her work and Lisa already has (finished hers) too.” (24) Lower Dialect (VSO) lan(=Ø) tsúkw-s-as k=Linda already(=3su) finish-caus-3erg det=Linda ti=s-k’wezúsem-s=a múta7 lan s=Lisa t’it det=nmz-work-3poss=exis and already nmz=Lisa also “Linda’s already finished her work and Lisa has already (finished hers) too.” This constitutes prima facie evidence for a constituent consisting of the verb and its internal argument, excluding the external argument.
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This conclusion is reinforced by the behavior of the light verb xílem “do (so)”, which acts, like its English equivalent, as a pro-VP, as shown in (25). (25) t’elkw-ílc kw=s=Tmícus lhel=ta=ts’qáxa7-s=a dismount-aut det=nmz=Tmícus from=det=horse-3poss=exis xíl-em t’it kw=s=Pikáola do-mid also det=nmz=Pikáola “Tmícus got off his horse. Pikáola did so too.” With a transitive verb, xílem substitutes for the verb and its internal argument(s); notice once again that the order of subject and object is irrelevant, as shown by comparing (26) and (27). (26) Upper Dialect (VOS) qús-cit-as aylh ta=sxwel’ácken=a kw=s=Tmícus xíl-em shoot-ind-3erg then det=buck=exis det=nmz=Tmícus do-mid t’it kw=s=Pikáola also det=nmz=Pikáola “Tmícus shot a buck. Pikáola did likewise (i.e., shot another one).” (27) Lower Dialect (VSO) qús-en-as aylh k=Eddie ti=ts’í7=a xíl-em t’it shoot-dir-3erg then det=Eddie det=deer=exis do-mid also k=Ernie det= Ernie “Eddie shot a deer. Ernie did likewise (i.e., shot another one).” To conclude this section: VP-constituency tests provide convincing evidence in St’át’imcets for a constituent consisting of the verb and its internal argument(s), excluding the subject: i.e., VP.
. Interim conclusions Three main conclusions arise from this section. First, in spite of the usual difficulties with applying English-based diagnostics to V-initial systems, there is a clear asymmetry between post-predicative subjects and objects in St’át’imcets, providing evidence for a hierarchical rather than a flat representation. Second, tests that probe directly for VP-constituency support this conclusion, consistently picking out a constituent that includes the verb and its internal arguments, but excludes the subject. Third, for both types of test, the linear order of subject and object is immaterial to their hierarchical relationship. This last conclusion is of course particularly interesting in the case of VSO order, since here the surface constituency of verb and object is disrupted by the subject.8 What this suggests is that whatever
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process is responsible for creating VSO order takes place at a level that has no effect on LF-related phenomena such as anaphora. I will explore the implications of this finding further in Section 5.
. Coordination: A cautionary tale With this background in mind, we now turn to coordination in St’át’imcets. The overall status of coordination in generative grammar is of course perennially problematic, in no small part due to the fact that as a diagnostic for constituency it frequently yields contradictory results. This has led investigators in two different directions. Some have attempted to integrate it into a unified theory of phrase structure, where apparent contradictions result either from multiple proper analyses of the same string (as in Categorial Grammar: see Steedman 1997) or multiple stages of a derivation (as in the left-to-right incremental structure-building model of Phillips 1996, 2003). Others have afforded it special status in terms of ‘parallel structures’ and the like: see e.g. Goodall (1987). However, it is fair to say that no consensus has yet been reached, and the overall uncertainty surrounding the status of coordination has resulted in many researchers who work on issues of configurationality in less studied languages eschewing it altogether. In the V-initial world, a notable exception has been the work of Chung (1990, 1998), who has argued chiefly on the basis of coordination for an unorthodox ‘subject lowering’ analysis of VSO order in Chamorro. A further potential problem, which manifests itself most acutely in languages with null anaphora (such as St’át’imcets), is a systematic ambiguity between sentential and phrasal (specifically, VP) coordination. Take the following sentence, for example: (28) pápt=t’u7 wa7 kelkál-en-as i=ts’í7=a múta7 always=part impf chase-dir-3erg pl.det=deer=exis and kwánen-s-as i=sqweyíts=a be.caught-caus-3erg pl.det=rabbit=exis na=sqaxa7-lhkálh=a abs.det=dog-1pl.poss=exis “Our dog always used to chase deer and catch rabbits.” On one analysis, this is a case of genuine VP coordination with the subject na sqaxa7lhkálha outside the coordinated VP [kelkálenas i ts’í7a] múta7 [kwánensas i sqweyítsa]. On the other, it involves sentential coordination, with a pro subject in the first conjunct [kelkálenas i ts’í7a proi ], coreferent with the subject of the second conjunct, [kwánensas i sqweyítsa na sqaxa7lhkálhai ]. As long as pro is freely available and the conjunction itself does not distinguish sentential from phrasal
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coordination (the conjunction múta7 can be used for either), we seem to have an intractable problem: any potential case of VP coordination can be analyzed alternatively as a case of sentential coordination. In order to circumvent this problem in Chamorro, which, like St’át’imcets, has extensive null anaphora, Chung (1990, 1998) makes use of the generalization that in Chamorro pro must either be preceded or c-commanded by its antecedent. This is captured by the condition on pronominal coreference given in (29): (29) If a pronoun β is coindexed with a nonpronoun α, and β is not preceded by α, then β must be c-commanded by α. (Chung 1990: 595) As Chung (1998: 77–78) points out, neither half of (29) is unique to Chamorro: the c-command condition is a (probably universal) structural condition on bound variable anaphora, while the precedence condition is the Chamorro-specific realization of a general pragmatic ordering principle which holds across sentences as well as within them. English obeys a weaker version of this second principle, where precedence only holds across sentence boundaries, allowing ‘backwards’ anaphora intra-sententially. We can characterize this weaker condition as in (30):9 (30) If a pronoun β is coindexed with a nonpronoun α across a sentence boundary, α must precede β. I will provisionally (but conservatively) adopt this weak version of the precedence condition for St’át’imcets, which will prevent a pronoun (including pro) from preceding its antecedent across a sentence boundary, but will allow intra-sentential backwards anaphora. This will not help us to tell VP coordination apart from sentential coordination when a subject is found in an initial conjunct (as in strings of the form [SVO + VO], [VSO + VO] or [VOS + VO]), since these can still be analyzed as cases of sentential coordination with a null subject in the second conjunct. However, grammatical strings of the form [VO + SVO], [VO + VSO] or [VO + VOS], where the subject appears in a non-initial conjunct, must be analyzed unambiguously as cases of constituent (VP) coordination, since if they were cases of sentential coordination, (30) would be violated. These latter cases thus potentially provide us with the diagnostic tool we need to investigate VP coordination without interference from competing cases of sentential coordination. With this background (and these caveats) in place, we now turn to the relevant St’át’imcets data.
. VP coordination in St’át’imcets I provide VP coordination data here from both the Upper (VOS) and Lower (VSO/SVO) Dialects of St’át’imcets: obviously, examples containing preverbal sub-
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jects are confined to the Lower Dialect. The conjunction múta7, which I employ throughout, is the standard way of coordinating non-sentential constituents, though it can also be used for sentential coordination. (There is no conjunction in St’át’imcets that is only used for non-sentential constituent coordination.) To start with, as we expect, cases with a lexical subject in the first conjunct are uniformly grammatical, since, as pointed out above, they can always be analyzed as involving sentential coordination with an empty (pro) subject in the second conjunct. These include the following: (31) VOS + VO (both dialects): grammatical lh=w=as pipántsek, wa7 [kwanen-s-twítas when=impf=3conj summer impf [be.caught-caus-3pl.erg i=sts’úqwaz’=a i=ucwalmícw=a] múta7 [q’welaw’-en-ítas pl.det=fish=exis pl.det=people=exis and pick.berry-dir-3pl.erg i=mecáoz’=a / i=ús7=a] pl.det=huckleberry=exis] “In the summer, the people catch fish and pick huckleberries.” (mecáoz’ = huckleberry (Lower Dialect), úsa7 = huckleberry (Upper Dialect)) (32) VSO + VO (both dialects): grammatical lh=w=as pipántsek, wa7 [kwanen-s-twítas when=impf=3conj summer impf [be.caught-caus-3pl.erg i=ucwalmícw=a i=sts’úqwaz’=a] múta7 pl.det=people=exis pl.det=fish=exis] and [q’welaw’-en-ítas i=mecáoz’=a / i=ús7=a] [pick.berry-dir-3pl.erg pl.det=huckleberry=exis] “In the summer, the people catch fish and pick huckleberries.” (33) SVO + VO (Lower Dialect only): grammatical lh=w=as pipántsek, i=ucwalmícw=a wa7 when=impf=3sbjv summer pl.det=people=exis impf [kwanen-s-twítas i=sts’úqwaz’=a] múta7 [be.caught-caus-3pl.erg pl.det=fish=exis and [q’welaw’-en-ítas i=mecáoz’=a / i=ús7=a] [pick.berry-dir-3pl.erg pl.det=huckleberry=exis] “In the summer, the people catch fish and pick huckleberries.” Setting these aside, we now turn to the more interesting cases with VO in the first conjunct:
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(34) VO + VOS (both dialects): grammatical lh=w=as pipántsek, wa7 [kwanen-s-twítas when=impf=3 sbjv summer impf [be.caught-caus-3pl.erg i=sts’úqwaz’=a] múta7 [q’welaw’-en-ítas pl.det=fish=exis] and [pick.berry-dir-3pl.erg i=mecáoz’=a / i=ús7=a] i=ucwalmícw=a pl.det=huckleberry=exis] pl.det=people=exis “In the summer, the people catch fish and pick huckleberries.” (35) VO + VSO (both dialects): variable judgments %lh=w=as pipántsek, wa7 [kwanen-s-twítas when=impf=3sbjv summer impf [be.caught-caus-3pl.erg i=sts’úqwaz’=a] múta7 [q’welaw’-en-ítas pl.det=fish=exis] and [pick.berry-dir-3pl.erg i=ucwalmícw=a i=mecáoz’=a / i=ús7=a] pl.det=people=exis pl.det=huckleberry=exis] “In the summer, the people catch fish and pick huckleberries.” (36) VO + SVO (Lower Dialect only): uniformly ungrammatical *lh=w=as pipántsek, wa7 [kwanen-s-twítas when=impf=3sbjv summer impf [be.caught-caus-3pl.erg i=sts’úqwaz’=a] múta7 i=ucwalmícw=a pl.det=fish=exis] and pl.det=people=exis [q’welaw’-en-ítas i=mecáoz’=a / i=ús7=a] [pick.berry-dir-3pl.erg pl.det=huckleberry=exis] “In the summer, the people catch fish and pick huckleberries.” Both the grammaticality of examples like (34) and the ungrammaticality of those like (36) are expected if St’át’imcets has a configurationally defined VP containing the verb and its object and excluding the subject. But the pattern exemplified by (35), which contains the subject apparently embedded inside the VP, should be just as bad as (36). It is not: instead, it gives rise to highly variable acceptability judgments, as you can see from the following additional examples, all from the same (experienced, reliable) Lower St’át’imcets consultant. (37) [áma-s-as ti=n-máw=a] múta7 [qvl-s-ás [good-caus-3erg det=1sg.poss-cat=exis] and [bad-caus-3erg k=John ti=n-sqáx7=a] det=John det=1sg.poss-dog=exis] “John likes my cat and doesn’t like my dog.”
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(38) ?lh=as pipántsek, wa7 [gwats’-an’-ítas when(impf)=3sbjv summer impf [irrigate-dir-3pl.erg i=lep’calten-í=ha] múta7 [kan-an-ítas pl.det=garden-3pl.poss=exis] and [can-dir-3pl.erg i=cw7ít=a úcwalmicw i=plán-a wa7 q’wel pl.det=many=exis people pl.det=already=exis impf ripe s-q’weláw’-i] nmz-pick.berries-3pl.poss] “In summer many people irrigate their gardens and can their already ripe fruit.” Consultant’s comment: “. . . a little weird.” (39) *láku7 cwik’emálhcw-i=ha, wa7 [law-an-ítas there drying.rack-3pl.poss=exis impf [hang-dir-3pl.erg i=kwanen-s-twítas=a sts’úqwaz’] múta7 pl.det=get.caught-caus-3pl.erg=exis fish] and [s-zacen-s-twítas i=cw7ít=a úcwalmicw [sta-carry-caus-3pl.erg pl.det=many=exis people i=plán=a wa7 k’ac-an’-ítas sts’úqwaz’] pl.det=already=exis impf dry-dir-3pl.erg fish] “At their drying racks, the people hang the fish they’ve caught and pack the fish they’ve already dried.” Consultant’s comment: “. . . úcwalmicw in wrong place: no.” It should be emphasized that the variability seen here is confined to [VO + VSO] cases, and is therefore not due to the length or clumsiness of the test sentences; exactly parallel examples with either [VSO + VO] order or [VO + VOS] order are judged uniformly grammatical by the same consultant, and [VO + SVO] examples are judged to be uniformly ungrammatical. What is going on here? At least at first blush, these data seem to support a subject lowering approach to VSO order, as advocated by Chung (1990, 1998) for Chamorro on the basis of parallel data. Under her analysis, the subject is basegenerated in a specifier position to the right of VP, thus automatically deriving VOS order with a conventional, configurationally defined VP. To derive VSO order, the subject lowers to right-adjoin to any projection of V. The resulting structure violates the standard c-command condition on movement dependencies: in order to circumvent this potentially serious problem, Chung assumes that in a subject lowering configuration, an expletive pro rather than a trace occupies the original subject position in the specifier of IP. The resulting structure looks as follows (suppressing irrelevant details):
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(40)
IP I’ I
VP V
V
pro
Object Subject
Chung argues that grammatical cases of [VO + VSO] coordination such as those in (35) and (37) are compatible with a subject lowering analysis but not with alternatives based on either movement of the verb or extraposition of the object.10 Her principal argument is based on the Coordinate Structure Constraint: any attempt to move the verb or the object out of the second conjunct will immediately fall foul of the constraint, whereas moving the subject into the second conjunct will not (see Chung 1998: 133–139 for details).11 Though unorthodox, Chung’s analysis is – to my knowledge – the only one able to handle the VP coordination data in Chamorro without violating the Coordinate Structure Constraint. The fact that St’át’imcets shows similar behavior to Chamorro in coordinate structures, taken together with other syntactic similarities between the two languages – both are predicate initial with flexible post-predicative word order and semantically restricted pre-predicative subjects – strongly suggests that a subject-lowering analysis might work for St’át’imcets as well. But such a conclusion would be premature. To start with, there is a difference in the level of acceptability of [VO + VSO] structures in the two languages. Chung (1998: 134) takes pains to point out that such structures are fully acceptable in Chamorro, and occur in texts as well as in elicited contexts; on the other hand, as I mentioned above, parallel cases in St’át’imcets are variably acceptable and not produced spontaneously. Moreover, it turns out that the variability of the [VO + VSO] cases in St’át’imcets is paralleled by certain other structures, which are clearly cases of sentential coordination. Take a look at the following examples: (41) %tálh-lec, nilh s=súcwt-en-as s=Mary ti=kúkwpi7=a. stand-aut nmz=recognize-dir-3erg nmz=Mary det=chief=exis “Maryi stood up, and then shei recognized the chief.” (Literally: “Shei stood up, and then Maryi recognized the chief.”) (42) %tálh-lec, t’u7 plán=tu7 lháp-en-as ku=cúz’ stand-aut but already=then forget-dir-3erg det=going.to
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s-qwal’út-s s=Mary nom-speak-3poss nom=Mary “Maryi stood up, but shei had already forgotten what she was going to say.” (Literally: “Shei stood up, but Maryi had already forgotten what she was going to say.”) (43) %súcwt-en-as ti=kúkwpi7=a; tálh-lec aylh kw=s=Mary. recognize-dir-3erg det=chief=exis stand-aut then det=nmz=Mary “Maryi recognized the chief; then shei stood up.” (Literally: “Shei recognized the chief; then Maryi stood up.”) The conjunctions nilh “so, then” in (41) and t’u7 “but” in (42) can only link sentences, not sub-sentential constituents; and in (43) we have an apposition of two fully independent sentences, connected only by the sentential adverb aylh “then, next”. These cases are remarkable in that they violate even the weak version of the precedence condition given in (30), in effect permitting cross-sentential backwards anaphora. But if this kind of anaphoric dependence is permitted, then we can no longer be sure that the grammatical cases of [VO + VSO] in St’át’imcets are not also cases of inter-sentential backwards anaphora; recall that the conjunction múta7 can be used either to coordinate sentences or phrases, but there are no conjunctions in St’át’imcets which only coordinate sub-sentential constituents. It is beyond the scope of this paper to investigate inter-sentential backwards anaphora in St’át’imcets in depth, though obviously the topic is of considerable theoretical interest. For the moment, however, let us confine ourselves to the moral we must draw for coordination: in view of the possibility of backwards anaphora across sentence boundaries, the crucial [VO + VSO] coordination cases no longer count as an argument for subject lowering. I now turn to a further set of coordination facts that not only do not support subject lowering, but provide evidence that it cannot be the right way to approach the VOS/VSO alternation in St’át’imcets.
. A further unexpected coordination pattern I will now introduce into the picture a further set of coordination facts from St’át’imcets, which involve an initial clausal (or at least, ‘large VP’) constituent, followed by a second conjunct consisting of a single argument DP. (44) VSO + O: grammatical (both dialects) lh=w=as pipántsek, wa7 kwanen-s-twítas when=impf=3sbjv summer impf get.caught-caus-3pl.erg
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i=ucwalmícw=a [i=zúmak=a] múta7 pl.det=people=exis [pl.det=spring=exis] and [i=láw7=a / i=sxwá7s=a] [pl.det=sockeye=exis] “In the summer, the people catch spring salmon and sockeye salmon.” (láwa7 = sockeye (Lower Dialect), sxwa7s = sockeye (Upper Dialect)) (45) VOS + O: grammatical (both dialects) lh=w=as pipántsek, wa7 kwanen-s-twítas when=impf=3sbjv summer impf get.caught-caus-3pl.erg [i=zúmak=a] i=ucwalmícw=a múta7 [pl.det=spring=exis] pl.det=people=exis and [i=láw7=a / i=sxwá7s=a] [pl.det=sockeye=exis] “In the summer, the people catch spring salmon and sockeye salmon.”12 (46) VSO + S: ungrammatical (both dialects) (!)lh=w=as pipántsek, wa7 kwanen-s-twítas when=impf=3sbjv summer impf get.caught-caus-3pl.erg i=st’át’imc=a [i=zúmak=a] múta7 pl.det=St’át’imc=exis [pl.det=spring=exis] and [i=scwápmec=a] [pl.det=Secwépemc=exis] (!)“In the summer, the St’át’imc catch spring salmon and Secwépemc (Shuswap people).” (Only interpretation.) (47) VOS + S: grammatical (both dialects) lh=w=as pipántsek, wa7 kwanen-s-twítas when=impf=3sbjv summer impf get.caught-caus-3pl.erg i=zúmak=a [i=st’át’imc=a] múta7 pl.det=spring=exis [pl.det=St’át’imc=exis] and [i=scwápmec=a] [pl.det=Secwépemc=exis] “In the summer, the St’át’imc and the Secwépemc catch spring salmon.” (48) SVO + O (Lower Dialect only): grammatical lh=w=as pipántsek, i=st’át’imc=a wa7 when=impf=3sbjv summer pl.det=St’át’imc=exis impf kwanen-s-twítas [i=zúmak=a] múta7 get.caught-caus-3pl.erg [pl.det=spring=exis] and [i=láw7=a] [pl.det=sockeye=exis] “In the summer, the St’át’imc catch spring salmon and sockeye salmon.”
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(49) SVO + S (Lower Dialect only): ungrammatical (!)lh=w=as pipántsek, i=st’át’imc=a wa7 when=impf=3sbjv summer pl.det=St’át’imc=exis impf kwanen-s-twítas [i=láw7=a] múta7 get.caught-caus-3pl.erg [pl.det=sockeye=exis] and [i=scwápmec=a] [pl.det=Secwépemc=exis] (!)“In the summer, the St’át’imc catch sockeyes and Secwépemc.” (Only interpretation.) Most of the data here fall out straightforwardly from ordinary principles of constituent coordination: thus (44) and (48) are cases of object DP coordination, and (47) is a case of subject DP coordination. Conversely, the ungrammaticality of (46) and (49) follows from the fact that in each case a clausal (or, minimally VP) constituent is being coordinated with a single (subject) DP. However, the grammaticality of (45) is unexpected. Moreover, this pattern is also robustly grammatical (though it may be overruled pragmatically by a competing [VOS + S] interpretation). In other words, the variability associated with the [VO + VSO] structures discussed in the previous section is absent, which tells us that these two types of coordination are likely not subject to the same type of explanation. Furthermore, a derivation of sentences like that in (45) via subject lowering is quite implausible, since under such an analysis the subject would not be attached to a projection of V, but to the first conjunct of a coordinated object. In other words, (45) would have to be represented as in (50): (50)
IP I’ I
pro VP
V
Object
Object1 Co
Object2
Object1 Subject
At best, this is an unwelcome extension of subject adjunction to adjoin to any projection, rather than a V-projection.13 Of course, the question then arises as to how we do derive cases of [VOS + O], which for expository purposes I will refer to from here on as ‘right conjunct
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extraposition’, without committing myself to an extraposition analysis (indeed, it seems unlikely to me that movement is involved here at all).14 As a first step towards answering this question, observe that similar structures occur in more familiar languages. The following Dutch examples are from Koster (2000: 15):15 (51) a.
Zij heeft Jan en Peter gezien She has Jan and Peter seen “She has seen Jan and Peter.” b. Zij heeft Jan gezien en Peter She has Jan seen and Peter “She has seen Jan and Peter.”
(51a) exemplifies standard OV ordering in Dutch; (51b) has the right conjunct of the object ‘extraposed’ to a post-verbal position. Koster points out that right conjunct extraposition in Dutch shares many properties with the other rules (or “cluster of research problems” as he puts it) informally characterized as extraposition in the literature, including Heavy NP Shift and Extraposition from NP in English, as well as CP extraposition in Dutch and German. Relevant properties in Dutch include clause-boundedness (‘Right Roof ’ effects), freezing effects (which prevent movement from within an extraposed constituent), ‘Kaan’s Generalization’ (which prevents VP topicalization just in case extraposition has taken place from within the VP), and apparent island violations involving construal of an extraposed constituent with an element embedded inside an NP or PP. Most of these properties also characterize extraposition in English, to which we can add sensitivity to focus and/or prosodic weight, lack of binding or scope effects, and apparent optionality. As far as I can tell – though my conclusions here are tentative – the same generalizations tie together right conjunct extraposition with post-predicative word order alternations in St’át’imcets.16 To start with, both are strictly clause-bounded. This is shown in (52) for post-predicative word order, using two object DPs (see (12) above); the same point could be made with other post-predicative constituents. (52) a.
tsut inátcwas kw=s=Lémya7 kw=s=cuz’ say yesterday det=nmz=Lémya7 det=nmz=gonna úm’-en-as ta=skícza7-s=a ta=ts’lá7=a give-dir-3erg det=mother-3poss=exis det=basket=exis “Lémya7 said yesterday that she will give her mother a basket.” b. tsut kw=s=Lémya7 kw=s=cuz’ úm’-en-as say det=nmz=Lémya7 det=nmz=gonna give-dir-3erg
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ta=skícza7-s=a ta=ts’lá7=a inátcwas det=mother-3poss=exis det=basket=exis yesterday “Lémya7 said that she will give her mother a basket yesterday.” (Consultant’s comment: “That’s the same.”) c. *tsut kw=s=Lémya7 kw=s=cuz’ úm’-en-as say det=nmz=Lémya7 det=nmz=gonna give-dir-3erg ta=skícza7-s=a inátcwas ta=ts’lá7=a det=mother-3poss=exis yesterday det=basket=exis “Lémya7 said she will give her mother yesterday a basket.” (Consultant’s comment: “Not quite clear – doesn’t work because you’re saying she will give it yesterday.”) In these examples, the temporal adjunct inátcwas “yesterday” must be construed with the matrix clause, due to a mismatch with the temporal auxiliary cuz’ “will” in the subordinate clause. This is possible either when inátcwas occupies initial (a) or final (b) positions (the latter is a little more awkward, as in English). However, when an argument of the subordinate clause (the theme DP ta ts’lá7a “a basket”) is shifted over the temporal adjunct, as in (c), anomaly results, since in that case inátcwas can only be construed with the subordinate clause, as is evident from the consultant’s comment. Just as in English, this establishes the clause-boundedness of post-predicative ‘object shift’. Parallel examples are given in (53) for right conjunct extraposition; once again, the adjunct inátcwas must be construed with the main clause, and as (53c) shows, a right conjunct may not be extraposed past it. (53) a.
tsut inátcwas kw=s=Lémya7 kw=s=cuz’ say yesterday det=nmz=Lémya7 det=nmz=gonna úm’-en-as ta=skícza7-s=a múta7 give-dir-3erg det=mother-3poss=exis and ta=kéckec-s=a ta=ts’lá7=a det=older.sister-3poss=exis det=basket=exis “Lémya7 said yesterday that she will give her mother and older sister a basket (each).” b. tsut kw=s=Lémya7 kw=s=cuz’ úm’-en-as say det=nmz=Lémya7 det=nmz=gonna give-dir-3erg ta=skícza7-s=a ta=ts’lá7=a múta7 det=mother-3poss=exis det=basket=exis and ta=kéckec-s=a inátcwas det=older.sister-3poss=exis yesterday “Lémya7 said that she will give her mother and older sister a basket (each) yesterday.”
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c. *tsut kw=s=Lémya7 kw=s=cuz’ úm’-en-as say det=nmz=Lémya7 det=nmz=gonna give-dir-3erg ta=skícza7-s=a ta=ts’lá7=a inátcwas múta7 det=mother-3poss=exis det=basket=exis yesterday and ta=kéckec-s=a det=older.sister-3poss=exis “Lémya7 said that she will give her mother a basket (each) yesterday and her older sister.” (Consultant’s comment: “So that cuz’ means she was going to, and if it was already yesterday she gave it.”) Both post-predicative word order alternations and right conjunct extraposition also show sensitivity to end weight (the ‘heaviness’ effect which gives Heavy NP Shift its name). Consider the following paradigm, from the Upper (VOS) Dialect: (54) Upper Dialect (unmarked VOS): a. cwíl’-en-as [na=zácal’qwem’=a sáma7 sqaycw] seek-dir-3erg [absn.det=tall=exis white man] [kw=s=Gertie] [det=nmz=Gertie] (i) “Gertie was looking for the tall white man.” not (ii)*“The tall white man was looking for Gertie.” b. cwíl’-en-as [kw=s=Gertie] [na=zácal’qwem’=a sáma7 seek-dir-3erg [det=nmz=Gertie] [absn.det=tall=exis white sqaycw] man] (i) “The tall white man was looking for Gertie.” or (ii) “Gertie was looking for the tall white man.” In the (a) sentence, with a ‘heavy’ DP followed by a ‘light’ DP, only an interpretation consonant with the canonical VOS word order (i) is possible; but in the (b) sentence, with a ‘light’ DP followed by a ‘heavy’ DP, either a VOS (i) or a VSO interpretation (ii) is possible. I take this to indicate that the canonical VOS word order always yields a possible interpretation, irrespective of end weight, but a noncanonical (VSO) interpretation is possible just in case the object is ‘heavier’ than the subject. (The exact definition of ‘heavier’ is unimportant for our purposes: I’ll assume here it is equivalent to ‘contains more prosodic words’.)17 Though it is much harder to test, right conjunct extraposition seems to shows a similar sensitivity to prosodic weight, as shown in (55), again from the Upper (VOS) dialect:
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(55) Upper Dialect (unmarked VOS): a. cwil’-en-ítas [ta=zácal’qwem’=a sáma7 sqaycw] seek-dir-3pl.erg [det=tall=exis white man] [i=twéww’eta] múta7 [ta=naplít=a] [pl.det=boy=exis] and [det=priest=exis] (i) ??“The boys were looking for the tall white man and the priest.” (ii) “The boys and the priest were looking for the tall white man.” b. cwil’-en-ítas [ta=naplít=a] [i=twéww’eta] múta7 seek-dir-3pl.erg [det=priest=exis] [pl.det=boy=exis] and [ta=zácal’qwem’=a sáma7 sqaycw] [det=tall=exis white man] (i) “The boys were looking for the priest and the tall white man.” (ii) “The boys and the tall white man were looking for the priest.” In (55a), right conjunct extraposition of the object (i.e., [VOS + O]) is dispreferred relative to subject coordination (i.e. [VOS + S]), as shown in the contrast between the interpretive possibilities in (i) and (ii), respectively. In (55b), with a ‘heavy’ right conjunct, the extraposition option (i) improves relative to the subject coordination option (ii), showing that the ‘weight’ of the conjunct has a significant impact on the relative acceptability of right conjunct extraposition.18 Examination of right conjunct extraposition leads us, then, to the conclusion that post-predicative word order alternations in St’át’imcets show the same profile as ‘extraposition’ dependencies in more familiar languages like Dutch and English. This is a significant result in at least two ways. First – assuming Chung is right about Chamorro – it shows that languages which alternate relatively freely between VSO and VOS order cannot all be derived in the same way. I will explore the typological implications of this finding further in Section 6. Second, it reaffirms the usefulness of coordination data as a probe for configurationality, but in a rather unexpected direction. I’ll briefly consider the methodological implications of this in Section 7. In the meantime, however, there is a big question that I haven’t answered: how exactly are extraposition-type structures derived? I won’t be able to provide anything like a full answer to this question here; instead, in the next section, I’ll confine myself to some remarks on some necessary components of any potential solution, as a way of narrowing down the range of possible answers.
. Some remarks on linearization at the right periphery I’m going to limit myself here to three points that I think must be covered by any adequate theory of ordering on the right periphery.
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First of all, one of the main lessons of right conjunct extraposition – assuming that Koster’s conjecture is correct, and that it should be classified along with other extraposition-type alternations – is that word order variation on the right periphery should not be derived by conventional syntactic movement. The reason is simple: it is generally impossible to move any piece of a coordinate structure without violating the Coordinate Structure Constraint (CSC). Consider the English paradigm in (56): (56) a. b. c. d.
*Who did you see [and John]? *Who did you see [John and]? *Who and did you see [John]? *And who did you see [John]?
The first two cases, involving movement of a coordinated constituent out of a coordinate structure, are familiar CSC violations; the latter two, involving movement of the coordinated constituent together with the conjunction itself, though less familiar, are equally ghastly. Now notice that (56d) is the mirror image of rightward conjunct extraposition, which is at worst awkward and at best fully grammatical in English: (57) (?)I saw [John] yesterday in the park [and his older sister]. Clearly, completely different conditions apply to rightward than to leftward (movement) dependencies in English (and Dutch, and St’át’imcets, and – it is not too presumptuous to claim – universally). This is not news. The claim has been made repeatedly in the literature on rightward dependencies: see Koster (2000) for a cogent review of the relevant literature and arguments. It’s also worth reiterating (as Koster does) that these differences remain unaccounted for under a Kayneian (1994) remnant movement reanalysis of rightward dependencies. This particular linear asymmetry seems fundamental to the design of natural language. Second, the particular cluster of properties that characterizes rightward dependency in St’át’imcets (or, to put it more neutrally, linearization at the right periphery) strongly suggests that it should be placed on the PF rather than the LF side of the grammar. This is obvious for factors such as prosodic weight, which cannot be characterized in syntactic or semantic terms; but it is equally motivated by the absence of LF effects associated with right-peripheral linearization in St’át’imcets, where LF-related phenomena (strong and weak crossover, superiority, bound variable anaphora and VP ellipsis) point unambiguously towards the existence of a VP constituent, which may be obscured at the surface by PF linearization processes.19 Third – and this is in some ways an obvious point, but for that very reason overlooked – the phenomena we have been looking at – in St’át’imcets, with strongly V-initial syntax, in English, with verb-medial order, and in Dutch with
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(surface) verb-final order – exclusively affect postverbal (or more broadly postpredicative) elements. Again, this finding is particularly striking in St’át’imcets, where we can compare preverbal and postverbal subjects. Whereas with preverbal subjects linear position correlates strictly with height in the tree (as in English), this is not true of postverbal subjects, as we have seen: postverbally, linearization sometimes obscures hierarchical relations – and in cases of right conjunct extraposition, even basic constituency relations. Assuming they accurately characterize the phenomena under discussion, these three points have an obvious impact on the kind of analysis that will ultimately lead to an explanatory account of right-peripheral linearization. As Koster indicates, the first point effectively rules out conventional movement accounts, as well as their inverse Kayneian counterparts. The second suggests that only theories with a strong division of labor between LF and PF (or their equivalents) are liable to provide satisfying explanations for linearization at the right periphery in St’át’imcets. And the third suggests that the position of the main predicate is decisive in delimiting the right periphery from the rest of the clause. What kind of theory is going to capture these generalizations? As far as I can see, nothing currently on the market. As already pointed out, conventional movement analyses won’t do the job. It is also fairly easy to see that any theory which results in a strict ‘cascade’ type of structure for post-predicative constituents (such as the top-down incremental structure-building model of Phillips 1996, 2003) will fall foul of VOS structures in which the subject c-commands the object (as in Upper St’át’imcets). Koster’s (2000) solution, involving an extreme generalized form of pied piping in which right conjunct extraposition is derived by moving everything else in the sentence into the specifier of the extraposed conjunct, along with the first conjunct, certainly derives the problematic examples; but it is hard to see how it can avoid overgenerating wildly, without a supplementary theory of constraints on pied piping. Other more radical alternatives, such as enriched Categorial Grammar (Steedman 1997), also encounter a potential problem with overgeneration. I will simply leave the issue open here for future work.
. Typological implications Another obvious question that arises from the analysis here is whether the St’át’imcets system has any counterparts elsewhere (at least, outside its close relatives in the Salish family). At least provisionally, the answer is yes: Maori, as described by Bauer (1993) and subsequently discussed by Chung (1998: 164–169) seems to fit the description. Like Chamorro (and a substantial proportion of other verb-initial systems), Maori has flexible VOS/VSO word order. It differs from
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Chamorro, however, in that word order flexibility is not confined to clauses containing [+V] predicates (i.e., verbs and adjectives) but cuts across the full range of possible predicates, including nouns and prepositions. Moreover, in clauses consisting of complex nominal predicates (such as those where the noun is modified by a complement-taking adjective) the subject can intervene between subconstituents of the predicate (such as between the adjective and its clausal complement).20 As Chung points out, this makes both a predicate raising analysis and a subject lowering analysis untenable for Maori (the first because a non-constituent would have to move, the second because the adjunction site would have to be a non-constituent). But this kind of structure bears a strong resemblance to extraposition configurations, which is exactly how Bauer (1993: 245) derives them (more precisely, via Heavy NP Shift). By extension, other cases of predicate-subject-other word order are derived by extraposition as well (or rather, show an extrapositiontype profile, since extraposition is unlikely to be a case of conventional syntactic movement, as pointed out above). If such an analysis is on the right track, we might expect to find further characteristics of right peripheral linearization in Maori: notably end weight effects. This also seems to be the case. Chung (1998: 170–171) identifies three factors that govern linearization on the right periphery in Maori: (a) pronouns precede nonpronouns; (b) agents precede non-agents; and (c) subjects precede non-subjects. The first of these plausibly involves prosodic weight: pronouns are typically the lightest possible nominal constituents. In fact, Bauer’s analysis of Maori VSO order as Heavy NP Shift explicitly embraces this possibility. Though Chung points out that VSO order in Maori is possible even when the extraposed constituent is not particularly heavy (in fact, VSO order is ‘unmarked’), notice that we have to allow either VSO or VOS to represent the ‘canonical’ order in any case (both are attested in different dialects of St’át’imcets, as we have already seen). Thus for languages such as Maori and Lower St’át’imcets with an unmarked VSO order, we expect a ‘heaviness effect’ only with VOS order (the object should be relatively heavier than the subject); for languages with unmarked VOS order, on the other hand, it will be VSO clauses which show a heaviness effect, as we have already seen in Upper St’át’imcets. As far as I can see on the basis of limited data, this makes the correct predictions for Maori. I began this paper by referring to some of the recent literature on predicateinitial systems, which suggests that they do not form a uniform class. Chung herself states this view quite eloquently: . . . VSO languages do not, after all, constitute a syntactically homogeneous language type. Rather, each route to VSO-hood is a route to a distinctive clausestructure, whose individuality makes itself felt in a broad array of syntactic patterns. (Chung 1998: 170)
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What is not yet established, however, is the extent of the variation. There is an understandable tendency in the literature to attempt to rescue universal typological generalizations concerning word order by recasting them along parametric lines in the ‘macroparametric’ tradition of Baker (1996). The most obvious recent manifestation of this tendency in the V-initial literature is the ‘verb-raising versus predicate-raising’ dichotomy, largely derived from a comparison of (wellstudied) Celtic languages (Irish, Welsh, etc.) with (comparatively well-studied) Malayo-Polynesian systems (e.g. Malagasy, Niuean). One of Chung’s major contributions to this debate is the postulation of at least two other routes to VSO-hood: subject-lowering, as exemplified by Chamorro, and ‘extraposition’, as exemplified by Maori. In this section, I have suggested that St’át’imcets (and I suspect, most other Salish languages) are of the ‘extraposition’ type. Should we be worried by the plethora of different structures and derivations that characterize verb-initial syntax? I’m not sure. I think the question ultimately depends on whether the language learner has sufficient evidence in the Primary Linguistic Data to sort out the various possibilities, which in turn depends on the exact learning triggers for each type of verb-initial system. In the meantime, there is a pressing empirical task now ahead of us as we explore the limits of variation in V-initial systems, which are certainly understudied compared to verb-medial and verb-final systems, and which are disproportionately represented by endangered indigenous languages with a diminishing number of speakers.
. Methodological implications Finally, I’m going to return to the question of how the three types of diagnostic test I have employed (those based on subject-object asymmetries, VP-anaphora, and coordination) relate to each other and to the architecture of the clause in Vinitial systems. As far as the first two types of test are concerned, the results are quite satisfying: we can claim with a measure of confidence that tests for subject-object asymmetries and tests based on VP anaphora (including ellipsis) mesh well in St’át’imcets, producing a coherent picture of clausal structure that unambiguously supports the existence of a VP constituent. This is a significant and welcome result. The picture is murkier when seen through the lens of coordination data. This is partly because of obscuring factors – in particular, the difficulties attendant on sorting out clausal from phrasal coordination in languages with null anaphora – but also because the status of coordination itself is still very much in question. This having been said, however, I think the preceding discussion shows that coordination can still be an effective diagnostic tool, as long as we recognize that it is
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probably not diagnosing the same level of structure as tests based on c-command. Instead, I have suggested that it patterns together with various ‘extraposition’type processes that access the syntax-prosody interface – or at least, a level of the grammar that does not directly feed semantic interpretation. These processes are characteristic of the right periphery, a zone whose properties differ rather markedly from those of the rest of the clause, and which I suspect will become increasingly important in the investigation of V-initial systems, which, after all, often consist of an initial head followed by a lengthy right peripheral ‘tail’. One obvious moral that emerges from the data reported here is the need to investigate coordination more systematically in more verb-initial languages. Chung’s pioneering work on the subject aside, we currently lack standards of comparison: we do not know the range of possible coordinate structures in V-initial systems, whether they are typologically distinct, and whether they yield results at odds with other types of constituency test. This problem is not unique to coordination, though I do think the special status of coordination throws it into particularly sharp focus. As I hinted at the beginning of the paper, it forms part of a larger issue of selective attention. Too often – though, encouragingly, as the field matures, progressively less so – the theorist examining V-initial languages is tempted to select exactly those tests which yield consistent and theoretically satisfying results – or sometimes, to be honest, those tests which yield any results at all – leaving the messy residue to future work. However, in doing so, we risk producing a permanently distorted picture of V-initial grammar. Let me end, then, with a call to both broaden and narrow our cross-linguistic investigation of V-initial systems. As far as breadth is concerned we need to cover as full a range of syntactic constructions in each language under comparison as possible, in order to avoid the problem of selectivity referred to above. But at the same time, we need to narrow our focus so that rather than creating a distorted, composite picture of ‘V-initial syntax’ or ‘V-initial parameters’ we build up as detailed a picture of individual V-initial systems as possible. Only in this way, I believe, can we altogether avoid the danger of mistaking a partial formalization of surface typology for a genuine cross-linguistic syntax.
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Appendix Conversion chart from St’át’imcets practical orthography to standard Americanist phonemic script
orthography
phonemic
orthography
phonemic
p p’ m m’ t ts ts’ s n n’ t’ lh l l’ k k’ kw k’w c cw q q’ qw q’w
p p’ m ’ m t cˇ , c c’ š, s n n’ λ’
x x r r’ g g’ gw g’w h w w’ y y’ z z’ 7 a ao e v i ii u o
xˇ xˇ w
S l l’ k k’ kw k’ w x xw q q’ qw q’ w
? ?ã ’ ’’ ’w ’’w h w w’ y y’ z z’
‘ æ α
6 %
i e u o
The consonants [ts], [ts’], [s], [l], [l’] have retracted variants represented orthographically by an underscore.
Notes * Thanks to St’át’imcets consultants Beverley Frank, Gertrude Ned, Laura Thevarge and Agnes Rose Whitley, whose collective patience has been sorely tried by the elicitation necessary to write this paper. I would also like to thank the organizers and participants of the Arizona V-Initial Workshop, particularly Andrew Carnie and Heidi Harley, two anonymous reviewers, Lisa Matthewson, and Hamida Demirdache, with whom I have been jointly
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conducting a much interrupted examination of word order and constituency issues in St’át’imcets; the current paper would have been much better had she co-authored it. Finally, I would like to acknowledge the Upper St’át’imc Language Authority and the Upper St’át’imc Language, Culture, and Education Society for permission to use data collected while writing my teaching grammar of Upper St’át’imcets, and to SSHRCC grant #410-98-1597, which after five productive years is finally gracefully expiring: this is its last gasp. . This issue arose several times at the Arizona V-initial Workshop where this paper was originally presented, and was addressed explicitly by Andrew Carnie in his closing remarks. . Examples are given in the van Eijk Practical Orthography in common use by speakers, teachers and linguists working on St’át’imcets. A conversion chart to Standard Americanist phonemic script is given in the Appendix. . An alternative view of the One Nominal Interpretation Effect (proposed in Davis 1994b and elsewhere) derives it from a default mapping of the primary discourse topic (normally represented by pro) to the subject position. . From here on, I will mark examples specifically for dialect where there are relevant differences; otherwise, assume the two dialects behave identically for the purposes of this paper. . There is a very slight preference for the goal argument in double object structures to precede the theme, as reported by van Eijk (1997: 229), but speakers of both dialects freely produce both orders. Note also that in St’át’imcets (as elsewhere in Salish) it is generally the goal that receives accusative case/agreement marking in double object structures, not the theme (see Davis & Matthewson 2003). . I will for the most part set aside SVO structures here, since (i) subject-initial structures are largely confined to the Lower dialect and (ii) it is easy to show that the subject asymmetrically c-commands the object in these structures: see Davis (1999) for details. . I ignore here the issue of adjunct-argument asymmetries, which have received much attention in Salish linguistics due to the influence of the Pronominal Argument Hypothesis (Jelinek & Demers 1994; Jelinek 1995); see also Baker (1996). Suffice it to say that the adjunct-argument distinction is well established in St’át’imcets: arguments for an adjunctargument asymmetry include adjunct island/CED effects, weak island effects, the existence of five distinct NP-movement rules, the existence of overt infinitivals, and intra-clausal Condition C effects. See Davis, Gardiner and Matthewson (1993), Gardiner, Matthewson and Davis (1993), Matthewson, Davis and Gardiner (1993), Davis (1994a), Davis (2001). . A reviewer points out that an assortment of clitics (including subject pronouns) also frequently separate the verb from the direct object. However, clitics behave differently than full DPs: they obligatorily attach to the first predicative element in a clause, which is more often than not a pre-predicative auxiliary. In contrast, full DP subjects normally remain in post-predicative position even when auxiliaries are present. Thus, whatever mechanism or mechanisms account for clitic placement, they are separate from the principles which account for the ordering of full DPs; which means in turn that VSO order with full DP’s still poses its own challenges for the configurationality of VP. . Obviously, the c-command part of (31) will be irrelevant in inter-sentential contexts.
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Coordination and constituency in St’át’imcets (Lillooet Salish) . Exactly the same arguments can be made against a Kayneian ‘anti-extraposition’ analysis with multiple remnant movement to the left; in the cases under consideration, it turns out that the Kayneian alternative is a complicated notational variant of the extraposition analysis. . A reviewer correctly points out that though Chung’s analysis escapes the CSC on a technicality (by moving into a conjunct rather than out of it), in fact it is also crashingly bad to insert anything into either conjunct of a coordinate structure; this casts some doubt on the overall validity of the subject lowering analysis. . Note there is also a pragmatically disfavored [VOS + S] interpretation for this sentence, i.e., “In the summer, the people and the sockeye salmon catch spring salmon.” . At the Arizona V-initial Workshop Jim McCloskey suggested the following way of rescuing the subject lowering hypothesis: beginning with a coordinate VP in a VOS clausal structure, first lower the subject to adjoin to the verb of the initial conjunct of the VP; then, do across-the-board verb raising (leaving two remnant VPs). Ingenious though it is, this hypothesis has fatal flaws. In particular, the combination of across-the-board verb movement and subject lowering overgenerates ungrammatical strings of the form *[VO + SO], derived from a [VO +VSO] structure (with the subject right adjoined to the lowest verb projection) via across the board verb raising. . Heidi Harley offers a further movement-based alternative, based on the following assumptions: (i) underlying VOS order, with the subject generated as the rightward specifier of little vP; (ii) across-the-board verb movement to I (as in the McCloskey solution discussed in Note 13); and (iii) a pro subject in the second conjunct. The problem with this account is that it will also automatically generate strings of the form [VOS + OS] unless prodrop is made obligatory. But such strings are crashingly bad, and there is no independent motivation for obligatory pro-drop in this structure. . English also allows right conjunct extraposition, though for many speakers, there is an obligatory intonation break before the extraposed conjunct: (i)
I talked to Martina yesterday, and her gaggle of students.
There are two ways to interpret this. The first is to assimilate right conjunct extraposition to other extraposition rules in English (e.g., Extraposition from NP, Heavy NP Shift), which also obligatorily create a new Intonation Phrase (see Shiobara 2004). This is the position advocated here. An alternative is to treat right conjunct extraposition as a form of right dislocation. The latter seems implausible: right dislocation leaves a pronominal copy, is unbounded and insensitive to island constraints, and is semantically restricted to ‘specific’ DPs; none of these properties characterize right conjunct extraposition. . St’át’imcets also has a process of extraposition from NP involving relative clauses and prepositional phrases, which behaves remarkably like its English counterpart (and therefore, also like right conjunct extraposition). In particular, it is clause-bounded, sensitive to prosodic weight, and shows reconstruction effects. I omit discussion of extraposition here for reasons of space. . As far as I can see, the inverse generalization characterizes the VSO/VOS alternation in the Lower Dialect, as expected: that is, VSO occurs with either a ‘light’ or a ‘heavy’ object,
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but VOS is dispreferred with a ‘light’ subject. This conclusion is tentative, however: more work is needed here. . Note that the other characteristic property of rightward dependencies in English, including right conjunct extraposition – that is, their sensitivity to focus – is conspicuously absent in St’át’imcets. This need not trouble us, however: St’át’imcets does not convey focus through prosodic prominence at all, and as long as we assume that the focus effect in English is actually a weight effect (focused elements, being accented, count as prosodically ‘heavy’), then the absence of a focus effect in St’át’imcets post-predicative word order alternations simply follows from the fact that it does not realize focus prosodically. (See Shiobara 2004 for evidence that Heavy NP Shift in English is directly sensitive to prosodic weight, and only indirectly sensitive to focus.) . It is less clear in English, German and Dutch whether right-peripheral linearization processes feed LF or not. On the one hand, it has frequently been argued that tests based on c-command (including bound variable anaphora, negative polarity, and reflexive and reciprocal binding) all converge on a strictly right-branching structure for VP-internal constituents, including direct and indirect objects and both argument and adjunct PPs. This is the inspiration for Larson’s (1988) VP-shells, Pesetsky’s (1995) cascade structures, and Phillips’ (1996, 2003) operation of Merge Right. Since phenomena sensitive to c-command are clearly relevant to LF, this suggests that ordering of VP-internal material in English must take place prior to spell out, and therefore cannot be confined to the PF interface. On the other hand, it has been argued that operations such as Heavy NP-Shift show a ‘reconstructing’ profile: that is, at the LF interface they act as though they were in their canonical VP-internal argument position rather than their surface location adjoined to the VP periphery (for the latter assumption, see Rochemont & Culicover 1997). Chung (1998: 148) gives the following examples in support of this claim, which directly challenge a uniform right branching analysis for all c-command sensitive constituency relations on the right periphery: (i)
I returned to itsi sender [every unsolicited advertisement that I received]i .
(ii) Kate should never have placed next to each otheri [two guests who were so difficult to interact with]i . Untangling the web of contradictory claims and assumptions that lead to both ‘layered’ and ‘cascade’ type analyses of the right periphery in English is well beyond the scope of this article, though I strongly suspect we must distinguish two rather different types of dependency: on the one hand, the uniformly right-branching cascade structures which characterize VPinternal constituents; and on the other, ‘extraposition’ type structures (including Heavy NP Shift, extraposition, and post-verbal subjects), which belong on the right periphery and show reconstruction effects and a more ‘layered’ syntactic profile. . There are no transitive adjectives in Salish, so the Maori facts cannot be replicated in St’át’imcets. Word order possibilities for complex non-verbal predicates remain underinvestigated, however, so it is possible that similar contrasts may come to light in the future.
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Two derivations of VSO A comparative study of Niuean and Tongan* Yuko Otsuka University of Hawai‘i at M¯anoa
Comparing two Polynesian languages, Niuean and Tongan, this study shows that VSO order arises due to different reasons even in closely related languages: VP-remnant movement to the specifier of TP in Niuean and V-to-C movement in Tongan. I argue that T’s EPP feature is [D] in Tongan rather than [Pred] (Otsuka 2001, 2002a, b; cf. Massam 2000, 2001a). This leads to a conclusion that verb-initial order in Tongan arises as a result of V-to-T-to-C movement. The absence of the relevant phenomena in Niuean corroborates the view that T’s EPP feature is not [D] in Niuean. The implication of the current study is that not all instances of VSO can be accounted for in a uniform fashion. Rather, there are at least two, and possibly more, factors that give rise to VSO order.
.
Introduction
As VSO languages are found in a range of diachronically unrelated language families, one naturally wonders if VSO order is uniformly the result of a single parameter setting. Assuming that there is such a thing as a VSO parameter (or more generally, V-initial parameter), should we assume that there is only one factor that gives rise to the linear order VSO? A number of approaches have been proposed in the literature as to how to derive VSO order in various languages. The very early proposal by Emonds (1980) is that verb-initial word order is a consequence of verb raising to C similar to that of V2 languages. McCloskey (1996) argues against the V-to-C analysis for Irish showing that in Irish V is not in C, but instead at the edge of IP. Many others support the V to I raising hypothesis (Sproat 1985; Guilfoyle, Hung, & Travis 1992 among others).1 Another approach holds that verb-initial order is a result of remnant VP movement rather than head movement (Lee 2000a; Massam 2000a and 2001a; Massam & Smallwood 1997; Rackowski & Travis 2000). Some others have proposed that
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VSO order arises due to subject lowering (Choe 1987; Chung 1990).2 Thus, there seems to be no consensus on the existence of a single VSO parameter. In this chapter, I argue that not all instances of VSO can be attributed to the same factor and that there exist at least two mechanisms by which VSO is derived. The current study compares Niuean and Tongan, two closely related Polynesian languages of the Tongic subgroup. Despite their surface similarity, there is evidence to suggest that a VSO sequence arises due to different reasons in Niuean and Tongan. In Niuean, it is a consequence of VP-remnant movement, as proposed by Massam (2000a, 2001a). In Tongan, VSO arises due to V-to-C movement (Otsuka 2000). Given that the superficially identical constituent orders require two different accounts in two very closely related languages, we are led to conclude that VSO order is a result of various different factors rather than a single parameter. The chapter is organized as follows. In Section 2, Niuean data and Massam’s (2000a, 2001a) predicate fronting analysis are discussed. Section 3 presents some Tongan facts that are similar to Niuean. In Section 4, we discuss some syntactic phenomena in which Tongan behaves differently from Niuean. These facts support Otsuka’s (2000) V-to-C raising analysis of Tongan VSO. In Section 5, some apparent problems for the current analysis are discussed. These include the fact that Tongan is similar to Niuean with respect to non-verbal predicates and pseudo noun-incorporation, which Massam (2000a, 2001a) claims to be evidence for the VP-remnant movement. I argue that these similarities are only superficial and the facts in question are in fact compatible with the V-to-C raising analysis. Section 5 concludes the chapter.
. Niuean facts and the predicate fronting analysis Let us first look at some syntactic characteristics of Niuean that led Massam (2000a, 2001a) to conclude that VSO in this language arises due to VP-remnant movement. Like many other Polynesian languages, word order is VSO in Niuean with V preceded by a Tense/Aspect/Mood marker (TAM). Case marking is ergative. An NP’s Case is indicated by a Case marker: for common nouns, e if abs and he if erg; for proper nouns, a if abs and e if erg. See (1) below. (1) a.
Ne tohitohi a Sione. pst writing abs Sione “Sione was writing.” b. Ne inu e Sione e kofe. pst drink erg Sione abs coffee “Sione drank coffee.”
(Massam 2001a: 155)
(Massam 2000a: 98)
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Two derivations of VSO
c.
Ne kai he pusi ia e moa. pst eat erg cat that abs bird “The cat ate the chicken”
(Seiter 1980: 29)
Based on the evidence concerning non-verbal predicates and the phenomenon she calls pseudo noun-incorporation (PNI), Massam (2000a, 2001a) argues that the verb-initial order in Niuean arises due to VP (remnant) movement to the specifier of IP. Niuean clauses are consistently predicate-initial regardless of the lexical category of the predicate phrase. Thus, NP predicates as well as PP predicates occur sentence-initially followed by an abs-marked NP, as shown in (2) below.3 (2) a.
Ko Mele e faiaoga. pred Mele abs teacher “The teacher is Mele.” b. h¯a he fale gagao a ia. pred in house sick abs she “She is in the hospital.”
(Massam 2000a: 104)
(Seiter 1980: 54)
Note that neither construction contains a lexical item that functions as a copula.4 Thus, presumably, the predicate NP/PP occupies the same position as a verb does in a VSO construction. Note also that in the sentences in (2) a predicate marker occurs sentence initially instead of a regular TAM. Massam (2000a, 2001a) argues that if we assume that the order VSO is derived by V-to-I head movement, we would have to postulate two rules in order to accurately capture the predicateinitial nature of Niuean: one involving head (V-) movement for VSO and the other involving maximal projection (XP) movement for NP/PP predicates. As a theory, it would be more elegant if we could postulate a single rule that accounts for both types of constructions. In other words, why don’t we have a predicate fronting rule that moves a maximal projection to the sentence-initial position? Massam’s (2000a, 2001a) argument goes as follows. Niuean is a predicate fronting language in which T’s EPP feature is [Pred(icate)] unlike subject fronting languages in which T’s EPP feature is generally taken to be [D]. Hence the target position of this predicate raising is the specifier of IP just like the movement of the subject NP to the specifier of IP is triggered by T’s EPP feature. One of the reasons why Massam claims that the target position is the specifier position rather than Infl is because the movement in question is an XP movement so that the Head Movement Constraint (Travis 1984) is observed.5 Pursuing the XP movement approach, we come across the following question. If it is VP that moves, why does the direct object appear after the subject rather than immediately following the verb? Although the VP-movement analysis predicts VOS, the actual order is VSO, as shown above. Massam (2000a, 2001a) argues that
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this is because the object NP has moved out of the VP for Case checking prior to the VP raising. In Massam’s model, VP is a complement of a K head, abs of AbsP, which in turn is a complement of v. The complement of V raises to the specifier of AbsP in order to check its Case. The predicate XP movement applies after this Case checking and raises the remnant of VP, leaving behind the object NP. See (3) below (adopted from Massam 2000a: 108). (3)
IP VPj V
I’ ti
íP
Infl
í’
DP í [+]
DPi
AbsP Abs’ [+]
tj
The PNI facts provide further evidence to support the remnant VP movement analysis. PNI in Niuean is illustrated in (4) below. (4) a.
Ne inu kofe kono a Mele. pst drink coffee bitter abs Mele “Mary drank bitter coffee.” (Massam 2000a: 98) b. Ne holoholo kapiniu kiva fakaenene a Sione. pst wash dish dirty carefully abs Sione “Sione washed dirty dishes carefully.” (Massam 2000a: 106)
In (4) the object NP immediately follows the verb and occurs without a Case marker. Furthermore, the agent subject is not marked as erg as expected of the subject of a transitive verb. Rather, it is marked as abs. These morphological facts seem to suggest (a) that the sentences in (4) are syntactically intransitive and (b) that the object NP is incorporated. The latter point is problematic, however, since what is incorporated is apparently more than just a noun head. Notice the adjectival modification of the object noun in (4a) and (4b). Noun incorporation as a syntactic process is generally assumed to be restricted to heads (Baker 1988).6 Massam (2001a) thus proposes that such a VOS construction arises as a result of VP movement when the object is generated as an NP rather than a DP. Being an NP, it lacks Case and consequently, it does not need to move out of VP for Case
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Two derivations of VSO
checking. Hence it remains inside VP and undergoes VP movement. See (5) below (adopted from Massam 2000a: 107). (5)
IP VPi V
I’ NP
Infl
AbsP DP
Abs’ [+]
ti
To summarize, Massam (2000a, 2001a) presents the following evidence to support her analysis that the V-initial orders (both VSO and VOS) arise in Niuean due to the predicate raising to the specifier of IP: (a) non-verbal predicates appear in the same position as verbs, indicating that they also undergo similar raising; and (b) PNI can involve more than just a noun head, suggesting that it cannot be an instance of NI in the usual sense.
. Tongan facts that are similar to Niuean On the surface, Tongan is strikingly similar to Niuean in a number of ways. First, the basic word order is VSO. Second, Case marking is ergative: abs is marked by ‘a and erg, by ‘e.7, 8 See (6) below. (6) a.
Na‘e tangi ‘a Sione. pst cry abs Sione “Sione cried.” b. Na‘e ma‘u ‘e Sione ‘a e ika. pst get erg Sione abs the fish “Sione got the fish.”
Third, non-verbal predicates appear without a copula and before the subject, as illustrated in (7) below. Note also that nominal predicates are preceded by ko just like in Niuean.9 (7) a.
Ko e faiako ‘a Mele. pred the teacher abs Mele “Mele is a teacher.”
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b. ‘Oku ‘i Tonga ‘a Sione. pres in Tonga abs Sione “Sione is in Tonga.” Finally, a phenomenon resembling PNI in Niuean also exists in Tongan. (8) a.
Na‘e inu kava malohi ‘a e kau siana. pst drink kava strong abs the pl man “The men drank alcohol.” b. Na‘e fufulu ipu ‘a Mele. pst wash cup abs Mele “Mele washed dishes.”
As shown in (8) above, some transitive verbs can occur in an intransitive construction with the patient argument occurring immediately after the verb and without an article or a Case marker. Note also that in (8a) “incorporation” involves more than just a noun head. Given these facts, it appears that Massam’s (2000a, 2001a) predicate raising analysis applies to Tongan as well. I argue, however, that the predicate raising analysis fails to account for some other important syntactic properties of Tongan.
. The V-raising analysis and Tongan facts that are different from Niuean While there are striking similarities between Tongan and Niuean, the two languages differ from each other with respect to some fundamental syntactic phenomena. I argue that the crucial difference between the two languages is that in Tongan, T’s EPP-feature is [D], and not [Pred] as in Niuean. This difference leads to the different derivations of VSO. Specifically, I propose that V-initial orders in Tongan arise due to V-to-C raising rather than the general predicate raising to the specifier of IP.10 There are two pieces of evidence to support this view: (a) the distribution of clitic pronouns and (b) scrambling.11
. Clitic pronouns and T’s EPP feature Let us first consider the nature of pronouns in the two languages. In Niuean, pronouns are independent lexical items. They occur in the position designated for nouns and are always marked by a Case marker. (9) a.
Ne tala aga e ia e tala ke he tagata. pst tell dir.3 erg he abs story to prt man “He told the story to the man.” (Massam 2000a: 98)
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Two derivations of VSO
b. Ne tagi a ia. pst cry abs she “She cried.”
(Massam 2000a: 99)
Tongan, on the other hand, has two sets of pronouns, independent and clitic. The independent pronouns behave like those in Niuean: they occur in the position designated for nouns and are always marked by a Case marker if they occur as arguments. (10) a.
Na‘e tala-ange ‘e ia ‘a e talanoa ki he tangata. pst tell-dir.3 erg he abs the story to the man “He told the story to the man.” b. Na‘e tangi ‘a ia. pst cry abs he “She cried.”
It should be noted, however, that such a use of independent pronouns is very rare in Tongan, particularly as subjects. When an independent pronoun is used as a subject, it usually has an emphatic interpretation. Instead, a set of clitic pronouns is generally used for subjects. (11) a.
Na‘a ne tala-ange ‘a e talanoa ki he tangata. pst 3.sg tell-dir.3 abs the story to the man “He told the story to the man.” b. Na‘a ne tangi. pst 3.sg cry “She cried.”
Note that the clitic pronoun ne in (11) precedes the verb unlike any other NP’s. Note also that clitic pronouns cannot co-occur with a Case marker, nor can they occur in the post-verbal position with or without a Case marker. See (12) and (13) below. (12) a. *Na‘a pst b. *Na‘a pst
‘e erg ‘a abs
ne 3.sg ne 3.sg
tala-ange ‘a e talanoa ki he tangata. tell-dir.3 abs the story to the man tangi. cry
(13) a. *Na‘e pst b. *Na‘e pst c. *Na‘e pst
tala-ange ‘e ne ‘a e talanoa ki he tangata. tell-dir.3 erg 3.sg abs the story to the man tangi ‘a ne. cry abs 3.sg tangi ne. cry 3.sg
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Furthermore, clitic pronouns cannot be used as objects, as illustrated in (14) below. (14) *Na‘a ne puke ‘e Sione. pst 3.sg arrest erg Sione “Sione arrested him.” The above data show that clitic pronouns in Tongan have the following characteristics: (a) they must precede the verb; (b) they cannot co-occur with a Case marker; and (c) they cannot occur as objects. The distributional and phonological facts suggest that these pronouns are clitics attached to the tense marker. First, these preverbal pronouns are in complementary distribution with full NP’s, as shown in (15) below. (15) *Na‘a ne tangi ‘a Sione. pst 3.sg cry abs Sione “Sione cried.” This strongly suggests that they are not agreement morphemes. Second, there is also evidence that a clitic pronoun and a tense marker form a single phonological unit. In Tongan, stress falls on the penultimate mora. Thus, a two-moraic tense marker such as ‘oku has stress on the first vowel. However, when it is followed by a mono-moraic clitic pronoun, the stress shifts to the second vowel: *‘óku ne, but ‘okú ne. This suggests that a tense marker and a clitic pronoun form a single unit to which the stress rule applies.12 Note that the distribution of clitic pronouns shows an accusative pattern, which raises a problem since Case marking is otherwise ergative in Tongan. Otsuka (2001) proposes the following account for this apparent morphological split. Cliticization, being movement, is subject to the economy conditions: namely, Last Resort and the Minimal Link Condition (MLC) (Chomsky 1995). Based on the evidence mentioned above, it is assumed that clitic pronouns in Tongan are heads and adjoin to T as a result of head movement. Otsuka (2001) argues that this cliticization must be licensed by feature checking (Last Resort), specifically, that of T’s EPP feature, which is claimed to be [D].13 The MLC in turn requires that T’s EPP feature be checked by the closest matching feature. When a clitic is generated as a direct object, cliticization is blocked, due to the MLC, as the subject NP is closer to T than the clitic.14 Instead, Agree holds between T and the subject and as a result, the latter moves to the specifier of TP.
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Two derivations of VSO
(16)
TP T’ T
P í’
DP *
í
VP V
CL
In sum, the distribution of clitic pronouns suggests that T’s EPP feature is [D] rather than [Pred] in Tongan and that it is strong. Accordingly, VP raising to the specifier of TP should not be possible, given that the relevant operation is motivated by the EPP, as Massam (2000a, 2001a) claims. Assuming that this analysis is on the right track, it follows that when the subject is a full NP, it moves to the specifier of TP for the same reason, i.e., to check T’s EPP feature. With the subject in the specifier of TP, V must also move to a position higher than T in order for VSO order to be obtained. This leads to a conclusion that V is in C as a result of V-to-C movement. Given the Head Movement Constraint (Travis 1984), I assume that V first moves to T, forming a cluster T-V, which subsequently raises to C.15
. Scrambling and T’s EPP feature Scrambling is another piece of evidence that supports the proposal that T’s EPP feature is [D] rather than [Pred] in Tongan. While the unmarked word order is VSO, Tongan also permits VOS as shown in (17) below. (17) a.
Na‘e kai ‘a e ika pst eat abs the fish “Sione ate the fish.” b. Na‘e fili ‘a Pila pst choose abs Pila “Sione chose Pila.”
‘e Sione. erg Sione ‘e Sione. erg Sione
Notice that the VOS sentences in (17) are different from PNI constructions in (8) above in that the object NP co-occurs with both a Case marker and a definite article. Otsuka (2002a) argues that this type of VOS construction in Tongan should be regarded as an instance of scrambling, and that the difference between a VOS and the corresponding VSO construction is that of information focus in the sense of Kiss (1998). While the native speakers generally do not recognize any semantic
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difference between the two when used in isolation, they do distinguish one from the other when asked to choose an appropriate answer to a constituent question. While VSO is used to respond to subject wh-questions, VOS is chosen to respond to object wh-questions. The use of VOS as an answer to a subject wh-question is considered unacceptable. In other words, scrambling in Tongan has an effect similar to that of stress in English. Consider (18), in which the stressed elements are in boldface. A2 is considered to be inappropriate as a response in this context. (18) Q:
A1:
A2:
Ko hai na‘a ne fili ‘a Pila? pred who pst 3.sg choose abs Pila “Who chose Pila?” Na‘e fili ‘e Sione ‘a Pila. pst choose erg Sione abs Pila “Sione chose Pila.” #Na’e fili ‘a Pila ‘e Sione. pst choose abs Pila erg Sione “Sione chose Pila.”
Following Miyagawa’s (2001) analysis of scrambling in Japanese, Otsuka (2002a) argues that scrambling in Tongan is triggered by T’s EPP feature. First, it is assumed that T’s EPP feature is strong in Tongan as well as Japanese. Recall that this assumption is also relevant to the analysis of clitic pronouns in Tongan discussed above. Secondly, it is also assumed that verbs overtly raise to T in Tongan like they do in Japanese. With respect to Tongan, this hypothesis is supported by the Vinitial order. Given the standard VP-internal subject hypothesis, in order for the verb to precede the subject in the linear order, V must overtly move to a position higher than the specifier of vP. This overt V-raising renders the subject NP and the object NP equidistant from T in the sense of Chomsky (1993).16 As a result, either NP is allowed to move to the specifier of TP to satisfy T’s EPP feature (which is assumed to be [D] in the current approach) without violating the MLC. Otsuka (2002a) proposes that the choice between the two NP’s is determined by another feature [info focus], arguing that this feature is associated with T’s EPP feature.17 To be precise, I assume that it is a kind of D-feature and can optionally appear on T. Assuming that the scrambled object is in the specifier of TP, it follows that V is higher than the specifier of TP. The most plausible account would be that V is in C as a result of V-to-T-to-C raising.
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Two derivations of VSO
(19)
C C [Vi-Ti]j
TP C
T’
OBJk
íP
tj
í’
SUBJi ti
VP ti
tk
Note that the scrambling facts in Tongan cannot be accounted for if we assume that T’s EPP feature is [Pred] rather than [D].18 As pointed out by two anonymous reviewers, an apparent problem arises here. Recall that in the previous section, in accounting for the distribution of clitic pronouns, we have argued that movement of a clitic pronoun from the object position is blocked due to the MLC; an NP in the subject position is taken to be closer to T than the clitic pronoun in the object position. On the other hand, in the analysis of scrambling, we need to rely on the notion of equidistance. One way to reconcile these two contradictory arguments is to stipulate the timing of the two operations: cliticization must precede V-raising. The order in which a clitic, a verb and a tense marker occur suggests that this is indeed the case. The only possible order is T-CLV, with the clitic intervening between the tense marker and the verb. If verb raising were to occur before cliticization, we would expect the verb and the tense marker to be adjacent (e.g., T-V-CL or CL-T-V); once the T-V cluster is formed as a result of verb raising, subsequent movement can only target the root node (i.e., the edge of the cluster in linear order). However, such an order is not permissible, as shown in (20) below.19, 20 (20) a. *Ne ‘oku tangi. 3.sg pres cry “He is crying.” b. *‘Oku tangi ne. pres cry 3.sg I take this as evidence that cliticization must precede V-raising and therefore assume that at the point where cliticization takes place, the subject and the object are not equidistant from T.21
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. T’s EPP feature in Tongan and Niuean Given these observations regarding the clitic pronouns and scrambling in Tongan, we have reason to conclude (a) that T’s EPP feature is [D] and (b) that V raises to C via T in this language. Does this mean that Massam’s (2000a, 2001a) claim that T’s EPP feature is [Pred] in Niuean is incorrect? Not at all. First, note that clitic pronouns do not exist in Niuean. Thus, there is no need to assume that T’s EPP feature is [D] for that reason. Second, it should also be noted that Niuean does not permit scrambling.22 In other words, the two reasons for which we need to assume that T’s EPP feature is [D] rather than [Pred] are both irrelevant in Niuean. The relevant syntactic phenomena do not exist in Niuean. Furthermore, as we will see shortly, Tongan and Niuean behave differently also with respect to PNI. While PNI in Niuean can be best explained in terms of VP raising to the specifier of IP, PNI in Tongan can be, and should be, accounted for without assuming similar VP raising. In summary, the preceding discussion suggests the following: (a) VSO in Niuean arises due to predicate raising to the specifier of IP licensed by the strong EPP feature [Pred] on T; and (b) VSO in Tongan is a result of V-to-T-to-C movement, licensed by the strong EPP feature [D] on T.
. Residual word order issues There are, however, a few problems for the V-raising analysis of Tongan, including the position of certain adverbs, non-verbal predicate constructions, and a phenomenon resembling PNI. In this section, we consider these issues.
. Intervening adverbs The current analysis essentially claims that in Tongan V moves to C via T, yielding a verbal complex [C-[[T-(CL)]-V]] by cyclic adjunction. This predicts that an adverb cannot occur anywhere within this complex, e.g., intervening between T and V or between CL and V. Examples such as (20) are compatible with this hypothesis. (20) a.
‘Oku ne tangi lahi. pres 3.sg cry much “He cries a lot.” b. *‘Oku ne lahi tangi. pres 3.sg much cry
On the other hand, some adverbs must precede the verb, as shown in (21) below.
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Two derivations of VSO
(21) a.
‘Oku ne fa‘a pres 3.sg often “He often cries.” b. *‘Oku ne tangi pres 3.sg cry
tangi. cry fa‘a. often
A set of adverbs that occur between the tense marker and the verb includes fa‘a ‘often,’ kei ‘still,’ toe ‘again,’ and ‘osi ‘already.’ Sentences like (21a) seem to undermine the current hypothesis that a verb and a tense marker form a complex in Tongan. There is a way to account for this apparent counterexample, however. The set of adverbs listed above, which I henceforth refer to as fa‘a-type adverbs, has another property that is distinct from those of other adverbs. Namely, they cannot occur independently of a verb. Consider the pair of sentences in (22). (22) a.
Na‘a ne lele oma? pst 3.sg run fast “Did he run fast?” b. ‘Io, oma p¯e. yes, fast only “Yes, fast indeed.”
As shown in (22b), it is perfectly fine for an answer to consist only of an adverbial phrase. In contrast, fa‘a-type adverbs cannot be used in a similar manner. Consider (23) below. (23) a.
Na‘a ne fa‘a tangi? pst 3.sg often cry “Did he cry a lot?” b. *‘Io, fa‘a p¯e. yes often only “Yes, often indeed.” c. ‘Io, fa‘a tangi p¯e. yes often cry only “Yes, often cried indeed”
As shown in (23c), fa‘a-type adverbs must co-occur with a verb. In other words, adverbs of this type are dependent on the verb. This suggests that adverbs such as fa‘a are more like affixes rather than independent lexical items. Therefore, I propose that these adverbial elements are actually clitics and that they undergo V-raising along with the verb to which they are attached. Thus, the accurate analysis of the sequence (21a) should be as given in (24a) rather than (24b) below. (24) a. [T ‘Oku-ne]-[V fa‘a-tangi] b. [T ‘Oku-ne] fa‘a [V tangi]
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In (21a), fa‘a is part of the verb, not an intrusive item between T and V. Consequently, those adverbs intervening between a tense marker and a verb are not evidence against the current approach.
. Non-verbal predicates Another issue that calls for some explanation is non-verbal predicates in Tongan. Specifically, there are two facts to be accounted for: (a) that non-verbal predicates occur in the same position as verbs (i.e., sentence-initially) and (b) that Case marking on the subject is abs in non-verbal predicate constructions. The former is problematic if VSO in Tongan is taken to be a result of head movement. The latter raises a problem if we assume (a) that abs is checked by v and (b) that non-verbal predicate constructions lack v. I will discuss each of these problems below. As mentioned earlier, the general constituent order in Tongan is Tense-PredSubject. Consider (7) repeated here as (25). (25) a.
Ko e faiako ‘a Mele. pred the teacher abs Mele “Mele is a teacher.” b. ‘Oku ‘i Tonga ‘a Sione. pres in Tonga abs Sione “Sione is in Tonga.”
If we assume that V (adjoined to T) is in C in a VSO construction as a result of cyclic raising, how can we explain the fact that non-verbal predicates also occur in the same position? Recall that in Massam’s (2000a, 2001a) approach the position of non-verbal predicates is accounted for in terms of the general predicate (XP) raising to the specifier of IP. However, I have shown above that in Tongan T’s EPP feature is not [Pred] and that V-initial orders cannot be explained in terms of such a predicate raising rule. Assuming that the general predicate raising of Niuean type is not available in Tongan, the null hypothesis would be that non-verbal predicate XP’s are also in C as a result of movement similar to V-to-T-to-C raising. Such a hypothesis, however, inevitably involves serious violation of the Head Movement Constraint (Travis 1984). Carnie’s (1995) analysis of NP predicates in Irish sheds light on this problem. Carnie argues that the distinction between X0 and XP is not inherent, but should be taken to be behavioral: if a phrase marker has the properties of X0 , it is a head; if it has the properties of XP, it is an XP. Carnie shows that predicate NP’s in Irish are heads by their behavior and therefore, they may undergo head movement to T. In this analysis, it is assumed that a predicate NP merges with φ-features and
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the whole complex undergoes raising to T.23 Adopting Carnie’s analysis, I propose that non-verbal predicates in Tongan are heads and can undergo head movement similar to V-to-T-to-C raising. In this view, a non-verbal predicate phrase is formed in the following manner: first, a set of φ-features (Φ) is merged with the predicate head X0 ; then, the subject NP is merged with the resulting predicate head X0 to project XP, as illustrated in (26) below. (26)
NP N0
NP ‘a Mele Ö
N0 ko e faiako
N0 then undergoes movement to T in a manner similar to verb raising. Although this analysis takes care of the fact that non-verbal predicates occur in the same position as verbs, it leads to another question concerning Case checking. As far as accusative languages are concerned, Case marking does not raise any problem; the subject of a non-verbal predicate construction appears in nom, which is assumed to be checked by T, which in turn is assumed to exist in a non-verbal predicate construction.24 However, things are not so straightforward when it comes to ergative languages.25 Note that the subject of a non-verbal predicate construction is marked as abs, as illustrated in (25) above. Empirical facts, which I will not discuss here, suggest that at least in Tongan, both abs and erg are structural and checked by v and T, respectively (Otsuka 2001, 2002a, b).26 In this approach, the difference between accusative and ergative languages is the “active” Case (i.e., the one which is always available) in the system (cf. Levin & Massam 1984; Bobaljik 1993). In accusative languages, it is nom and in ergative languages, it is abs. Otsuka (2002b) argues that the types of functional heads that are available determine the active Case of a language. In accusative languages, T always bears a Case feature [T-Case] and v with [V-Case] is available only in transitive constructions. In ergative languages, there are two kinds of T: one with a Case feature [T-Case] and the other without. The former is selected for a transitive construction and the latter for an intransitive construction.27 Thus, T-Case is available only in transitive constructions, while VCase is always available, giving rise to the ergative pattern. This amounts to saying that in an ergative language, not only transitive, but also intransitive verb phrases are vPs. The difference is that the subject of a transitive verb is base generated in the specifier of vP, while that of an intransitive (unaccusative) verb is generated VP-internally, as illustrated in (27) below.28
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(27)
vP VP
v V
SUBJ
Given this approach to ergative Case checking, abs marking on the subject of a non-verbal predicate construction raises a problem. If non-verbal predicate constructions lack a verbal projection, with the relevant Case feature [abs] presumably also lacking, how can abs be checked in such a construction?29 This apparent problem, however, can be solved as follows. Suppose that an NP headed by a predicate N0 merges with the functional head v, just like a VP in (27). We may argue that in Tongan (and possibly other languages that lack copula) has the following property: a predicate head, be it verbal or non-verbal, can be the complement of the functional head v. In other words, v is Pred and vP is PredP, the maximal projection of a predicate head. See (28) below. (28)
vP v []
NP N0
SUBJ ‘a Mele Ö
N0 ko e faiako
The predicate head N0 raises to v to form a complex predicate head. This predicate head Agrees with the subject NP in the specifier of NP, which in turn receives abs. The predicate head then undergoes raising to T and subsequently to C for the same reasons for V-raising.30 , 31 Before concluding this section, let us examine how non-verbal predicates interact with clitic pronouns. Here NP predicates and PP predicates behave differently. PP predicates are compatible with clitic pronouns, which occur between the tense marker and the PP predicate, as shown in (29) below. (29) ‘Oku ne ‘i Tonga. pres 3.sg in Tonga “He is in Tonga.” Note also that PP predicates are preceded by a regular tense marker, as seen in (25b) above. In fact, the sentence would be ungrammatical without one, as shown
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in (30) below. In other words, PP predicates are on a par with verbal predicates in these respects. (30) *‘I Tonga ‘a Sione. in Tonga abs Sione “Sione is in Tonga.” In contrast, nominal predicate constructions do not permit clitic pronouns. A pronominal subject must occur in the independent form, as illustrated in (31) below. (31) a. *Ne ko e faiako. 3.sg pred def teacher “He is a teacher.” b. *Ko e faiako ne. pred def teacher 3.sg c. Ko e faiako (‘a) ia. pred def teacher abs 3.sg Note also that nominal predicates cannot co-occur with a tense marker (32). Nevertheless nominal predicate constructions are typically interpreted as present tense unless context forces a different interpretation. (32) *‘Oku/na‘e ko e faiako ‘a Sione. pres/pst pred def teacher abs Sione “Sione is/was a teacher.” These two facts seem to fit if, as we have been assuming, clitic pronouns are licensed by T.32 Nominal predicate constructions, lacking an overt tense marker, fail to provide a phonological host for the clitic. Note that ko cannot serve as a host, as shown in (33). (33) *Ko ne e faiako. pred 3.sg def teacher “He is a teacher.” This suggests that ko is not on a par with regular tense markers, but is basegenerated as part of the predicate N0 . Admittedly, a question remains as to why nominal predicates are incompatible with regular tense markers. I will leave this issue open, however.
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. PNI-like phenomenon Finally, let us consider the phenomenon in Tongan that resembles PNI in Niuean. Recall that PNI provides strong evidence for Massam’s (2000a, 2001a) XP-raising analysis. PNI in Niuean can involve more than just a noun head as shown in (4) repeated here as (34). (34) a.
Ne inu kofe kono a Mele. pst drink coffee bitter abs Mele “Mary drank bitter coffee.” b. Ne holoholo kapiniu kiva fakaenene a Sione. pst wash dish dirty carefully abs Sione “Sione washed dirty dishes carefully.”
Similar constructions can be found in Tongan, as shown below (= (8)). (35) a.
Na‘e inu kava malohi ‘a Sione. pst drink kava strong abs Sione “Sione drank alcohol.” b. Na‘e fufulu ipu ‘a Mele. pst wash cup abs Mele “Mele washed dishes.”
How can we account for the sentences in (35) without resorting to predicate raising? A careful examination reveals that what looks like PNI in Tongan is actually not an instance of PNI. Rather, it should be understood as an instance of NI, specifically, lexical compounding. It turns out that the range of elements that can be “incorporated” is rather limited in Tongan: adjectives that are permitted in PNI are only those which can form a compound with a noun. Thus, (35a) can only mean “Sione drank alcohol” with kava malohi interpreted as a compound noun, but not “Sione drank strong kava” with kava malohi taken to be a noun phrase containing a modifier. Similarly, (35b) becomes significantly worse when an adjective is added. Consider (36a) below. (36) a.
??Na‘e
fufulu ipu ‘uli ‘a Mele. pst wash cup dirty abs Mele “Mele washed dishes.” b. Na‘e fufulu ‘a e ipu ‘uli ‘e Mele. pst wash abs def cup dirty erg Mele “Mele washed the dirty dishes.”
Unlike kava malohi, ipu ‘uli is not an established compound. This explains why (36a) is marginal, if not totally ungrammatical. On the other hand, if the relevant
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sequence occurs as part of an NP as in (36b), the sentence is perfectly grammatical. Thus, we may argue that the V-N-A sequence, inu kava malohi in (35) is in fact V-N with kava malohi being a single noun head and that it is an instance of NI. One possible argument against the NI analysis is that incorporation of PP is apparently permissible in Tongan. Consider (37) and (38) below. (37) a.
Na‘e ‘alu ‘a Sione ki he lotu. pst go abs Sione to the church “Sione went to (the) church” b. Na‘e ‘alu lotu ‘a Sione. pst go church abs Sione “Sione went to church.”
(38) a.
‘Oku sai‘ia ‘a Mele ‘i he ika. pres like abs Mele in the fish “Mele likes (the) fish.” b. ‘Oku sai‘ia ika ‘a Mele. pres like fish abs Mele “Mele likes fish.”
If we are to claim these examples to be instances of NI, we need to permit incorporation of XP’s. Furthermore, we need to stipulate that the preposition deletes after PP incorporation. I argue that this problem is only apparent, however. In fact, I propose that these examples provide evidence that NI in Tongan is a lexical process rather than syntactic. Thus, ‘alu lotu ‘go church’ is a compound verb formed in the lexicon, rather than the outcome of syntactic incorporation of PP into the verb. Similarly, inu kava ‘drink kava’ should be treated as a compound verb. In other words, I argue that what appears to be PNI in Tongan is in fact an instance of lexical NI as suggested by Rosen (1989). Consequently, we need not postulate VP remnant movement in order to account for the phenomenon in question. To summarize this section, we have considered three phenomena that appear to pose problems for the V-raising analysis of VSO in Tongan. It has been shown that these are only apparent problems and can be accounted for without resorting to VP remnant movement.
. Conclusion In this chapter, I have argued that VSO in Tongan and VSO in Niuean are derived in different manners despite the striking similarity between the two languages regarding various syntactic phenomena. Tongan and Niuean have the following syntactic properties in common: (a) VSO as the unmarked word order, (b) ergative Case
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marking, (c) occurrence of non-verbal predicates in the same position as verbs and without a copula, and (d) a process resembling NI which can involve more than a head. On the one hand, we have seen that there is substantial evidence to support Massam’s (2000a, 2001a) VP remnant movement analysis, which claims that VSO in Niuean arises due to the VP remnant movement to the specifier of IP licensed by T’s strong EPP-feature, which is arguably [Pred] rather than [D]. PNI in Niuean involves more than just a head, which goes against the general assumption that noun incorporation is restricted to heads. This unusual NI-like phenomenon can be explained without any extra stipulation if we assume (a) that DP (direct) objects move out of VP for Case checking purposes and (b) that predicate raising to the specifier of TP is obligatory in Niuean. PNI is understood to be a consequence of VP raising with an NP object staying inside. On the other hand, we have also seen that such a general predicate raising approach fails to account for some syntactic properties such as clitic pronouns and scrambling, which Tongan has, but not Niuean. The relevant phenomena can be explained only if we assume that T’s EPP feature is [D] rather than [Pred] in Tongan (Otsuka 2001, 2002a). It follows that in Tongan, subject NPs are in the specifier of TP and accordingly, predicates, verbal or non-verbal, must occupy a position higher than the specifier of TP. Thus, we conclude that predicates in Tongan are in C as a result of cyclic head movement. Three potential problems for the current analysis have also been discussed: (a) intervening adverbs, (b) non-verbal predicates, and (c) PNI-like phenomenon in Tongan. It turns out that all of these problems are only superficial. First, the set of intervening adverbs are shown to be clitic. Hence, their presence between T and V does not undermine our assumption that T and V form a complex by adjunction; rather, such an adverb is part of the verb as a result of cliticization. The second problem can be solved if we adopt Carnie’s (1995) analysis of Irish nominal predicates: non-verbal predicates are heads in Tongan and therefore, can undergo head movement to C via T without violating the head movement constraint. Finally, we have seen that the PNI-like phenomenon in Tongan is more restricted than PNI in Niuean and that the former should be understood as an instance of lexical compounding. To conclude, the current study shows that VSO is not necessarily derived in a uniform fashion even in closely related languages that are strikingly similar with respect to various syntactic phenomena. The contrast between Tongan and Niuean suggests that there could be just as many ways of deriving VSO as there are languages with VSO constructions.33
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Notes * I am grateful to Andrew Carnie, Kamil Deen, Heidi Harley, William O’Grady, and two anonymous reviewers for very helpful comments and suggestions. . As one anonymous reviewer points out, Guilfoyle, Hung and Travis (1992) do not assume that phrase structure is universally specifier-head-complement, as proposed by Kayne (1994). Thus, for some V-initial languages such as Tagalog and Malagasy, it is assumed that IP has a rightward specifier. In this view, VP raising to the specifier of IP is not even a possibility. . See also Carnie (1995) for a survey. . Vowel length is phonemic in both Niuean and Tongan and is indicated by a macron; an inverted apostrophe (‘) represents the glottal stop. . Carter (1996) proposes that Hawaiian ‘o, a cognate of ko, is a copula. However, Cook (1999) argues against this hypothesis. Otsuka (2000) considers Tongan ko as something similar to Case markers in that it licenses predicate NPs, indicating that the relevant NP is exempt from the Case Filter. The question of what exactly ko is in terms of its category and function deserves more extensive discussion, which is beyond the scope of this chapter. Andrew Carnie (p.c.) observes that Tongan ko is similar to Irish is in many respects. . A similar VP raising analysis is proposed in this volume by Holmer for Seediq, Koopman for Maasai, Lee for San Lucas Quiaviní Zapotec, and Travis for Malagasy. . Rosen (1989) proposes a lexical analysis arguing that NI in the Polynesian languages is basically compounding. Massam (2001) argues that the Niuean PNI facts cannot be readily accounted for by Rosen’s analysis. . It seems that the set of Case markers in Niuean has undergone a diachronic change from articles to Case markers. Considering the forms of Case markers in Tongan, it seems that there were two Case markers in Proto-Tongic: a for abs and e for erg (cf. Clark 1976). In Tongan, it is not the Case markers but the definite article that has allomorphs: e when following the abs Case marker ‘a and he following the erg Case marker ‘e. It should be noted also that in Tongan the abs Case marker can be omitted freely when followed by a definite article e, as illustrated in (i-b) below. (i)
a.
b.
Na‘e kai ‘e he pusi ‘a pst eat erg the cat abs “The cat ate the chicken.” Na‘e kai ‘e he pusi e pst eat erg the cat the
e moa. the chicken moa chicken
It is probable that the rule of Case marker drop became obligatory and spread to ergmarked NP’s in Niuean, yielding a situation in which the form of the definite article is the only indicator of an NP’s Case. (ii) ne kai e he pusi a e moa The fact that the Case markers for proper nouns still retain the Proto-Tongic forms supports this hypothesis.
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Yuko Otsuka . It should be noted that the so-called definite article e/he in Tongan is not an equivalent of English the. It does not indicate [+definite], but simply [+referential]. Definiteness is expressed phonologically, by what Churchward (1953) calls “definitive accent”. In a definite NP, the stress falls on the final, rather than the regular penultimate, mora. For further discussion, see Anderson and Otsuka (2003). . However, unlike Niuean, PP predicates occur with a regular tense marker rather than a special predicate marker. We will return to this point in Section 5.2. . Similar V-raising approaches are proposed in this volume by Bury, Macaulay for Mixtec, and McCloskey for Irish. Their proposals differ from one another with respect to the landing site of V, however. Macaulay argues that it is a functional head Focus. Bury claims that Vraising in VSO languages is basically a PF operation. McCloskey argues that VP-raising alone cannot account for the range of Irish facts, and that if Irish VSO is derived by VP-raising, it cannot be due to the EPP. . There seem to be some differences in regard to PNI as well. Tongan does not seem to allow XP incorporation as freely as Niuean. See Section 5.3 for details. . See Otsuka (2000) for more discussion on the clitic status of these pronouns. . Here, it is assumed that T’s EPP feature can be checked either in a Spec-head configuration or by head adjunction, just like other formal features. This is apparently incompatible with Chomsky’s (2000: 102) definition of EPP features, namely, those “determining positions not forced by the Projection Principle”: in other words, an EPP feature licenses an extra Spec of the relevant functional head. I interpret this to mean that an EPP feature is a necessary condition for an extra Spec, but not vice versa. Thus, I assume that checking of EPP-features essentially involves the operation Agree, in which the goal can be a head as well as an XP. It is when an EPP feature is checked by an XP, either by Move or by pure Merge, that it consequently licenses an extra Spec. . Such a condition obviously does not apply to Romance clitic pronouns, which are typically objects. (Thanks to Heidi Harley p.c. for bringing this point to my attention.) It should be noted, however, that the presence of object clitics in Romance does not affect the current proposal if we treat them as agreement heads, as proposed by Sportiche (1996) and Franco (2000). More generally, however, crosslinguistic study has shown that clitics are of many different types. Following Klavans (1985), I assume that cliticization involves two hosts, syntactic and phonological, and that the two do not necessarily coincide. In some cases, conditions on clitic placement are purely phonological, as proposed by Chung (2003) for weak pronouns in Chamorro and by Sportiche (1996) for subject clitics in French. In some other cases, it is determined by interaction of syntactic rules and phonological constraints, as proposed by Boškovi´c (2000, 2001) for Serbo-Croatian and Zribi-Hertz and Diagne (2002) for Wolof. What I propose here is simply that placement of clitic pronouns in Tongan is determined by syntactic conditions, namely, the EPP and the MLC. . The fact that the tense marker precedes the verb in Tongan raises a potential problem for this analysis. (Thanks to Diane Massam for bringing this point to my attention.) Assuming Kayne’s (1994) Linear Correspondence Axiom, which prohibits right adjunction, we would expect the order to be V-T rather than T-V. One possibility is that tense markers in Tongan are proclitics. This is not so far-fetched in that tense markers do show some properties of
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clitics as defined by Zwicky (1985). For example, they cannot be coordinated (i), nor can they be clefted (ii). (i) *Na‘e pea ‘oku puke ‘a Sione. pst and pres sick abs Sione “Sione was and is sick.” (ii) *Ko na‘e [puke ‘a Sione]. pred pst sick abs Sione “It was in the past that Sione (was) sick.” If so, adjunction of a clitic pronoun to T should be regarded as a process of clitic clustering, rather than cliticization. Note that this, however, would not affect the analysis of clitic pronouns presented above: we may instead assume that clitic clustering is constrained by similar syntactic rules. . Alternatively, we may adopt Chomsky’s (2000) idea of escaping a phase by getting to its edge, where vP is a phase. In this approach, given Diesing’s (1992) Mapping Hypothesis, we may assume that the object gets to the edge of vP in order to escape existential closure. This predicts that the only objects that could escape vP are definite, Case-marked objects, which seems to be true in Tongan. I am grateful to Heidi Harley for bringing this point to my attention. . Macaulay (this volume) argues that scrambling in Chalcatongo Mixtec can also be explained in terms of focus and topic. . Unless we assume that the predicate further raises to the specifier of CP and the NP with information focus adjoins to TP, or moves to the specifier of Focus, which is assumed to be part of the C-system according to Rizzi (1997) (although focus in this sense generally seems to refer to contrastive focus rather than new information focus). Such an approach is problematic, however. Suppose predicate raising to C is motivated by C’s EPP feature, [Pred] in a way similar to predicate raising to the specifier of TP. The target of this movement, the specifier of CP, must be reserved for A’-movement such as relativization, as shown in (i) below. (i)
Ko e siana [CP OPi [na‘e t i tangi]] eni. pst cry this pred def man “This is the man who cried.”
Note that even if we assume Rizzi’s (1997) left periphery system, predicate raising and relativization must target the same position, presumably, the specifier of ForceP. . William O’Grady (p.c.) points out that it is not clear what principle ensures this result and whether the proposed stipulation is compatible with “Minimalist” tenets. However, note that it makes sense if we assume, as suggested in Note 15, that the relevant operation is clitic clustering and that clitics must form a cluster before attaching to the host. In the present context, the former is done by adjunction of a clitic pronoun to T, and the latter by V-to-T raising. . An alternative approach is to assume that what Agree looks for is not [D], but rather, [info focus], as suggested by Andrew Carnie (p.c.). Then, the notion of equidistance be-
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comes irrelevant in accounting for the scrambling facts. An unwelcome consequence of this approach is that it does not necessarily support the argument that T’s EPP feature is [D]. We could, however, maintain our argument against Pred-raising by assuming that an argument bearing [info focus] is in the specifier of TP. . An interesting question remains as to the relation between T’s EPP-feature and [info focus]. Consider a relevant scenario where the subject is generated as a clitic and the object bears the new information focus. In the current approach, cliticization takes place prior to V-raising and T’s EPP-feature is checked by virtue of this operation. On the other hand, both T and the object are assumed to bear a feature [info focus], which at this point remain unchecked. Given the assumption that scrambling is licensed by [info focus] checking, the object is necessarily expected to raise to the specifier of TP. Crucially, we must assume that T’s EPP-feature and [info focus] can be checked independently. However, this would predict, incorrectly, that the following derivation is equally possible. Suppose the subject bears [info focus] and a clitic pronoun is generated as the object. Suppose further that the derivation proceeds in the following manner. First, T’s [info focus] feature licenses movement of the subject NP to the specifier of TP. Then, the clitic raises to adjoin to T, licensed by T’s EPPfeature. Finally, verb raising takes place. This would derive sentences like (i) below. (i) *Na‘a ne fili ‘e Sione. pst 3.sg choose erg Sione “Sione chose him.” In order to rule out (i), we must assume that T’s EPP-feature is unavailable at the point where cliticization needs to be licensed. That is, T’s EPP-feature must have been checked by the subject NP when this NP raises to the specifier of TP as a result of [info focus] checking. It seems that while T’s EPP-feature and [info focus] can be checked independently, checking of the latter necessarily involves that of the former. This in turn suggests (a) that T’s EPPfeature must be checked whenever it can; (b) that the target of [info focus] movement is indeed the specifier of TP; and (c) that T’s EPP-feature is [D] rather than [Pred]. . Diane Massam (p.c.). . For some arguments against this analysis, see McCloskey (this volume), where Irish is is analyzed as a copula, sitting in T. Based on the ellipsis data, he argues that the head of a nominal predicate, unlike that of a verbal or adjectival predicate, does not raise as high as T. . It should be noted that in Irish nominal predicate constructions the subject appears in accusative forms (i.e., S-forms) rather than nominative. This led Carnie (1993) to conclude that these pronouns are in abs. Carnie (1995) argues, however, that the morphology does not reflect Case, but that s- is a phonological marking of their clitic status to the verb. Hence, the subject of a nominal predicate construction bears nom, not acc. . This involves a more general question of how ergative Case marking should be accounted for within the Minimalist framework, which is an issue still unresolved in the literature. Some argue that erg is inherent Case and abs is a structural Case checked by T in a way similar to nom Case checking (Murasugi 1992; Bittner & Hale 1996; among others). Some propose that erg is inherent and abs is some kind of default Case (Nash 1995; Massam 2000a, 2001a). Some others consider both erg and abs to be structural and checked by T and v, respectively (Bobaljik 1993; Laka 1993; Otsuka 2000).
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Two derivations of VSO . Here, crucially, I am assuming that it is v that provides the relevant Case feature rather than the verb itself. . Heidi Harley (p.c.) raises a question as to how such a selection occurs. I propose that it is not necessary to stipulate the selection of T. A wrong selection will be filtered out in the sense that the derivation will not converge. If T with a Case feature [T-Case] is selected to merge with a VP headed by an intransitive verb, this feature would not be checked. Similarly, if T without a Case feature is selected to merge with a projection of a transitive verb, the derivation will crash, as the subject NP will fail to check its Case feature. It should also be noted that a similar selection problem arises with respect to v: v merges with a VP headed by a transitive verb, but not with one headed by an unaccusative verb. . It follows that unergatives and unaccusatives cannot be distinguished in the usual manner in ergative languages. Since the subject of an unaccusative verb would appear in abs, we assume that vP is present not only in unergatives, but also in unaccusatives. On the other hand, it is possible to maintain the standard assumption that unergatives are underlyingly transitive (Hale & Keyser 1993) in the current analysis, and that the subject of an unergative verb is generated VP-externally, in the specifier of vP. . Note that the relevant data would not raise any questions if we assume that abs is equivalent to nom and is checked by T, as proposed, for example, by Murasugi (1992) and Bittner and Hale (1996). Non-verbal predicate constructions contain T, and therefore, abs can be checked. Even if one does not assume that abs is just another label for nom, there is a way to account for the abs Case marking on the subject of a non-verbal predicate construction. Massam (2000a, 2001a), for example, postulates a functional head abs with a feature [abs], which takes a predicate XP as a complement. AbsP in turn is a complement of v in a transitive construction. The category of a predicate is irrelevant to Case checking, for abs is always checked by the relevant K head in any construction and the predicate XP moves to the specifier of TP without affecting Case checking on nouns. In this approach, T does not participate in Case checking at all, as it lacks a D-feature, and erg is taken to be inherent Case. As far as Tongan is concerned, however, neither of these accounts seems adequate for the following reasons: (a) there is evidence that erg is higher than abs, and (b) erg is not associated with any particular theta-roles as is generally the case with other instances of inherent Case. See Otsuka (2000, 2002b) for further discussion. . Note that the current analysis is not so drastically different from that of Massam’s (2000a, 2001). What we call v here basically has the same function as Massam’s K-head of AbsP: namely, it has to be present in every construction in order to provide the Case feature [abs]. . Another possible approach is to postulate that there is a null copula in non-verbal predicate constructions in Tongan. I argue, however, that the current analysis is preferred to this alternative for the following reasons. First, it is much better if we could avoid introducing an idiosyncratic element such as null copula. Secondly, if we assumed that a null copula takes the NP complement, we would again run into the Case problem. It is generally assumed that a copula, such as English be, lacks a Case feature. Thirdly, if we assumed a null copula in place of v in (28), we would expect the null copula, rather than the XP itself, to undergo raising. Thus, in order to account for predicate fronting in Tongan, we would have to assume that the predicate XP incorporates into the null copula and the resulted compound
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Yuko Otsuka
undergoes raising to T. However, it is not entirely clear what motivates such a movement. Note, however, Carnie’s (1995, 1997) discussion on equative constructions and a null copula in Irish. It is worth noting that Carnie postulates the null copula to account for sentences such as (i) below, where apparently the predicate NP does not undergo raising. That is, when the copula is present, it moves independently of the predicate NP. Contrast (i) with (ii), the regular NP predicate construction, in which the predicate NP occurs sentence initially. (i)
Is é Seán an captain. C agr the captain “Seán is the captain.”
(ii) Is dochtúir mé. C doctor me “I am a doctor.”
(Carnie 1995: 128)
(Carnie 1995: 138)
. It is possible that T as a functional head is present, but only phonologically null. Alternatively, it could be that nominal predicate constructions lack T entirely and clitics cannot be licensed either phonologically or syntactically. . McCloskey (1996) has pointed out that VSO is not a unified phenomenon. Note also that some other authors in this volume such as Davis, Oda, and Laughren, Pensalfini and Mylne draw a similar conclusion for independent reasons.
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Force first Clause-fronting and clause typing in San Lucas Quiaviní Zapotec* Felicia Lee University of British Columbia
String-vacuous movement of large constituents or multiple constituents has been proposed for a number of languages for theory-internal reasons (Kayne 1998; Koopman & Szabolcsi 1998; den Besten & Webelhuth 1990). This paper will present evidence from San Lucas Quiaviní Zapotec, a verb-initial Otomanguean language spoken in southern Mexico, that covert clausal movement is both syntactically and semantically motivated. This evidence comes from the existence of overt clausal movement in the language (in adverb constructions and yes/no questions) and from interpretive constraints on constructions that require high projections in the left periphery to be filled.
.
Introduction
Verb-initial languages are typically held (see Carnie & Guilfoyle 2000a and Greenberg 1963 for example) to share a number of features: they tend to be overwhelmingly head-initial, and tend to realize A’-movement (such as wh-movement, focus, and QR) overtly. San Lucas Quiaviní Zapotec (SLQZ), an Otomanguean language spoken in Oaxaca, Mexico, appears to be a prototypical VSO language: it is consistently head-initial (head nouns precede possessors and modifiers and relative clauses, there are prepositions rather than postpositions etc.). However, it has a number of structures in which appear, at first glance, to be head-final. For instance, there are several contexts in which sentence-final clause-typing particles take scope over the entire clause: (1) The yes/no marker èee: B-da’uh Gye’eihlly gueht èee? perf-eat Mike tortilla Q “Did Mike eat tortillas?”
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Felicia Lee
(2) The echo question particle làaa G-auw-a’ làaa? irr-eat-1s Q “I should eat?”
(Munro, Lopez, et al. 1999: 147)
(3) The quotative particle nneh B-gàa’ah wbwààa’n nneh. perf-be.caught thief quot “It’s said the thief was caught.”
(Munro, Lopez, et al. 1999: 195)
I argue that these structures are actually head-initial, and thus consistent with the verb initial typology: the sentence-final particles are base-generated above – and to the left – of the rest of the clause. This derives the scopal effects of these clause-final particles while maintaining the basic head-initial structure of the language. Assuming that these particles are generated in the CP domain (as heads of ForceP, using Rizzi’s 1997 term for the clause-typing projection in CP), their clause-final position can be derived by raising the remnant of the clause to the specifier of ForceP (4). As such these particle final constructions are part of the greater pattern of remnant movement (of both VPs and TPs) that derives the verb initial character of SLQZ. (4)
ForceP TP
Force’
VP B-da’uh Gye’eihlly gueht
T’ T
tVP
Force éee Q
tTP
. The case for clausal movement Movement of large constituents or multiple constituents – even string-vacuously – has been proposed for a number of languages (Kayne 1998; Koopman 1996; Koopman this volume; Lee 2000a; Massam 2000a; Rackowski & Travis 2000; among others). While overt clause fronting derives the right word order facts in (4), the strategy of clause-fronting itself raises a number of questions, including the featural motivation for the movement. In light of this, we need to motivate the movement of an entire clause. We also need to account for how string vacuous clause movement can be learnable. And most importantly, we need to find independent empirical evidence for string-vacuous movement of large constituents. In this paper, I present three SLQZ constructions that show that clause fronting – both overt and covert – exists, and can be both syntactically and se-
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Force first
mantically motivated. These constructions are (1) yes/no questions with sentencefinal question markers; (2) sentences containing the definite (emphatic future) aspect marker; and (3) constructions with the irrealis (future/present subjunctive) aspect marker. A theoretical consequence of clause fronting is that interpretive features can be checked on large XPs (clauses), as well as on individual lexical categories. These data also show that SLQZ provides a counterexample to Oda’s (this volume) observation that VP-fronting languages disallow movement for clausetyping purposes.
. Overt clausal movement: Yes/no questions with èee I claim that clause-fronting takes place in yes/no questions with the sentence-final marker èee, as seen in (4). One piece of evidence for clause fronting comes from the semantics of questions with èee. SLQZ has two other yes/no question markers, which are both sentence-initial: (5) Laàa’ b-da’uh Gye’eihlly gueht? Q perf-eat Mike tortilla “Did Mike eat tortillas?” (6) Uu b-da’uh Gye’eihlly gueht? Q perf-eat Mike tortilla “Did Mike eat tortillas?” These markers are not interchangeable; question marker choice is determined by the information structure of the question. The preverbal question marker uu is used only when the speaker expects a positive answer; laàa’ is used to form questions about new information, and èee is used to question information previously introduced into the discourse. (7) Uu n-u’uh tu Ø-zuu loongdèe? Q neut-exist who neut-stand outside “Is anyone outside?” Context: The speaker is carrying a large load out of a store and expects someone to be available to help get it to the car. (8) Laàa’ n-u’uh tu Ø-zuu loongdèe? Q neut-exist who neut-stand outside “Is anyone outside?” #Uu n-u’uh tu Ø-zuu loongdèe? #N-u’uh tu Ø-zuu loongdèe èee?
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Context: The speaker is robbing a house, and is asking his/her accomplice to make sure the coast is clear. In (8), the speaker is introducing the possibility that someone might be outside – and is thus questioning new information. (9) N-u’uh tu Ø-zuu loongdèe èee? neut-exist who neut-stand outside Q “Is anyone outside?” #Uu n-u’uh tu Ø-zuu loongdèe? #Laàa’ n-u’uh tu Ø-zuu loongdèe? Context: The speaker is robbing a house, and his/her accomplice suddenly says “Don’t go outside!” The speaker asks why. In (9), the speaker is responding to the previously introduced possibility that there is a reason not to go outside. Thus, the question in this case is based on old information. The sentence-final position of èee is a direct consequence of the information structure it encodes. In SLQZ, sentence-initial question markers and wh-words allow only one type of constituent to precede them: left-dislocated topics: (10) Gye’eihlly xi b-da’uh Gye’eihlly? Mike what perf-eat Mike “(As for) Mike, what did Mike eat?” (11) Nài’ laàa’ w-nnine-u’ Gye’eihlly? Yesterday Q perf-talk.to-2sg.inf Mike “What about yesterday, did you talk to Mike?” Left-dislocated (LD) topics in SLQZ are elements that have already been previously mentioned and are known to both the speaker and listener. Thus, constituents in the LD topic position are interpreted as presupposed or old information. Fronted propositions in èee questions likewise represent presupposed information. They can thus be taken to be left-dislocated topics themselves. I assume that the éee, laáa and uu markers occupy the same position as the related particles in other verb initial languages, and the clause-finality of the éee particle is due to presupposed nature of the clause fronted into its specifier. Hence, clause-fronting in èee questions is both syntactically and semantically motivated: semantically, clause-fronting marks the fronted clause as a topic, and syntactically, it accounts for the presence of a left-peripheral head on the right edge of a sentence in a consistently head-initial language.
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Force first
. Why not left-branching? Some theoretical problems One obvious account of sentence-final clause markers is that they are basegenerated in left-branching CP projections: (12)
CP C’ IP B-da’uh Gye’eihlly gueht ate Mike tortilla
C éee Q
This proposal raises a number of questions. First, what would motivate CP to be left branching is some contexts, but not others? Second, how would this account for the semantic distinction between sentence-initial and sentence-final question markers? Finally, how can a structure of this type be acquired in a language that is otherwise consistently head-initial and, moreover, has a large number of headinitial structures with filled CP projections? This section shows that SLQZ provides consistent evidence for head-initial CP structures, and no independent evidence for head-final CP structures. Thus, a head-initial CP structure involving movement is more learnable – and thus, more plausible – than a more economical derivation with a head-final CP. SLQZ has obligatory A’-movement to the left edge in most structures. Wh-insitu is disallowed or highly dispreferred by most speakers: (13) Xi cay-ùall Jwaany? what prog-read Juan “What is Juan reading?” Focus and topicalization are realized by fronting of the focused or topicalized constituent: (14) Gye’eihlly y-tàa’az Li’eb. Mike irr-beat Felipe “MIKE will hit Felipe”/“Felipe will hit MIKE.” (15) A Gye’eihlly b-da’uh bx:àady. top Mike perf-eat grasshopper “Mike (who we were discussing) ate the grasshoppers.” Negated constituents are always clause-initial:
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(16) A’ti’ li’ebr-dya’ cay-ùall Jwaany neg book-neg prog-read Juan “Juan is not reading a book.” Other quantified phrases generally appear in preverbal position: (17) Choon be’cw r-a’p Gye’eihlly. three dog hab-have Mike “Mike has three dogs.” SLQZ allows multiple preverbal constituents to appear simultaneously, consistent with Rizzi’s (1997) proposal that CP contains multiple functional projections. Focused-fronted constituents may appear with both sentence-initial and sentencefinal question markers: (18) Laàa’ Gye’eihlly b-gyàa’ah? Q Mike perf-dance “Did MIKE dance?” (19) Gye’eihlly b-gyàa’ah èee ? Mike perf-dance Q “Did MIKE dance?” (18) is consistent with Rizzi’s proposal that clause-typing morphemes are licensed in a higher CP projection (ForceP) than focused constituents (FocP). Thus, data of this type would support an SLQZ learner’s acquisition of a consistently head-initial language. But there is no clear way a learner could conclude from such examples that ForceP is head-final in èee questions.
. Adverb placement as evidence against left branching There is independent evidence from adverb ordering against head final structures in SLQZ. SLQZ allows both sentence-initial and sentence-final adverbs: (20) Nài’ b-da’uh Gye’eihlly so’p. yesterday perf-eat Mike soup “Mike ate the soup yesterday.” (21) B-da’uh Gye’eihlly so’p nài’. perf-eat Mike soup yesterday “Mike ate the soup yesterday.” Adverbs generally remain in fixed order relative to each other:
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(22) Nài’ laizh:ih b-to’oh Gye’eihlly ca’rr. yesterday noon perf-sell Mike car “Mike sold the car yesterday at noon.” (23) *Laizh:ih nài’ b-to’oh Gye’eihlly ca’rr. noon yesterday perf-sell Mike car “Mike sold the car yesterday at noon.” This suggests that leftmost adverbs are generated in fixed positions above rightmost ones, consistent with Cinque (1999): (24)
AdvP1 yesterday AdvP2 noon
(25)
IP
* AdvP2 noon
AdvP1
yesterday
IP
If right adjunction were possible, these adverbs should appear in reverse order (lower adverb first) sentence-finally: (26)
* AdvP1 AdvP2 yesterday IP
noon
This prediction, however, is not borne out. The two temporal adverbs maintain the same fixed order both sentence-initially and sentence finally: (27) B-to’oh Gye’eihlly ca’rr nài’ laizh:ih. perf-sell Mike car yesterday noon “Mike sold the car yesterday at noon.” (28) *B-to’oh Gye’eihlly ca’rr laizh:ih nài’. perf-sell Mike car noon yesterday “Mike sold the car yesterday at noon.” These data show that ‘high’ projections that appear sentence-finally are still headinitial. This confirms the theory that the sentence-final placement of sentence-level
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modifiers must be derived by movement. By extension, this means head-final structures are disallowed in SLQZ. Another potential explanation for fixed adverb order is that multiple temporal adverbs actually form a single compound modifier. If this proves to the case, then the fixed order of SLQZ temporal adverbs results from their forming a single constituent. This single compound modifier, then, can be assumed to be generated above and to the left of TP, as was argued for single temporal adverbs. As with other temporal adverbs, it may appear sentence-finally when IP raises past it. Suggestive evidence against this possibility comes from the fact that multiple temporal adverbs may be split: one may appear sentence-initially, while the other appears sentence-finally: (29) Laizh:ih b-to’oh Gye’eihlly ca’rr nài’. noon perf-sell Mike car yesterday “Mike sold the car yesterday at noon.” Crucially, the divided adverbs may only appear in this order: it is not possible for “yesterday” to appear initially while “noon” appears sentence-finally: (30) *Nài’ b-to’oh Gye’eihlly ca’rr laizh:ih. yesterday perf-sell Mike car noon “Mike sold the car yesterday at noon.” This is consistent with the proposal that “yesterday” is base-generated in a fixed position above “noon”, and both are generated above and to the left of IP, as seen previously. The grammatical sentence with the adverbs separated (“noon” sentence-initially and “yesterday” sentence-finally) can be derived by raising IP and the lower adverb (“noon”) past the higher adverb (“yesterday”): (31)
ForceP AdvP2 noon
AdvP1 IP
yesterday
t
However, if “yesterday at noon” is assumed to be a single, compound modifier – and adverbs that appear singularly are independently generated – the ungrammaticality of (30) is unexplained.
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. Definite aspect: A case of string-vacuous clausal movement into CP The preceding sections have shown that clause fronting is responsible for seemingly unexpected word order patterns in SLQZ. The following sections will show that string-vacuous clause fronting is also possible, and is semantically and syntactically motivated. The first construction involving string-vacuous clause movement involves the definite aspect marker, which is used to emphasize speaker confidence that a future event will take place: (32) S-tòo’oh Gye’eihlly ca’rr. def-sell Mike car “Mike will definitely sell the car.” Sentences containing definite-marked verbs, unlike those with other verbal aspect markers, may not be negated: (33) *Cëi’ty s-tòo’oh-dya’ Gye’eihlly ca’rr. neg def-sell-neg Mike car “Mike definitely won’t sell the car.” (34) Cëi’ty b-tòo’oh-dya’ Gye’eihlly ca’rr. neg perf-sell-neg Mike car “Mike didn’t sell the car.” They also disallow focus fronting, which verbs with other aspect markers do allow: (35) *Gye’eihlly s-tòo’oh ca’rr Mike def-sell car “MIKE will definitely sell the car.” (36) Gye’eihlly b-tòo’oh ca’rr. Mike perf-sell car “MIKE sold the car.” However, they do allow wh-words to be fronted: (37) Tu s-tòo’oh ca’rr? who def-sell car “Who will definitely sell the car?” This suggests that definite verbs occupy a position above negation, and at least as high as Focus, but not as high as Force (on the assumption that wh-words surface in ForceP). These differing co-occurrence restrictions with focus-fronted and wh-words, however, pose a problem. Focus-fronting normally blocks wh-movement in SLQZ
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(38), as it does in other languages – Italian (Rizzi 1997), Hungarian (Horvath 1986, among others), Standard Arabic (Ouhalla 1997). (38) *Tu Gye’eihlly y-tàa’az? who Mike irr-beat “Who did MIKE beat/who beat MIKE?” Long-distance wh-movement past focus-fronted constituents is disallowed: (39) Xi r-ralloh lìu’ [ t g-a’u Gye’eihlly t] ? what hab-think 2s irr-eat Mike “What do you think Mike will eat?” (40) *Xi r-ralloh lìu’ [Gye’eihlly g-a’u t] ? what hab-think 2s Mike irr-eat “What do you think MIKE will eat?” The complementarity of focus-fronted constituents and definite-marked verbs suggest they occupy the same position (the specifier of FocP): this would be consistent with both the emphatic reading given to definite-marked verbs, and the fact that SLQZ verbs are VP remnants, thus XPs that occupy specifier positions (Lee 2000b). So if definite verbs are in FocP, how can they allow wh-movement, which is normally blocked by filled FocP? This dilemma can be resolved by clause-fronting. The preceding data show that while wh-words and focused constituents do ‘compete’ for a common position at some point in the derivation, wh-words actually surface higher than focused constituents. I propose that argument wh-words encode both focus and interrogative features: like focused constituents, they serve to select a single entity out of a range of possible options; argument wh-words must check features both in FocP and in ForceP. TPs with definite verbs raise to FocP, and the wh-word in the fronted clause raises from FocP to ForceP. Following Nakajima (1996), I assume that constituents and traces within XP remnants may inherit the features of the projections containing the remnant: thus, a wh-trace inside a TP remnant in the specifier of FocP can satisfy the wh-expression’s Focus features. (41)
ForceP WH
FocP TP
...twh...
tTP
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Clause fronting, unlike simple verb fronting, also captures the fact that the entire proposition receives an emphatic reading (not just the verb): (42) S-tòo’oh Gye’eihlly ca’rr. def-sell Mike car “Mike will definitely sell the car.” =It is definitely the case that Mike will sell the car #Mike will definitely SELL the car (not lend it out). Clause fronting thus accounts for different behavior of focus and wh-movement in definite aspect constructions, and also accounts for the emphatic interpretation of definite verb constructions.
. A second case of covert clause fronting: Verbs with irrealis aspect marking The second puzzle that can be resolved by clause fronting involves constructions with the irrealis aspect marker, which may have two distinct readings, depending on syntactic context. One is a future reading (when irrealis-marked verbs appear in matrix clauses or in complements of non-intensional verbs): (43) Y-tòo’oh Gye’eihlly ca’rr. irr-sell Mike car “Mike will sell the car.” It is also interpreted with an irrealis reading in the complement of intensional verbs marked with present tense: (44) R-càa’z y-tòo’oh Gye’eihlly ca’rr. hab-want irr-sell Mike car “Mike wants to sell the car.” The contexts in which irrealis-marked verbs get an irrealis reading correspond to those in which subjunctive mood is subcategorized in Romance, consistent with Poletto’s (2000) claim that future and subjunctive verbs form a natural class. Irrealis verbs with future readings undergo a different pattern of clausal negation than do verbs with other aspect markers. In standard SLQZ clausal negation, the verb appears between two discontinuous negative particles at the left edge of the clause: (45) Cë’ity r-yu’lààa’z-dya’ Gye’eihlly bx:àady. neg hab-like-neg Mike grasshopper “Mike doesn’t like grasshoppers.”
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Irrealis verbs can participate in the normal clausal negation pattern; however, they can only do so when used with a subjunctive reading: (46) R-e’ihpy Lia Pa’amm làa’rëng g-wùall-rëng li’ebr. hab-tell Ms. Pa’amm 3.pl irr-read-3.pl book “Pam told them to read the books.” (47) R-e’ihpy Lia Pa’amm làa’rëng [cë’ity g-wùall-dya-rëng li’ebr.] hab-tell Ms. Pa’amm 3.pl neg irr-read-neg-3.pl book “Pam told them not to read the books.” = “Pam told them they will not read the books.” In the irrealis future negation, however, the two negative particles appear together clause-initially, and the verb appears to their right. In this construction, pronominal subject agreement (if any) must appear twice: following the negation complex and on the irrealis future verb itself. (48) G-wùall-rëng li’ebr. irr-read-3pl.prox book “They will read the books.” (49) Cë’ity-dya-rëng g-wùall-rëng li’ebr. neg-neg-3pl.prox irr-read-3pl book “They will not read the books.” I analyze this construction as biclausal, with the irrealis verb heading an embedded clause, and a null copula appearing between the two negative morphemes.1 The irrealis-marked verbs encode both future and present subjunctive readings. However, they don’t do so in the same syntactic contexts. This suggests that future irrealis verbs and present subjunctive irrealis verbs surface in different syntactic positions. Clausal negation involves movement of verbs into NegP. Negation is always clause-initial in SLQZ, and constituent negation is preverbal, as seen in the following example: (50) A’ti’ Sann Luu’c-dya’ gw-eh Pa’amm. neg San Lucas-dya’ perf-go Pam Pam didn’t go to SAN LUCAS (but rather somewhere else).” Negation is higher than the normal landing spot (TP) for verbs. This suggests that negated verbs surface higher in the structure than do non-negated ones. Irrealis-marked verbs with subjunctive, but not future, readings may raise into NegP. Negated irrealis-marked verbs with future readings must stay in the specifier of TP. Irrealis-marked verbs with future readings necessarily stay lower in the tree than irrealis-marked verbs with subjunctive readings.
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Force first
The different positions of SLQZ irrealis-marked verbs can potentially be linked to two different kinds of modality, following Poletto’s (2000) proposal that both subjunctive and future verbs encode modality. The ‘future’ reading may be linked to epistemic modality (possibility) while the ‘subjunctive’ reading may be linked to root (deontic) modality. Linking the syntactic position of irrealis verbs to their modal interpretation, however, poses a paradox: the preceding negation patterns show that irrealis verbs with future (epistemic) readings are lower than those with subjunctive (deontic) readings. However, independent syntactic accounts (Cinque 1999, among others) posit epistemic modality scoping over deontic modality. English dialects that allow double modals (such as Southern American English) allow combinations in which epistemic modals take scope over deontic ones, but not vice versa (Feagin 1979): (51) John might could/ *could might come. The fact that irrealis-marked verbs with subjunctive readings appear in higher positions than those with future readings is problematic. This paradox can be resolved by clause movement. Irrealis verbs with subjunctive readings raise themselves into the appropriate modal projection (other modal projections and CP projections are omitted in (52) for clarity), then into ForceP, where they mark the entire clause as subjunctive.2 (52)
ForceP VP
MoodP t
TP t
...
Irrealis-marked verbs with future (epistemic) readings stay in IP/TP, and the entire clause, with the VP remnant as its specifier, pied-pipes through the appropriate modal projection into ForceP:3 (53)
ForceP TP VP
MoodP ...
t
...
Thus, while irrealis verbs with future readings remain in TP, they are still able to satisfy their modal features by pied-piping TP through the appropriate modal projection.
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. Semantic motivation for verb fronting and clause fronting The choice of a verb-fronting or clause-fronting strategy for irrealis-marked verbs is independently motivated by the syntactic and semantic requirements of predicates that select them. Irrealis future clauses may appear as freestanding sentences or as complements of non-intensional verbs. These verbs subcategorize declarative sentential complements: elements of type t, or truth-value-bearing expressions: (54) Zi’cy nnah Gye’eihlly [yzh:ii y-nniinèe Gye’eihlly Li’eb.] thus neut-say Mike tomorrow irr-talk.with Mike Felipe “Mike says he will talk to Felipe tomorrow.” ForceP, the clause-typing projection within CP, serves as the interface between the CP’s internal contexts and its external environment. Clause fronting into ForceP is a possible strategy for marking the clause as finite, and thus consistent with the selectional requirements of a higher non-intensional predicate. SLQZ lacks complementizers or other overt forms of clause marking in complement clauses. Given that other CP projections in SLQZ are strong (whmovement, focus, and topicalization are all realized by overt movement), this suggests that non-interrogative clause marking may be marked by overt movement as well. A possible implication of this is that clause typing by clause fronting may take place in all indicative complement clauses in SLQZ.
. Why verb fronting of irrealis verbs with subjunctive readings? Irrealis-marked verbs only get subjunctive readings as complements of intensional predicates. These predicates correspond roughly to those analyzed as restructuring verbs in other languages. SLQZ intensional predicates show restructuring properties: they allow null subjects (obligatorily bound by matrix subjects) in their complements, something which non-intensional verbs do not allow, as seen from the absence of a subject-control reading in (59). (55) R-cààa’z Lia Paamm g-ahcnèe Ø Gye’eihlly. hab-want fem. Pam irr-help Ø Mike “Pam wants to help Mike.” (56) B-yennlààa’z bxuuhahz ny-ahcnèe Ø Gye’eihlly. perf-forget priest subj-help Ø Mike “The priest forgot to help Mike.” (57) Nàannag bxuuhahz g-uhcnèe Ø Lia Paamm. neut-know priest perf-help Ø fem. Pam *“The priest knew he helped Pam”/“The priest knew Pam helped.”
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Force first
SLQZ intensional verbs also allow focus fronting – which is otherwise clausebounded – out of embedded clauses into a matrix clause: (58) Bxaady r-cààa’z Gye’eihlly g-auh Ø t. grasshopper hab-want Mike irr-eat Ø t “Mike wants to eat GRASSHOPPERS (not something else).” Conversely, they do not allow focus fronting to take place within the embedded clause, even though this is normally allowable in other types of embedded clauses: (59) *R-cààa’z Gye’eihlly bxaady g-auh Ø t. hab-want Mike grasshopper irr-eat Ø t “Mike wants to eat GRASSHOPPERS (not something else).” As such, intensional verbs and their irrealis-marked complements behave like monoclausal structures: they share a subject, and movement operations treat them as a single clause. Restructuring predicates take as their complements not independent propositions, but unsaturated predicates with which they share a subject: elements of type <e,t>. I propose that restructuring is realized in SLQZ by raising an element of type <e,t> – the VP – into ForceP to clause-mark the complement clause. This would also account for the fact that preverbal focus disallowed in the complements of restructuring verbs: since subjunctive verbs occupy ForceP, which is above FocusP, focused constituents cannot precede the fronted verbs. The correlation between mood and the possible syntactic position of irrealis-marked verbs can be maintained in a theoretically consistent way: Clauses (TPs) front to ForceP in future irrealis constructions, while VPs themselves raise to ForceP in subjunctive irrealis constructions. Future irrealis verbs thus appear to be lower in the syntactic structure than do subjunctive irrealis verbs, even though both are contained in ForceP.
. Summary and implications Clause typing in SLQZ is realized either by base-generated particles in ForceP (yes/no question markers) or by movement into ForceP. Since features of other CP projections (Focus, Topic, quantifier scope-marking positions) are checked by overt movement in SLQZ, this suggests that ForceP may also have strong features that must be checked overtly. Since there is independent evidence that SLQZ verb movement is actually VP-remnant movement (Lee 2000b), this present analysis would make SLQZ a counterexample to Oda’s generalization (this volume) that clause typing by movement is disallowed in VP-fronting languages.
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A more general implication that can be made from the clause-fronting patterns previously described is that string-vacuous clause fronting for clause-typing purposes may be the unmarked strategy for clause typing in SLQZ. This is suggested by (1) the fact that all CP-related features in SLQZ appear to be strong and (2) the limited inventory of clause-typing morphemes in SLQZ (wh-words, question markers, a relative marker, and a few discourse markers). Thus, if ForceP must be filled by PF and no clause-typing morpheme is present, clause fronting must be required.
Notes * I am grateful to Rodrigo Garcia for providing the data and grammaticality judgments in this work. Thanks are also due to participants in the UBC Linguistics Department Research Seminar for their comments and suggestions on an earlier version of this talk. Any errors are my own. . See Lee (1999) for an analysis of this construction. . Raising of subjunctive verbs in CP has also been proposed for Italian (Poletto 2000) based on clitic placement and complementizer distribution facts. . I assume that SLQZ inflected verbs are VP remnants and thus occupy specifier positions. Motivation for this is given in Lee (1999, 2000b).
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V1 and wh-questions A typology* Kenji Oda University of Toronto
This article investigates two issues: formation of wh-questions in V-initial languages, and the clausal architecture of Irish word order. The article first argues for a more general view of deriving matrix V-initial word order; it is derived either by head movement of a fully inflected verb to I◦ (as argued by Alexiadou & Anagnostopoulou 1998, 1999), or by XP-movement of VP to [Spec, IP] due to EPP requirement to check [Pred] (as argued by Massam 2000). The article further shows that XP-movement V-initial languages are banned from introducing interrogatives by T-to-C movement, and hence they resort to cleft strategy to front wh-items, as a natural consequence of the proposal that XP-movement V-initial languages employ [Pred] as the EPP feature consistently in the C-T layer. The latter part of this article re-evaluates the status of Irish syntax, proposing that Irish V-initial order is better analyzed as an instance of VP-movement, and Irish wh-questions as pseudo-clefts.
.
Introduction
In this paper, I investigate a typological correlation between V-initial order and the way that wh-questions are formed in V-initial languages. In particular, I argue that surface V-initial order has two sources, V-movement and VP-movement (see Otsuka this volume, for a similar argument), which correlates with the predication structure and the agreement system. Further, I will show that in VP-movement languages, a clause cannot be typed (in the sense of Cheng 1997) by movement. This conclusion is a natural consequence of a reformulated Extended Projection Principle (EPP) requirement: VP-movement languages consistently employ [Pred] as the EPP feature in the C-T layer. Because wh-movement occurs only when the EPP is checked by a φ-feature, wh-movement cannot take place in VPmovement languages. Finally, I show that wh-questions in VP-fronting languages are predicate-initial. This analysis suggests that Irish may be best analyzed as a VP-
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fronting language, despite the well-established V-raising analyses currently most widely adopted.
. Observations and questions Are there any true syntactic correlates of V-initial order? Several researchers independently suggest or observe that wh-questions in such languages resemble clefts (see, for example, Kroeger (1993) and Mercado (2003) for Tagalog, Seiter (1980) and Massam (2002) for Niuean, Hess (1995) for Lushootseed, and Cheng (1997) for Bahasa Indonesian, Egyptian Arabic, and Palauan). Some Lushootseed examples are given in (1): [(ti‘6‘) sqw 6bay‘] [ti ‘uˇcalat6b ‘6 ti‘iS wiw’su]. (that) dog D chased obl that children “A dog is what the children chased” (Cleft) b. [gw at] [kw i ‘u‘6y’dub ‘6 ti sqw 6bay‘]. whom D found obl the dog “Whom did the dog find?” (Wh-question) (Hess 1995: 98–100)
(1) a.
Notice here that in both sentences, the clefted element and the wh-word appears at the left edge of the clause, and followed by a clause which seems to be headed by a determiner. Strikingly, most, if not all, of the above mentioned languages have V-initial order in basic finite clauses. This suggests the possibility that the syntax of V-initial order can be analyzed in a unified way so that wh-questions in V-initial languages can also receive a unified treatment. However, there are several languages, which have been argued to have V-initial order – such as some dialects of Arabic, Catalan, and Romanian, that do not exhibit this similarity between wh-questions and clefts.1 Consider the Catalan examples in (2), which show that wh-questions are formed by ordinary wh-movement: (2) a.
És en Joan qui ha vingut. is art Joan who has come “It is Joan that came.” (Cleft) b. Qué vol en Joan? what wants art Joan “What does Joan want?” (Wh-question)
(Hualde 1992: 7–8)
Thus, the correlation between V-initial order and cleft-like wh-questions is not perfect; it holds only for a subset of V-initial languages. Certain diversities are expected, as noted by McCloskey (1996: 273): “the trend of recent work on VSO languages [. . . ] has shed great doubt on the idea that they might form a uni-
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tary class.” Borsley (1995) independently shows that there are two possible ways to achieve V-initial order in Head-Driven Phrase Structure Grammar. Also, recent developments in the Minimalist program (Chomsky 1995), particularly VP remnant movement (Holmer this volume; Lee 2000a, this volume; Koopman this volume; Koopman & Szabolcsi 2000; Laughren et al. this volume; Massam 2000a this volume; Rackowski & Travis 2000; Travis this volume) and the fine-grained functional projections in the left periphery (Rizzi 1997) provide an almost embarrassing wealth of possibilities for achieving V-initial order. While an elaboration of this kind allows us to articulate subtle differences among individual languages, it brings with it the risk of overlooking broader typological correlations. For example, while it is well known that many V-initial languages exhibit preverbal particles, little attempt has been made to explain their presence (for a possible account of preverbal particles in V-initial languages, see Bury this volume). Similarly, the observation that many V-initial languages employ clefts to formulate wh-questions must be explained. The goal of a typological analysis of V-initial languages, then, is to allow some flexibility in order to account for the observed diversity, while capturing the consistent behavior observed in the subset under consideration.
. A typology of V-initial syntax To achieve this goal in the Minimalist Program, I claim that V-initial order may result from different settings of the EPP requirement. A V-initial language will satisfy the requirement either by V-to-I head movement (V-movement type), or by movement of VP to the specifier of IP (VP-movement type), based on Alexiadou and Anagnostopoulou (1998, 1999) (henceforth A&A) and Massam (2000a, 2001a).
. V-movement languages A&A suggest, in order to account for null-subject languages (Jaeggli & Safir 1989), that an EPP feature may be checked verb-internally if the language fully specifies a [φ] feature in its verbal morphological paradigm. Thus, a derivation may converge without moving a subject to the specifier of IP. As a result, languages of this sort exhibit surface V-initial order (or V-final if we assume that the ComplementHead relation is a parameterized property of Language). A&A argue that Catalan and Greek are included in this group. The following structure in (3) is the basic structure for these languages.
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(3)
IP V+[ö]
vP
Subject
v’
Object
v’ tv
VP tV
tobj
This implies that Subject-Verb (SV) order in Catalan and Greek, which had been thought to be canonical, is in fact derived and marked. A&A give a great deal of evidence to support this claim, and they conclude that the SV order is an instance of Clitic Left Dislocation. A&A note two advantages of this proposal for the treatment of null-subject languages. First, it allows us to abandon the arbitrary strong/weak distinction for EPP (Chomsky 1995). With the self-contained EPP checking theory, we may assume that φ-feature checking is done only overtly. Second, we may correlate the degree of inflectedness of verbal morphology with the way in which the EPP is implemented. A&A note that, for example, verbs are overtly specified for the person and number of the subject in Greek. A&A’s account may thus be able to reformulate some part of the morphological uniformity principle (Jaeggli & Safir 1989), which provides an account for a correlation between null-subject languages and the paradigmatic appearance of verbal morphology, within current morphosyntactic theory. While it works well for some V-initial languages, the analysis proposed by A&A cannot account for the full range of languages exhibiting V-initial order and/or null subjects. They are forced to stipulate that languages whose morphology lacks subject-verb agreement, such as Japanese and Chinese, and languages whose verbal inflection has odd characteristics, such as Irish (McCloskey & Hale 1984; Doron 1988; Andrews 1990; Legate 1999), have φ-features on verbs even though these languages do not have rich and uniform morphology. However, such a stipulation for null-subject languages whose morphology is not rich and uniform seems to be an oversimplification of the phenomenon. Also, while the fundamental observation is correct, it is worth mentioning that null-subject languages characterized by the morphological uniformity principle (Jaeggli & Safir 1989) do not really form a unified class. In fact, there are three kinds of null-subject languages: those with rich and uniform agreement morphology (e.g., Greek and Catalan), those with zero agreement morphology (e.g., Japanese and Chinese), and those with “odd” agree-
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ment morphology (e.g., Irish and Palauan. See Section 4.1.1 for the Irish case.). I propose that A&A’s self-contained EPP checking is restricted to languages with rich and uniform morphology. This restriction provides a transparent correlation between verbal morphology and the EPP requirement, and eliminates the need to posit null rich agreement morphology.
. VP-movement languages Restricting A&A’s approach is not sufficient; we must now provide an analysis that accounts for the other kinds of V-initial and/or null-subject languages. I now turn to those V-initial languages that lack rich and uniform verbal morphology. I propose that these, or at least a subset of them, are VP-movement languages. The V-initial languages in this category move VP (or, more precisely, a constituent denoting a predicate) to the specifier of IP. Massam (2000a, 2001a) and Massam and Smallwood (1997) argue that this VP-movement happens in Niuean, to satisfy an EPP requirement to check a [Pred] feature, yielding a structure of [VP V tobj ]SO t VP .2 Because the string-initial V is contained within the VP in the specifier of T in these languages, it is never in a specifier-head relationship with the DP, will never check any φ-features and therefore cannot bear φ-feature agreement morphology. Evidence is provided from non-verbal predication structures, as in (4a), and from incorporation of indefinite objects (4b), which results in a VOS order: (4) a.
Non-verbal predication [Ko Mele] e faiaoga. ‘ko’ Mele abs teacher “The teacher is Mele.” b. Pseudo noun incorporation Ne holoholo [kapiniu kiva] fakaeneena a pst wash [dish dirty] slowly abs “Sione is washing dirty dishes slowly.”
(Massam 2000a: 104) Sione. Sione (Massam 2001a: 106)
Massam (2000a, 2001a) argues that the fronting of a non-verbal predicate in (4a) is due to the fact that the language moves not a subject, but rather a constituent which forms a “predicate,” to the clause-initial position. It is a natural consequence of this proposal that an internal argument is “pied-piped” to the clause-initial position if it does not move out of the VP for other reasons, such as Case-checking. Indeed, this is what is happening in (4b), according to Massam (2000a, 2001a). Since the object is indefinite, it does not move out of VP to check its Case, and the VP moves to satisfy the EPP requirement. The trees are provided below:3
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(5) a. Definite object IP VP
I’ tobj
V
vP
I°
v’
v’ v°
tVP
b. Indefinite object IP VP V
I’
vP
I°
v’ v°
tVP
. V-initial typology Using A&A’s and Massam’s approaches to V-initial languages, we may now make a first attempt at establishing a typology of V-initial syntax. First, recall that we have proposed that A&A’s approach, that is, V-movement ◦ to I , applies only to languages with rich and uniform verbal agreement morphology. However, rich and uniform morphology is not a necessary condition for a language to exhibit VP-movement. In fact, given that in VP-movement languages the syntactic component never looks at φ-features, a reasonable assumption would be that languages in this category do not show φ-related agreement morphology on verbs at all (Massam this volume). This is certainly true for Niuean, which has no agreement morphology. Second, we have seen above that a nominal predicate fronts in Niuean, and that this is a natural consequence under the VP-movement analysis of V-initial order. On the other hand, the syntactic mechanism of V-movement languages by itself does not permit nominal predicate fronting, unless some other mechanism requires it independently.4 We would thus expect that in V-movement languages,
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only a copular fragment of a nominal predicate should move to T to satisfy the tense feature and the EPP. This is exactly what happens in Catalan, as shown in (6).5 (6) Catalan (cf. Niuean data in 4) a. En Joan és enginyer. art Joan is engineer “Joan is an engineer.” (Predicative) b. Aquests senyors són els electricistes. these men be.3.pl the electricians “These men are the electricians.” (Equative)
(Hualde 1992: 75)
(Hualde 1992: 76)
Similarly, the VP-movement analysis predicts that pied-piping of an object is possible, whereas the V-movement analysis disallows it. Finally, we have observed that an alternation between Subject-Verb and VerbSubject order is possible under the V-movement analysis. We will come back to this issue in Section 4.2.2. The chart below provides a summary of this typological distinction:6 (7) (To be revised in Section 4.2.2) V-movement Language Rich and Uniform Agreement Required Nominal Predicate Fronting Disallowed Object Pied-piping Disallowed SV/VS Alternation Possible
VP-movement Language Disallowed7 Required Possible ??? (To be discussed)
While the chart in (7) provides diagnostics for a concise typology among Vinitial languages, we have not yet answered a fundamental question: what motivates the typology? Many studies (e.g., A&A 1998; Davies & Dubinsky 2001a; Jaeggli & Safir 1989) have treated what we call V-movement languages and VPmovement languages as equivalent. Then the question becomes: do we have any reason to maintain our claim which distinguishes between V-movement languages and VP-movement languages? Below I present two (conceptual) reasons in favor of the claim. First, the typological distinction captures a distinction in predication structure among V-initial languages. VP-movement languages correspond to what traditional grammar would call Predicate-initial languages, as the entire predicate needs to be fronted. On the other hand, V-movement languages require fronting of a copula but not an entire phrase, and V-initial order comes from the fact that languages of this category do not place the subject in the specifier of IP. Thus, V-movement languages are a marked subset of subject-initial languages, such as English and French.
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(8) Movement Type Predication Structure V-movement ([Subject]) [Predicate] VP-movement [Predicate] [Subject] The matter is slightly complicated since the distinction may be obscured at the PF level due to other factors. An obvious example is that Case-driven movement of an object in VP-movement languages camouflages the fact that a phrasal constituent, not merely a head V, moves to the left periphery. The second argument is that the typological dichotomy allows us to retain the universality of EPP without any stipulation. I follow Chomsky’s (1995) definition of the EPP, shown below: (9) The Extended Projection Principle (EPP) states that [Spec, IP] is obligatory, perhaps as a morphological requirement or by virtue of the predicational character of VP. (Chomsky 1995: 55) While it is commonly assumed that something occupies specifier of IP to satisfy the principle, precisely what occupies the position is not obvious. It is conventionally assumed that a constituent that is related to [φ] satisfies the EPP, but there are several constructions, such as dative subjects and locative inversion, which indicate that such an assumption cannot be accurate. Moreover, as we have seen in Section 3.2, Niuean provides us with strong empirical evidence for the need of [Pred] as the EPP requirement. Then it is not unreasonable to say that the principle is parameterized to some extent. For these two reasons, it is not unreasonable to assume that the typological distinction allowing the EPP to be satisfied either by [φ] or by [Pred] should be kept. Furthermore, as we will see below, the distinction seems to correctly predict how wh-questions are formed in V-initial languages.
. Typology of wh-questions: Extending the Clause Typing Hypothesis . Preliminaries: The Clause Typing Hypothesis (Cheng 1997) Cheng (1997) proposes the Clause Typing Hypothesis (hereafter, CTH) (10) to account for the difference between wh-fronting languages, such as English and French, and wh-in-situ languages, such as Japanese and Chinese. (10) Clause Typing Hypothesis Every clause needs to be typed. In the case of typing a wh-question, either a wh-particle in C◦ is used or else fronting of a wh-word to the specifier of C◦ is used, thereby typing a clause through C◦ by spec-head agreement. (Cheng 1997: 22)8
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This hypothesis then makes the following predictions in (11): (11) a.
No language has yes/no particles (and thus wh-particles) and syntactic wh-movement. b. No language has the option of using either a wh-particle or syntactic wh-movement of wh-words to type a sentence as a wh-question. (Cheng1997: 28)
Thus, according to the hypothesis, Chinese and Japanese type a sentence by particles, and are wh-in-situ languages, whereas English and French do not make use of particles to type; instead, use fronting a wh-word in a wh-question.9 Cheng (1997) notes that there are several languages that apparently violate these predictions. Some are languages which optionally front a wh-word; hence, optional fronting languages. Languages of this group include Palauan, Indonesian, and Egyptian Arabic. Compare the following Egyptian Arabic sentences in (12): eeh illi Mona ‘arit-uh. what that Mona read-it “What did Mona read?” (wh-fronting) b. Fariid hawil yi’mil eeh. Fariid tried to.do what “What did Fariid try to do?” (wh-in-situ)
(12) a.
(Cheng 1997: 44, 48)
While the wh-word eeh ‘what’ is fronted in (12a), indicating that Egyptian Arabic is a wh-movement language, it is observed in (12b) that the language also allows in-situ wh-questions. This clearly contradicts the CTH. To account for this apparent counterexample, Cheng (1997) claims that wh-fronting questions in these languages are in fact cleft sentences; hence wh-clefts. There are indeed several similarities between fronted wh-questions and cleft sentences in Egyptian Arabic, including the use of a complementizer illi, which is equivalent to English that. (13) (dah) muhamad illi gih. this Mohammed that came “It is Mohammed who came.”
(Cheng 1997: 44)
More specifically, Cheng considers wh-clefts in optional fronting languages to be analogous to the English it-cleft, given a structure like (14):10 (14) [CP [DP miin] [CP Opi illi [IP Mona shaafit-uhi ]]]. who that Mona saw-him “Who did Mona see?”
(Cheng 1997: 53)
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. Adding to Cheng (1997): The generalized EPP conjecture Interestingly, most of the optional fronting languages that Cheng (1997) considers are V-initial languages, with Bahasa Indonesian being the only exception. Also, they seem to fit into the group of VP-movement languages under our typology, as we observe some coherence with Niuean, a typical VP-movement language, which types a sentence by particles (and thus disallows wh-movement under CTH) and yet also shows wh-clefts in several instances (Massam 2002). On the other hand it is difficult to assimilate these languages to Catalan, which is strictly a wh-movement language. VP-movement languages do not permit wh-movement, and they must therefore type a clause by particles.11 Coincidentally, many V-initial languages, many of which would fall into the category of VP-movement languages, mark tense, mood, negation and so on by preverbal particles. While a thorough cross-linguistic study is required to determine if this idea is generally true, it is an interesting observation, which, if true, needs to be accounted for by theoretical means. One plausible possibility is already encoded in the analysis of VP-movement languages. Recall that the EPP under our system is parameterized in such a way that it may be satisfied either by [φ] or [Pred]. We might extend this theory of EPP-related movement to other projections, and say that the parameterization of the EPP [Pred] may be consistent throughout the C-T system. Thus, the specifier of CP cannot be occupied by a [φ]related element in VP-movement languages. As a consequence, wh-movement, or other types of A’- movement of DPs to the CP field are not an available option, and a particle becomes the only way to type clauses in these languages.12 This analysis has some empirical support. That is, there is no instance of obvious focusing or topicalization of nominal elements in VP-movement languages. This is true for at least Niuean (Massam 2002) and Malagasy (Paul 2002, 2003; but see Flegg 2003) as they lack [φ]-related movement beyond C. The general application of [Pred]-driven movement suggested here seems inconsistent with Case-checking movement under the VP-movement analysis. That is, movement due to Case-checking in VP-movement languages never targets predicate-like elements, and thus we have to restrict the general application of parameterized EPP. The question, then, is whether this is simply a stipulation, or attributable to a conceptually necessary mechanism of the grammar which a minimalist theory assumes, and thus to be expected. The notion of phase (Chomsky 2000, 2001a, b) seems to indicate that the latter is the case here. As commonly assumed, C-T and Case-checking projections (i.e., v) are in different types of phases; that is, the CP phase is related to clausal/functional properties, whereas the vP phase is related to θ-role assignment and Case-checking. Thus, we may say that the EPP parameter is relevant to the CP phase and some other system is in effect for the vP phase.
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..
Dealing with wh-clefts in VP-movement languages: A pseudo-cleft analysis While we have a proposal for why VP-movement languages may not type clauses by wh-movement, we have not discussed how wh-clefts are formed in this language group. Our particular concern here is whether the [Pred]-based approach of Vinitial order sheds any new light on wh-clefts. Indeed, it seems that the analysis provides an analysis of wh-cleft that may be preferable to that of Cheng (1997). Recall that VP-movement languages have the functional structure of [[Predicate] [Subject]]. If we equate the predicate part to a fronted wh-item and the subject part to the remainder of the wh-cleft structure, as shown in (15) below, the structure of wh-clefts looks rather like that of a pseudo-cleft. (15)
This analysis certainly has aesthetic appeal, but there is also extensive supporting evidence. For example, Paul (2001) argues on the basis of semantic properties in Malagasy, a VOS language and plausibly a VP-movement language (Rackowski & Travis 2000; Travis this volume), clefts are in fact pseudo-clefts. Then, a reasonable assumption would be that Malagasy wh-clefts are also pseudo-clefts. Paul (2003: 1– 2) notes that this is the case. A stronger argument is found in Palauan. In Palauan, wh-clefts, in which whitems are assumed to be in the specifier of CP under Cheng’s (1997) analysis, are headed by a nominal marker a, not by a complementizer, as shown in (16). (16) a.
Ng-Basilia [a mengaus er tia cl-Basilia nmz rls-weave p dem “It’s Basilia who’s weaving this bag.” b. Ng-te’a [a kileldii cl-who nmz rls.pst.pref.heat.3.sg “Who heated up the soup?”
el tet t]. bag a sub t]. nmz soup (Georgopoulos 1991: 66)
Note that this is not homophony between a nominalizer and a relativizing (or wh-) complementizer; relative clauses in the language are formed with the complementizer el, as seen in (17):13 (17) Ng-ngerai [a ’omomes er [a rese’alj [el omtanget er ngiii t j ]]]. cl-what nmz irr.2.see p nmz boys C rls.polish p it “What are you watching the boys who are polishing (it)?” (Georgopoulos 1991: 81)
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Furthermore, the clitic ng- found attached to clefted items, as in (16) and (17), normally attaches to a verb (Georgopoulos 1991: 26). Consider (18): (18) ng-kiltmeklii a ulaol a Peter. cl-clean nmz floor nmz “Peter cleaned the floor.” In (18), it is evident that ng- is attaching to a verbal element. If so, it is necessary to explain why clefted items are also marked with the clitic. This is straightforward under the pseudo-cleft analysis we are pursuing here. That is, the fronted component is the predicate of the sentence and therefore it may host ng-. What is required is a minor amendment that ng- attaches to a predicate, not just to a verb. On the other hand, if we were to assume that a clefted item occupies a specifier position of a focus projection, either CP or FocP, as in English, it would be necessary to come up with an explanation for the fact that ng- can attach to clefted items among nominals.
.. Clause typing as a diagnostic tool Let us first summarize what we have achieved so far in this section. Based on the CTH and Cheng’s discussions on optional fronting languages, we form a hypothesis that VP-movement languages cannot type a clause by movement, and thus particle typing is the only option available to them. This is theoretically explainable by assuming that EPP is parameterized to be satisfied either by [φ] or by [Pred], and this parameterization is in effect in the entire C-T domain so that a φ-related element cannot be moved to any specifier position in the C-T system in a VPmovement language; hence the languages of this group resort to particle-typing.14 Given this analysis, we may now refine the diagnostics for the V-initial typology. Arguably, VP-movement languages type clauses by particles only. On the other hand, there is nothing to restrict V-movement languages in this way. Some of them may type clauses by movement, but there seems to be no reason that Vmovement languages cannot use particle typing. Thus, we may assume that other factors, including pure chance, decide whether a V-movement language is a particle typing or a movement-typing language. We may then form two implications, as follows: First, if a V-initial language types a clause by movement, then it is a V-movement language; and second, if a language is a VP-movement language, then it may type only by particle. Notice that particle typing is a necessary but not sufficient condition for VP-movement languages. Also, given the extension of [Pred]-driven movement throughout the CP phase, we predict that it is strictly disallowed to move a φ-related element to any specifier position within the CP phase in a VP-movement language. Thus, languages in this group would not exhibit movement of arguments to the left periphery for focusing or topicalization, and the alternation of SV and VS orders
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would not be found in this group. On the other hand, the possibility of SV/VS alternation remains in V-movement languages, unless some other factor prevents it. The chart below summarizes the discussion thus far, with new and revised points boldfaced. (19)
V-movement Language Rich and Uniform Agreement Required Nominal Predicate Fronting Disallowed Object Pied-piping Disallowed SV/VS Alternation Possible Clause Typing (Movement/ Particle)
VP-movement Language Disallowed Required Possible Disallowed Particle only
. Consequences: A new way to look at Irish syntax Let us now consider the implication of this typology for Irish. Irish has received a fair amount of attention in generative studies from the early stages (Carnie 1995; Duffield 1995; Guilfoyle 1990; Legate 1997; McCloskey 1979; Noonan 1992; Stenson 1981). We will see in this section that the general picture of Irish syntax given in the literature is inconsistent with the typology we have developed so far, and investigate the feasibility of assimilating it to the typology. Toward the end of this section, previous analyses of the clausal architecture of Irish are challenged as we will also consider the possibility that Irish is a VP-movement language, and the possibility that it does not exhibit overt A’-movement of wh-items, contrary to its superficial appearance.
. Examining the properties of Irish Let us first consider the properties of Irish using the diagnostics that we have developed in the earlier section.
.. Agreement morphology The chart in (20) provides a paradigm of Irish verbal morphology with a verb bris ‘break’:
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(20)
Obviously, Irish does not retain richness and uniformity in verbal morphology, as there are many cases where a syncretic form, such as bris-eann, occurs. Furthermore, Irish has a peculiar property that an overt subject and a specifically inflected form , such as bris-im ‘I break’ and bris-eamar ‘we broke’ (traditionally called synthetic; see McCloskey & Hale 1984) cannot co-occur in the same clause. This complementary distribution is illustrated in (21): (21) a.
Táim (*mé) tuirseach. be.pres.1.sg I tired b. Tá *(mé) tuirseach. be.pres I tired “I am tired.”
In (21a), a synthetic form, táim ‘I am’, of the verb bí is used, and thus the sentence cannot take the overt pronoun mé. On the other hand, (21b) shows that when a verb takes an analytic form tá, a pronoun must appear and pro-drop is strictly prohibited. This is not normally observed in languages with rich and uniform verbal morphology. For example, Spanish, a pro-drop language whose verbal morphology is rich and uniform, may take both a fully inflected verb and an overt subject in the same clause, and it would not allow a non-inflected form in a finite clause even when an overt subject is present. This seems to suggest that synthetic forms of Irish verbs are better viewed as a result of some incorporation process. Irish verbal agreement morphology is thus not rich and uniform.15
.. SVO/VSO alternation Irish seems to strictly disallow movement of an argument to the left edge, as shown in (22): (22) a.
D’fhág Máire a cóta ar an urlár. Leave.pst Máire her coat on the floor “Máire left her coat on the floor.” b. *Máire d’fhág a cóta ar an urlár.
There is a slight complication here, however. According to Stenson (1981: 47), when a subject is “complex”, it may front, leaving what seems to be a resumptive
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pronoun. Thus, the sentence in (23) is grammatical and seems to indicate that Irish allows some movement of an argument to the left periphery.16,17 (23) a.
An fear mór leisciúil, tháinig sé abhaile inné. the man big lazy, came he home yesterday “The big lazy man, he came home yesterday.” b. An chéard dream eile aL tháinig, tugadh na the first crowd other C come.pst give.pst.aut the.pl Firbholg orthu. Firbholg on.them “The next group that came were called Firbholg.” (Stenson 1981: 47)
However, it is clear that this phenomenon does not involve any movement. Stenson (1981) notes that fronting may apply only to complex DPs which we may roughly translate as (prosodic) heaviness, and it is disfavored to front non-heavy DPs, as shown in (24): (24) a. *An fear, tháinig sé abhaile inné. the man came he home yesterday “The man, he came home yesterday.” b. ?*Na Sasanaí, tháinig siad go hÉirinn sa mbliain 1172. the.pl English come.pst they to Ireland in.the year “The English, they came to Ireland in 1172.” (Stenson 1981: 47) Since the matter is dependent on phonological weight, it is natural to assume that it is driven by phonological pressures. McCloskey (1990: 224–225) suggests that the phenomenon, which he calls “left dislocation,” does not involve any movement. This is supported by the presence of the resumptive pronouns, which following McCloskey (1990, 2002) we can take as evidence against any movement. Thus, our conclusion is that Irish does not allow a movement derived VS/SV alternation.
.. Nominal predicate and object pied-piping In Irish, the nominal predicate in the predicative construction must appear clauseinitially with a copula is (or its variant), as shown in (25): (25) a.
Is cúpla iad Niall agus Fíona agus . . . cop twin agr Niall and Fíona and “Niall and Fíona are twins, and . . . ” b. Deir sé [gur banaltra Máire]. say.pres he C nurse Máire “He says that Máire is a nurse.”
(MO 3)
(SMC2 103)
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While the examples above clearly indicate that Irish undergoes nominal predicate fronting, it is also observed that equative sentences do not have a fronted nominal, as in (26): Is mé [an bhean aL bhí tinn]. cop I the woman C be.past sick “I am the woman who was sick.” (subject = mé) (Stenson 1981: 113) b. Deir sé gurb é [subj an tAthair Seán] [obj an sagart say.pres he C agr the Father Seán the priest paróiste]. parish “He says that the Father Seán is the parish priest.” (SMC2 104)
(26) a.
However, this seems to be due to an independent reason; namely, Case-checking (Carnie 1995: Chapter 5; however see McCloskey this volume). That is, being referential, the nominal in the predicate of the equative construction needs to move to check its Case. If this is true, then we may assume that nominal fronting is the default operation. How about object pied-piping? Unlike Niuean “pseudo noun incorporation,” there is no instance where an object is pied-piped with a finite verb in Irish, and its basic VSO order is quite rigid.
.. Clause typing Let us consider the last question, whether Irish types a clause by movement or by particle. Simple yes/no questions, like the ones in (27) below, show that Irish employs interrogative particles: (27) a.
An bhfaca tú An Túr Eiffel? C[+q] see.pst.dep you the Tower Eiffel “Did you see the Eiffel Tower?” b. Ar shiúil sibh abhaile ansin? C.pst[+q] walk you.pl home then “Did you walk home then?”
(MO 145)
(MO 19)
I, therefore, conclude that Irish is a particle-typing language, in accordance with Cheng’s CTH typological prediction in (12a) above.18
.. Irish as a VP-movement language Let us consider the typological status of Irish under our analysis. The table in (28) summarizes the results of the examination:
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(28)
V-movement Language Rich and Uniform Agreement Required Nominal Predicate Fronting Disallowed Object Pied-piping Disallowed SV/VS Alternation Possible Clause Typing (Movement /Particle)
VP-movement Language Disallowed Required Possible Disallowed By particle only
Irish Not available Yes Not allowed Disallowed By particle
Interestingly, these properties of Irish seem to favor a VP-movement analysis of the language, apart from the one opposing fact that Irish does not allow pied-piping of the object argument. This is a surprising result, in that there have been few attempts made to analyze Irish in terms of VP-movement, as Carnie (in prep.) points out. However, it is not entirely new to adopt the VP-movement approach to Irish syntax, either. Legate (1997) and Doherty (1997a) independently propose that the Irish predicate initial copular construction, illustrated in (25), is derived by moving a predicate nominal, which is phrasal, to the specifier of TP while sentences with verbs undergo V-movement, as assumed in the other analyses of Irish. The motivation of the phrasal movement is slightly different between the two. Legate (1997) assumes that the EPP feature [Pred] is in effect only when the predicate is nominal, while Doherty (1997a) considers that the movement satisfies the Tense feature. Although both analyses give satisfactory results for deriving correct word order patterns, it seems that an analysis, which relies both on V-movement and phrasal predicate movement, is insufficiently restrictive, and lacks theoretical uniformity. If their proposals are correct with respect to phrasal predicate movement, then it would be an interesting research program to see if other issues that previously supported V-movement can be accounted for solely by VP-movement.
. Irish wh-questions .. Clause Typing Hypothesis and Irish: A counterexample? Recall that yes/no questions are marked by a particle in Irish, as in (27). According to Cheng’s (1997) CTH, this entails that Irish also uses particles to type wh-questions, and is thus a wh-in-situ language or an optional fronting language. This prediction does not hold, however, since Irish has obligatory wh-fronting. This is shown in (29): (29) a.
Céard aL rinne Éamonn? what C do.pst.dep Éamonn “What did Éamonn do?”
(MO 20)
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b. Cé aL scríobh an dráma seo? who C write.pst the drama this “Who wrote this drama?” c. *Bhuail Cathal cad? hit.pst Charles what “Charles hit what?”
(MO 63)
(Carnie 1995: 194)
If we follow strictly the CTH, this means that Irish is fundamentally a wh-insitu language, despite the fact that wh-phrases are obligatorily initial (29c), and hence the fronting of a wh-item is not an instance of A’-movement to the specifier of CP. This then sheds a light on the possibility of pseudo-cleft analysis of Irish wh-questions. However, some other property of the language imposes obligatory fronting of wh-items. Tentatively, I propose that wh-items in Irish are portmanteaux composed of C[+q] and a nominal element roughly equivalent to a Japanese or Chinese wh-item, which could also mean “someone/something” or “anything/anyone.”19 Thus, the structure should look like the one in (30) below:20 (30)
CP C°
YP
[+]
X
Y’
WH-ITEM céard ‘what’
aL rinne Éamonn
Crucially, the interpretation of wh-items in Chinese and Japanese depends on what binds them, as the Japanese sentences with a wh-nominal nani in (31) show: (31) a.
kinou-wa nani-o shimashi-ta-ka? yesterday-nom what-acc do-past-prt “What did (you) do yesterday?” (nani ≈ ‘what’) b. Yooko-wa nani-ka-o tabe-ta. Yooko-nom what-prt-acc eat-pst “Yooko ate something.” (nani ≈ ‘something’) c. Takeo-wa nani-o shite-mo sugu shippai-suru. Takeo-nom what-acc do-prt soon failure-do.pres “Whatever Takeo does(/tries), soon (he) fails (it).” (nani ≈ ‘anything’)
However, in Irish, the structure in which C[+q] binds a wh-item is fixed by its morphological structure, so that the analysis indicates that Irish wh-items do not express other meanings, as in Chinese or Japanese. This is a positive result, in that
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Irish wh-items indeed do not carry any other meanings. Furthermore, this solution can capture two more properties of Irish wh-questions. First, notice that the interrogative typing particle an (or its equivalent) does not appear in wh-sentences (see 29). Under the idea proposed here, this is because the C slot is already occupied by a wh-item that types [+q]. That is, the analysis essentially states that wh-words in Irish are typing particles. Therefore, having an interrogative particle in addition to a wh-item leads to an interpretive crash in Irish, and as a natural consequence, these two elements are in complementary distribution. Second, Irish does not allow multiple wh-questions even without any crossover violation, as shown in (32): (32) *Cé aL rinne caidé? who C did what “Who did what?”
(McCloskey 1979)
This can be explained in a similar fashion. Wh-words in Irish are portmanteaux, and contain an interrogative typing particle; thus, in (32), both cé ‘who’ and caidé ‘what’ carry a particle. While the particle in cé in (32) may be in a good position to be correctly interpreted, the particle in caidé is not, as it is far from C. Even if the wh-word is interpreted in a non-C position, the sentence still suffers from redundant typing which could cause interpretive difficulty. Thus, even though Irish is not a wh-fronting language, the wh-word appears initially for morphological reasons. While this proposal handles the Irish case quite well, it does not account for certain cross-linguistic patterns. Notice that the proposal has a consequence that if wh-items in a wh-in-situ language are unambiguous (i.e., do not have anyone/someone interpretation), the language should show obligatory fronting for appropriate interpretation. This is, however, not the case for some languages, including Niuean (Massam, p.c.). Niuean wh-items are unambiguous, but they can stay in situ, and they can co-occur with a [+q] particle (Massam 2002). This issue requires further investigation.
.. The structure of Irish wh-questions We have discussed why Irish wh-items have to appear at the left edge of the clause, but we have not discussed the structure of wh-questions. The first thorough investigation of this topic is provided by McCloskey (1979), followed by Duffield (1995), McCloskey (1990, 2002), and Noonan (1992, 1997, 2002).21 In this section, I will show that McCloskey’s (1979) analysis of wh-questions in Irish, which is temporarily adopted in McCloskey (1990: 231), does not fit into the current assumptions of a minimalist theory, and suggest, as an alternative, that Irish wh-questions are better analyzed as wh-pseudo-clefts, based on the discussion in the previous sections of this paper.
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First, let us consider the proposal of McCloskey (1979). He notes a similarity between wh-questions and relative clauses in Irish: Cé aL dhíol an domhan? who C sold the world “Who sold the world?” b. an fear aL dhíol an domhan. the man C sold the world “the man who sold the world.”
(33) a.
(McCloskey 1979: 52)
Taking this into account, McCloskey (1979) proposes a Phrase Structure rule [Q → QNP S’] (where QNP is a wh-nominal), which roughly translates to “a question consists of a wh-nominal and a relative clause.” While the proposal is adequate under the Standard Theory, it is problematic to maintain a similar analysis under a minimalist theory. While these two constructions show some similarity, they differ on a fundamental point: wh-questions have a clausal reading, whereas a relative clause headed by a nominal has a nominal reading. However, if we extend the structure of relative clauses to wh-questions consistently, we would then have a constituent headed by the wh-nominal, which would necessarily have a nominal reading: (34) a. [NP NP [CP Opi [C [IP . . . t i . . . ]]]] (Relative Clause) b. [QNP NP[+q] [CP Opi [C [IP . . . t i . . . ]]]] (Wh-clause) Since the minimalist program does not include Phrase Structure rules, the analysis based on the structure of relative clause suffers from this interpretive mismatch. Alternatively, we may consider that Irish wh-questions are a subset of pseudoclefts, just as in Palauan. Thus, a wh-item occupies the predicate position, which is [Spec, IP] under the VP-movement analysis, and the remainder occupies a subject position, as in (35): mbarr]. (35) [Predicate Cad] [Subject aL chonaic siad ón what C saw they from.the summit “What did they see from the summit?”
(MO 20)
At first, this analysis seems to be problematic; as what is claimed to be the subject of the structure is a CP headed by aL , which, in many cases, behaves quite differently from a determiner, and it would be necessary to postulate a covert D preceding the complementizer.22 However, this seems not to be a damaging stipulation. Note that the clause headed by aL can act as a headless relative, as in (36).
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(36) Is é [Subject aL shíl mé aL dhéanfadh sé] [imeacht go cop agr C thought I C would.do he to.go to Meiriceá]. America “What I thought he would do was to go to America.” (McCloskey 1979: 154) This analysis also retains the observation made by McCloskey (1979) that a whsentence resembles a relative clause, since the analysis considers that what looks like a CP is a headless relative, which is a type of relative clause. Furthermore, this analysis can account for the fact that the wh-word seems to appear in situ when the predicate nominal is questioned, as in (37): (37) a.
Cé hé an bainsteoir? who agr the manager “Who is the manager?” (Stenson 1981: 105) b. Cé hé an duine is oige sa chlann? who agr the person youngest in.the house “Who is the youngest person in the house?” (MO 3)
Notice that in the sentences in (37), no aL complementizer appears. While it is not possible to have a wh-word in-situ in any other contexts, it is grammatical to have one in this context. The examples strongly suggest that wh-elements in Irish stay in predicate position, leading us to conclude that the analysis that relies on the pseudo-cleft approach and VP-fronting is to be preferred. Also, this analysis is consistent with the suggestion made above that wh-nominals in the language are in fact portmanteaux – including a C◦ particle.
.. Residual issues We have come to a conclusion that Irish is better considered as a VP-movement language, from a typological perspective. There are, however, several properties in Irish syntax that might cast some doubt on this analysis or call for further research. Before concluding this paper, let us consider two such properties: word order with aspectual markers and successive cyclicity and the appearance of complementizers, along with some possible solutions although further assessments are needed (see also Note 3). The first property is that an Aspectual head between V◦ and T◦ seems to block fronting of the main verb into T◦ position and instead a verb bí fronts. This is considered to be an instance of Head Movement Constraint and taken as evidence of head-to-head movement of the verb (Carnie 1995: 118):
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(38) a.
Tá Colm ag cadadh amhráin agus ag damhsa. is Colm prog sing song and prog dance “Colm is singing a song and dancing.” (Stenson 1981: 139) b. Tá mé tar éis an teach a thógáil is I after the house build “I have just built the house.” (Carnie 1995: 118)
Previous analyses would argue that ag and tar éis in (38) block verbs moving to the T◦ position. A possible explanation for these cases under VP-movement analysis is to say that what seems to be a subject of the matrix clause (Colm and mé in (38)) in fact occupies the specifier position of the projection (say, AspP) headed by ag and tar éis. What follows is that the projection, which forms a small clause (as described by McCloskey 1990: 202) is the only argument of the verb bí, and the verb moves to satisfy the EPP, giving the structure in (39): (39) [V Tá] To [AspP Colm ag cadadh amhráin agus ag damhsa] t V . Consider (40), which supports the constituency of the AspP: (40) Chonaic sí [Niall ag dul abhaile]. saw she Niall prog go home “She saw Niall going home.”
(Stenson 1981: 144)
One of the most prominent features studied vigorously in Irish syntax is the particle aL , which evidences successive cyclicity: (41) Cén páistí aL chreideann Máire aL dhéarfadh Séan aL which children C believes M. C Say.cond S. C d’imreodh anseo? play.cond here “Which children does Máire believes Séan would say would play here?” (Noonan 2002: 275) If a wh-question in Irish is structurally a pseudo-cleft, then how do we account for this? I outline two possible solutions to this problem. The first one is to adopt McCloskey’s (2002) analysis which involves cyclic movement of a null operator. McCloskey (2002) proposes that aL is a morphological reflex of C◦ with the Opfeature which Agrees with a null operator, and the EPP which Moves it to the specifier of CP. The implication of this analysis to wh-sentences is that what is moving is an operator, but not a wh-phrase. The operator which (directly or indirectly) binds the trace in the base position triggers predicate abstraction at semantics. The weakness of this analysis is that we have to exclude the null operator from the [Pred]-driven EPP requirement even though it is a relatively minor trouble given the special status of the operator in syntax.23 The second possible solution
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is to follow Adger and Ramchand’s (2003b) analysis of Scottish Gaelic that what we see may be an instance of successive Agree which is necessitated by the Phase Impenetrability Condition (PIC). The gist of their claim is that formal features in syntax are closely tied to semantic interpretation, and predicate abstraction is a matter of interpretation of relevant features at semantics. Crucially, the Agree operation, which matches and values these features to ensure accurate interpretation, obeys the PIC, so that cyclic appearance of aL at every CP edge in (41) is motivated. Under this approach, a null operator and its movement is not required where they used to in previous theoretical assumptions, as having a relevant feature at C◦ allows accurate semantic interpretation. As such, we do not have to face the stipulation that operators may not follow the [Pred]-driven EPP requirement. Ultimately, it is an empirical question which approach is more accurate.
. Concluding remarks In this paper, I have considered the syntactic character of VSO languages from a broader point of view, starting with an intuitive observation that wh-questions in many V-initial languages resemble clefts. I have claimed that VSO surface order may result from two different syntactic mechanisms, V-movement with selfcontained EPP checking and VP-movement. Differences between them are observed in many areas, such as verbal morphology, appearance of nominal predicates, possibility of some word order alternation, and the way in which interrogatives are typed. In the course of the paper, a crucial argument is made that VP-movement languages cannot move φ-related elements to specifier positions of the functional projections between C and T since the EPP feature [Pred] is in effect throughout the phase. In the last section of this paper, we investigated the status of Irish. Examination of the language at various points suggests that Irish should best be viewed as a VP-movement language. This is not entirely novel since several authors, such as Doherty (1997a) and Legate (1997), have claimed that the copular construction in Irish is derived by movement of a phrasal constituent to [Spec, TP]. Also, we have observed that the way in which wh-questions are constructed in Irish is peculiar, as the language employs particles to type a clause while it is obligatory to front whitems in wh-questions. This behaviour does not immediately fit into the typology of wh-questions predicted by Cheng’s Clause Typing Hypothesis. I suggest that this is because of a lexical accident in the language. More precisely, wh-nominals in Irish are portmanteaux consisting of the wh-nominal itself and an interrogative particle binding it. This analysis can accommodate this odd property of Irish whquestions, and preserves the CTH. Furthermore, the structure of wh-questions is
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reconsidered. An analysis along the line of McCloskey (1979) is difficult to retain in the Minimalist Program, as it overlooks the distinction between nominal and clausal readings. Alternatively, I suggested that Irish wh-questions are best viewed as pseudo-clefts with wh-nominals being in the predicate position. This paper has shown first that a parameterization of the EPP, along with a division between the CP phase and the vP phase, has far-reaching consequences for our understanding of the syntax of verb-initial languages. In addition, we have seen that adopting a broad typological perspective permits us to see and exploit the connection among diverse constructions, and among diverse languages, in a theoretically sophisticated way.
Notes * I would like to thank Andrew Carnie, Elizabeth Cowper, Sheila Dooley Collberg, Heidi Harley, Diane Massam, and two anonymous reviewers for valuable comments encouragement, and patience. Also my thanks go to Bobby Hsu, Elizabeth Cowper, and Naomi Cull for helping me edit earlier versions of this paper. All errors and shortcomings are definitely mine. This paper evolved out of my MA paper (Oda 2002). Following abbreviations are used for some sources of the data in this paper: MO: Ó Fionnmhacáin (2000) SMC1: Course book for introductory Irish, Celtic Studies, St. Michael’s College, U. of Toronto SMC2: Course book for intermediate Irish, Celtic Studies, St. Michael’s College, U. of Toronto . It is not an uncontroversial assumption that some languages listed here, particularly Catalan and Greek, are V-initial languages. Nonetheless, I treat them as V-initial, based on the discussions by Alexiadou and Anagnostopoulou (1998, 1999). . Koopman and Szabolcsi (2000), Lee (2000a), and Rackowski and Travis (2000), among many others, independently come to similar conclusions for various languages. . Contrary to one may expect, we do not observe pied-piping of CPs, resulting with the order of [IP [VP V CP] Subj t VP ] in Niuean (and in Irish, which we will conclude to be a VPmovement language in Section 5). I consider this is a peculiar question about an embedded CP but not about VP-movement. The following pair of sentences show that CP is dislocated to the right edge: (i)
The prime minister said yesterday that he saw a pink elephant.
(ii) *The prime minister said yesterday it. A tougher question is the status of adjunct PPs, which do not undergo remnant movement either. There are two possible approaches to this. One is to assume layers of projections above VP and adjuncts are generated within these layers; hence adjuncts are simply irrele-
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vant issue to remnant movement. The other possible approach is to assume that a bar-level expression may satisfy the EPP requirement as it is the minimal constituent which can satisfy the requirement. See Adger and Ramchand (2003a: 336) for the latter approach. These questions call for further research, as they have not received a satisfactory answer although they are crucial for further understanding of VP-movement. . We do not consider any add-on mechanism along with the V-movement analysis which allows nominal predicate fronting. It is possible to derive the predicate initial order if we adopt Carnie’s (1995, 2000) underspecified phrasality approach, which allows an apparently phrasal constituent to undergo head-movement. See Otsuka (this volume) for an application of Carnie’s approach to the nominal predicate fronting in Tongan. . Recall that arguments may front in Catalan. What is crucial is that the language does not allow a constituent which consists of a copula and a predicative nominal to appear before a subject nominal. We will see later in this paper that movement of arguments to C-T layers may not be an available operation in VP-movement languages. . Note the ternary nature of the properties in our typology with values of required, disallowed, and possible. This does not simply translate that there are 34 = 81 logically possible types of (V-initial) languages. My claim here is that the V vs. VP movement dichotomy is the defining characteristic of V-initial languages. The value possible is used to indicate that the value for a given phenomenon is not logically deducible. . A reviewer has suggested that the term “disallowed” may be too strong. However, given that a subject never enters into a checking relation with T, it is rather theoretically odd to have a morphological reflex of subject-verb agreement in VP-movement languages (see Massam this volume). This is an empirical question that requires further research. . As Heidi Harley (p.c.) points out, it is a mystery why the hypothesis is necessarily stated with the exclusive or. In other words, why do we not see a language that fills C◦ with a particle and the specifier of CP with a wh-item at the same time? I assume for now that the hypothesis holds as a theorem derived from fundamental axioms of the grammar, but this is certainly a question that needs further investigation. . Following Cheng (1997), I do not consider in-situ wh-items in English and French (which are observed in multiple wh-questions or echo-questions). What is important here is that some wh-item has to front in an English wh-question. Note also that in-situ wh-items in English behave differently from those in Japanese with regard to subjacency (Watanabe 2001). . The facts may be a little more complicated than this, in that wh-clefts in Egyptian Arabic do not employ overt expletives and copula in wh-clefts. Cheng (1997) considers this to be analogous to the Reduced Cleft construction in Irish (McCloskey 1979). A copula is prohibited when the clefted item is indefinite in Irish (it is optional when a definite item is clefted). Cheng takes this idea and conjoins it with a common observation that wh-words are indefinite; thus, a copula is not allowed in wh-clefts. . Note that this does not mean that the CTH is subsumed under the V-/VP-movement dichotomy or vice versa, although it would be the most optimal result theoretically. What we have obtained is in the form of implicational universals: If a language shows VP-movement,
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then it is expected to type by particle, while if a language types by movement, then it is a V-movement language. . Theoretically this may not be such an odd claim. For example, strong cohesion of C and φ-complete T (or finite Infl) has been well documented (e.g., Chomsky 2001a, b). Also, recent studies, particularly Rizzi (1997) and subsequent work, suggest that C and T are not two completely different projections, but rather consist of a finer-grained set of more functionally specific projections. Thus, it is natural to say that the requirement for the movement which targets the specifier of CP is similar to the one that targets the specifier of TP. . Note that the sentence in (16) is an apparent violation of Complex NP Constraint. This is orthogonal to the matter under discussion. . Naomi Cull (p.c.) has pointed out to me that we should expect some empirical evidence in acquisition if this parameterization is accurate. . It is not our primary concern to analyze what exactly is happening in the Irish agreement system. However, I would like to note that this peculiarity has received a fair amount of attention and many analyses have been proposed (e.g., McCloskey & Hale 1984; Doron 1988; Andrews 1990; Legate 1999). I am tentatively adopting Doron’s (1988) phonological incorporation approach (pace Legate 1999). . I would like to thank an anonymous reviewer for confirming that the phenomenon is a prosodic matter and providing the examples (23a) and (24a), which show a clearer contrast. . The superscript L on the particle a, which signals a gap in the embedded clause, indicates that the following consonant is lenited. This conventional marking contrasts with the particle aN , which signals a resumptive element in the embedded clause and causes eclipsis (nasalization) to the following consonant. The status of aL is a controversial issue. In this paper, following McCloskey (2001), I assume that the particle aL is a complementizer. See Duffield (1995), and Noonan (1992, 1997, 2002) for other approaches to the particles. . Other types of questions, particularly those with a copula, and those with a wh-item, are trickier in Irish. First, in the case of typing yes/no questions, in the copular construction, the interrogative mood is realized by replacing the copula with an interrogative particle: (i)
a.
b.
Is dochtúir é cop doctor he “He is a doctor.” (Copular, declarative) An dochtúir é? cop[+q] doctor he “Is he a doctor?” (Copular, interrogative)
(SMC1 17)
Although this may look odd initially, this seems to simply underscore that what is called the copula in Irish is a type of complementizer (Carnie 1995). The complementizer analysis of a copula is also consistent with the fact that it does not co-occur with a negation particle, or with a complementizer in an embedded clause Adger and Ramchand (2003a) offer an alternative, and propose that the copula is in Scottish Gaelic heads the Pred phrase and that predicate-initial order is achieved by movement of Pred’, which consists of the head is and a predicative nominal to [Spec, TP]; hence [TP [PredP is NP] DPsubj ]. To evaluate whether this is accurate for Irish requires further research, so for now I adopt the complementizer
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analysis. The other complication is that wh-words in Irish are always fronted even though a particle is present. We will come back to this issue in Section 5.2.1. . Note that the particles aL and aN therefore do not type the matrix clause. This analysis goes along with either McCloskey’s (2002: 203) analysis that aL and aN are morphological realization of the EPP-feature and the Operator-feature, or Adger and Ramchand’s (2003b) analysis which does away with null operator movement. See Section 5.2.3 for details. . This analysis is not entirely novel, as it resembles Watanabe’s (2001) analysis of Japanese wh-structure. Note also that this analysis would need further modification as I consider it tentative. Particularly, the availability of a complex wh-phrase raises some questions about it: (i)
Cén páistí aL chreideann Máire aL dhéarfadh Seán aL d’imreodh anseo? Which children C believes C say.cond C play.cond here “Which children does Máire believes that Sean would say would play here?” (Noonan 1997: 115)
. Note that the previous studies I mention here mainly concern the issues on A’-movement and successive cyclicity in Irish, and treat issues of wh-questions as a sub-topic. . Paul (2002) also faces a similar issue while investigating Malagasy cleft sentences. . For instance, it seems to be a peculiar fact that the operator is phonologically null universally, although it is picked up from the lexicon at numeration, given the Inclusiveness Condition.
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Preverbal particles in verb-initial languages* Dirk Bury University College London
Verb-initial languages typically have preverbal particles. An account of this generalization is proposed for at least those languages in which the surface position of the verb results from head movement of the verb. The proposal crucially assumes that clause structure is not universal (in the sense that different clauses may contain different numbers of heads), and that there is no categorial projection.
.
Introduction
Most students of verb-initial languages will have come across the following generalization (Carnie & Guilfoyle 2000a: 10): (1) Verb-initial languages have preverbal particles. This generalization is illustrated in the following examples. The examples in (2) and (3) show that the set of particles in Welsh includes both a main clause and an embedded clause complementizer, which both have different forms for negative and positive statements. The examples in (4) show that Tongan has preverbal tense particles. (2) a.
Mi oedd John yn chwerthin. prt was John in laugh “John was laughing.” (Jones & Thomas 1977: 358) b. Mae Mair yn gwybod [yr oedd John yn chwerthin]. is Mair in know prt was John in laugh “Mair knows that John was laughing.” (Jones & Thomas 1977: 358)
(3) a.
(Ni) chiciodd y bachgen mo ’r bêl. neg kicked the boy neg the ball “The boy didn’t kick the ball.”
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b. Gwn na chiciodd y bachgen mo ’r bêl. know.1sg neg kicked the boy neg the ball “I know that the boy didn’t kick the ball.” (4) a.
Na‘e ‘alu lotu ‘a Sione. pst go church abs Sione “Sione went to church.” b. ‘Oku sai‘ia ika ‘a Mele. prs like fish abs Mele “Mele likes fish.”
(Otsuka this volume)
(Otsuka this volume)
The pattern that emerges from a broader sample of languages is the following. While the preverbal particles can have a wide range of functions across different languages, it seems that they all are manifestations of properties that in a model like that of Cinque (1999) are encoded by functional heads in the higher levels of a universal clause structure.1 Note, of course, that the same range of particles can also be found in languages that do not display verb-initial order, sometimes realized as inflectional affixes on the verb. Thus, Korean has an affix that distinguishes embedded and main clauses, as shown in (5), and Haitian Creole has different tense particles, as shown in (6): (5) a.
John-i wa- ss- ta. John-nom came-pst-decl “John came.” (Bhatt & Yoon 1992) b. Bill-un John-i wa- ss- ta- ko sayngkakhanta. Bill-top John-nom came-pst-decl-sub thinks “Bill thinks that John came.”
(6) a.
Pye te deja ap domi. P. pst already prog sleep “P. was already sleeping.” (Cinque 1999: 63, citing Leblanc 1989) b. Mari ap deja te fin domi. M. fut already ant finish sleep “M. will already have finished sleeping.”
This suggests that it may be difficult to explain the correlation between verb-initial order and preverbal particles in terms of the functional content of the particles. This chapter proposes a structural explanation of the generalization in (1) for at least those languages in which the surface position of the verb can be analyzed as the result of head movement of the verb. The clearest example of such languages may be VSO languages of the Celtic and Semitic type (cf. the chapters of Jouitteau and of McCloskey in this volume; but see also those of Macaulay and Otsuka on Mixtec and Tongan, respectively).2 This chapter is organized as follows: Section
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2 introduces the theoretical background; Section 3 spells out the proposal, which aims to account for the generalization in (1), but also has something to say about the analysis of the verb-second phenomenon and Section 4 contains a summary and some concluding remarks.
. Theoretical background This section introduces the theoretical framework I will be assuming. More comprehensive discussion of this approach can be found in Bury (2003). I first discuss the assumptions that concern phrase structure in a narrow sense and then those that concern clause structure and verb movement.
. Phrase structure The theory of phrase structure underlying the proposal presented in Section 3 incorporates two central assumptions. First, the structural hierarchy of a representation does not uniquely determine its linear order. Second, there is no categorial projection. I will discuss these points in turn. The assumption that linear order (the relation of precedence) and hierarchical organization (the relation of dominance) are not trivially linked has a long history in linguistic theory and is still held in different current frameworks.3 The idea behind this assumption is that linear order plays no role at the level of LF, and that it instead results from the simple fact that humans can “just make one sound at a time” (Higginbotham 1983: 151; see also Bouchard 2001). This idea contrasts with the proposal of Kayne (1994) that the hierarchical organization of a structure fully determines its linear order. While the latter idea has spawned an immensely productive line of research (represented in this book in the chapters of Holmer, Koopman, Lee, Massam, Oda, and Travis), I assume the more traditional view that order and structure are less directly linked, such that for example the order between a head and its complement is not universally fixed. Representations of phrase structure are then pure representations of the dominance relation, with linearization a function of the mapping of syntactic onto PF representations (cf. Marantz 1989: 113). In line with this separation of precedence and dominance, I propose to represent phrase structures in terms of sets of what I call treelets. A treelet is a pair that contains a category C and a set that contains the categories that C dominates, the dominance set of C. Each (distinct) treelet in a phrase structure set defines a syntactic position that contains the treelet’s category member. Sets of treelets are all there is to syntactic representation. The inclusiveness condition of Chomsky
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(1995), Neeleman and van de Koot (2002) entails that the category of a treelet must either correspond to a lexical item or be derivable from the structure that it dominates (see Section 2.2 on derived categories). Consider now some basic properties of treelets. The following treelet consists of a category L whose dominance set is {X,Y}. (7) Two treelets are identical if they belong to the same category and contain the same dominance set. Conversely, two treelets are distinct if they belong to different categories, contain different dominance sets, or both. The following examples illustrate the range of possibilities: (8) a. b. c. d.
A = B = C = D =
A is a treelet of category L with the dominance set {X,Y}. Treelet B is distinct from A, because it is of a different category. Treelet C is distinct from A because its dominance set does not contain all of the categories that are contained in the dominance set of A, namely Y is missing. Treelet D is distinct from A because its dominance set contains a category – namely Z – that is not contained in the dominance set of A. In contrast to B, C, and D, treelet E below is identical to A. This is so because E is of the same category as A and because its dominance set has the same members as the dominance set of A. (9) E = This last point illustrates a principle of set theory according to which two unordered sets are identical if they contain the same members, regardless of “how often” they contain a particular member (see Partee et al. 1993 on set theory).4 Since this principle will play an important role in the proposal below, it is convenient to give it a name here: (10) Principle of set identity Two unordered sets are identical if they contain the same members, regardless of how often those members are represented in each set, i.e. {e} = {e,e}. A simple example of a structural representation is the set of treelets in (12). Given the reflexive notion of dominance in (11), the first pair in (12), , states that there is a category A and that A dominates A, B and C. The second pair, , states that there is a category B and that B dominates B, and so on.5
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(11) Dominance (cf. Higginbotham 1983: (2), Speas 1990: 20f.) a. X dominates X (dominance is reflexive) b. if X dominates Y and Y dominates Z, then X dominates Z (dominance is transitive) c. if X dominates Y and Y dominates X, then X = Y (dominance is antisymmetric) (12) {, , } Informally, (12) can then be represented by the tree in (13). (It should be noted however that tree diagrams are used here and below solely for expository reasons. They are much easier to read than the phrase structure sets, but they have no theoretical status.)6 (13)
A B
C
The second central assumption concerning phrase structure is that there is no categorial projection. This idea is borrowed from Brody (2000). The basic idea is that the categories that make up a head’s projection line in X-bar-inspired proposals can be collapsed into a single category. To take a simplified example, the categories XP, X’ and X in a projection structure like (14a) correspond to the single category X in the projection-free structure in (14b). The central claim of projection-free syntax is then that there are no phrase-level categories (i.e. syntactic representations contain only word-level categories). This has a number of consequences. First, word-level categories can dominate other word-level categories. Thus, if α’ or β’ in (14b) contain lexical material, the word-level category X would dominate this material. In contrast, in projection proposals only phrasal categories dominate word-level categories.7 Second, the positions defined by a phrase structure set can in principle all contain material with PF content. Thus, X in (14b) cannot only be realized by some empty functional head, but it can also contain words that are spelled out in that position. Third, while in (14a) there is a structural asymmetry between the specifier and complement of X, this is not the case in (14b). Finally, the lack of a phrase/word-level distinction raises the question of how projection-free structures are linearized. While I will discuss these last two points in the following subsection, the partial structure of the wh-question What did you say? in (14c) illustrates the first two points. As is standard, the wh-phrase what sits in the specifier of the functional head position that contains the moved auxiliary did, which originates in T. However, since there is no categorial projection, this means that did dominates what.
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(14) a.
b.
XP á
á’
X’ X
c.
X
â
â’
did whati
T you say ti
. Clause structure and verb movement An assumption shared by much ‘minimalist’ work is that the head of a structure can never be a moved element (cf. Chomsky 1995: 256ff., 320f.; Brody 1998: 391ff.). This assumption rules out so-called self-attachment structures like (15), in which a moved verb projects an additional VP that takes the projection of the verb’s trace as its complement: (15) [VP __ Vi [VP __ ti __ ]] One consequence of this assumption (in combination with other assumptions like the chain uniformity condition) is that head movement can only be analyzed in terms of head adjunction (cf. Carnie 2000 for a different view). However there is a range of well-known problems with head-adjunction8 and a compelling theoretical motivation for the ban on structures headed by moved-items seems to be missing. For this reason, Ackema et al (1993) argue that structures like (15) are in fact available.9 A generalized version of the idea that structures can be headed by moved elements features in the present proposal. (I will turn to its details in the next paragraph.) Since on such a view clause structure may be affected by whether or not verb movement is necessary, the fact that not all languages display the same movements implies that clause structure cannot be universal, and that therefore the structure of a particular language (and sentence) must be learnable (Koeneman & Neeleman 2001). This means that clause structure can only contain a particular syntactic position if (i) the learner has robust evidence for its presence (for example, because it is overtly realized), or (ii) there are certain universal conditions that require the position to be present (such as constraints on the mapping between syntax and semantics or on thematic selection).10 This restriction imposed by learnability on the availability of syntactic positions plays a crucial role in the analysis of (1) provided in Section 3. Given the present theory of phrase structure, it is not necessary to assume any constraints on the size of clause structure (“economy of representation”). Instead, syntactic positions can in principle be added freely to an existing structure. Thus, given a well-formed structure like (16d), structures like (16a, b) will in principle also be grammatical. Where a structure does not contain enough positions to
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accommodate all arguments or adjuncts, the structure can be extended through the addition of what I call derived heads. A derived head may also be licensed if a structure contains a verb that must move to a different position but no suitable head position is available.11 Note that the principle of set identity in (10) implies that structures containing additional positions can only be represented if they contain either a filled specifier or a new lexical item (or both); otherwise such structures will be identical to the non-extended structures. (See Section 3 on how exactly this works.) Thus, while structures like (16a, b), which are headed by a copy of a lower category whose specifier is filled, are possible, structures like (16c) are in fact non-distinct from structures like (16d).12 (16) a.
b.
V X
V Z
V W
V X
V
c. *V
d. V
V
Z
Z
Z
To illustrate more clearly how all this works, consider the following structures, which for ease of exposition are also represented as tree diagrams.13 (17) a.
Kimi should [ti eat broccoli] {<should, {should, Kimi , eat, ti , eat θ1 , broccoli, eat θ1 θ2 }>, , <eat, {eat, ti , eat θ1 , broccoli, eat θ1 θ2 }>, , <eat θ1 , {eat θ1 , broccoli, eat θ1 θ2 }>, , <eat θ1 θ2 , {eat θ1 θ2 }>} b. Whatj shouldk [Kimi tk [ti eat tj ]]? {<shouldk , {shouldk , whatj , Kimi , eat, ti , eat θ1 , tj , eat θ1 θ2 }>, <whatj , {whatj }>, <shouldk , {shouldk , Kimi , eat, ti , eat θ1 , tj , eat θ1 θ2 }>, , <eat, {eat, ti , eat θ1 , tj , eat θ1 θ2 }>, , <eat θ1 , {eat θ1 , tj , eat θ1 θ2 }>, , <eat θ1 θ2 , {eat θ1 θ2 }>} c. Broccolij [Kimi should [ti eat tj ]] {<shouldk , {shouldk , broccolij , Kimi , eat, ti , eat θ1 , tj , eat θ1 θ2 }>, , <shouldk , {shouldk , Kimi , eat, ti , eat θ1 , tj , eat θ1 θ2 }>, , <eat, {eat, ti , eat θ1 , tj , eat θ1 θ2 }>, , <eat θ1 , {eat θ1 , tj , eat θ1 θ2 }>, , <eat θ1 θ2 , {eat θ1 θ2 }>}
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a.
should Kimi
eat eat è1
ti
eat è1 è2
broccoli
b.
shouldk Whatj
shouldk
Kimi
eat eat è1
ti
eat è1 è2
tj
c.
shouldk Broccolij shouldk Kimi
eat eat è1
ti tj
eat è1 è2
The structures in (17) conform to the assumptions that θ-role assignment takes place under sisterhood and that phrase structure is maximally binary branching. The derived heads, eat and eat θ1 , whose specifiers host the verb’s arguments, are comparable to the more familiar light verbs of Larson (1988) and much later work.14 There is no sisterhood between the tense category, occupied here by should and the shell structure derived from the lexical verb. This is so because functional categories have no argument structure (do not assign θ-roles). The relation between functional and other categories is instead one of extended projection (cf. Grimshaw 1991; Chametzky 2000; Frank 2002). In this model, the notion of extended projection (however exactly defined; see references cited above for discussion), also offers an answer to a further question. As noted earlier, one difference between projection-free and X-bar structures is that there is a structural distinction between specifier and complements in the latter, but not in the former. This point has three aspects. First, in X-bar structures specifiers c-command complements. The assumptions about θ-role assignment in
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the present proposal lead to structures in which the relevant c-command relations hold as well, because here for example, a subject is realized in the specifier position of a functional head that c-commands the specifier position(s) containing a verb’s object(s). Second, in an X-bar structure a head and its complement form a constituent that excludes the head’s specifier. This configuration also holds of projection-free structures, where the X-bar complement now corresponds to the specifier of a lower head with which it forms a constituent that excludes the X-bar specifier, which now sits in the specifier of a higher head. Third, there is the question of how the daughters of a branching category can be distinguished. Given the notion of extended projection, it is possible to define as the complement of C that daughter of C that is part of the same extended projection as C. The other daughter is then a specifier or adjunct.15 A comparison of the structures in (17b) and (17c) illustrates further that structures containing adjuncts may be isomorphic to structures in which verb movement takes place. Both can be headed by a derived head that forms a chain with its daughter. The only difference between the two is then which position of the head chain is pronounced. This also makes clear that the addition of a new position that occurs in a verb movement structure like (17b) is not a result of verb movement, but of the generally available, free extension of clause structure. The fact that here head movement seems to be dependent on the extension of clause structure raises the question of the status of head movement. Note that it is generally assumed that head movement has no semantic effects (cf. Chomsky 2001a, b). This property of head movement and the isomorphism of head movement and adjunction structures in this model seem to suggest that head movement may not be a syntactic phenomenon, but one of PF.16 I assume then, essentially following Brody (2000), that the head positions in a verb’s extended projection are all positions in which the verb can potentially be spelled out. Phrase structure can then be seen as defining a head tier. The spell-out position of a head on this tier is then determined by conditions on the syntax-PF mapping. A final issue that needs to be addressed before we can move on to the proposal is the question of how projection-free structures are linearized. As noted above, there is no direct correspondence between syntactic structure and linear order. Nevertheless, the mapping between syntactic to phonological structures is not random. In particular, I assume that the linearization of a structure is constrained by the constituents defined in syntax (cf. Marantz 1989: 99). Thus, where a group of words is syntactically defined as a constituent (they are all members of the same dominance set), no element that is not within this constituent can intervene between these words.17 Similarly, Marantz’s argument that “heads at Sstructure must correspond to heads at PF” (ibid.: 113) can be now be understood as a requirement that each syntactic head is mapped onto a head position at PF.18 These requirements are all met if linearization applies in such a way that categories
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that stand in immediate dominance relation in syntax are mapped on to adjacent constituents at PF (cf. Bouchard 2001). This has the effect that the spell-out position of a branching syntactic category will separate the spell-out positions of the constituents headed by its daughters (cf. Bury 2003: 59f.).
. The proposal It is useful to distinguish two environments in which verb movement may occur. As discussed earlier, verb movement corresponds to the pronunciation of a head in the position of a different head. On the view of clause structure assumed here there are two types of heads, namely heads that correspond to lexical items and derived heads. Since clause structure is constrained by learnability, it will typically be the case that lexical items contain overt material (i.e. the lexicon contains no abstract functional heads without phonological content). Thus, where a moved verb is pronounced in the position of a separate lexical item, it will usually be the case that it will occur adjacent to some other overt head. In contrast, derived heads do not correspond to lexical items and therefore do not have any independent phonological content. Thus, where a moved verb is pronounced in the position of a derived head, it will occur as a separate head. Next I discuss these two possibilities in turn, with a view to deriving the generalization in (1).
. Derived heads require a filled specifier In order to derive verb-initial order through head movement of the verb, a structure must provide at least one initial head position. In a theory with phrase structure trees but without categorial projection, the simplest example of such a structure that does not include an additional lexical item would be (18). Subj indicates the position that contains the subject and α is an abbreviation for the complex structure that contains the lexical verb and its internal arguments. Here, verb movement could be realized as the pronunciation of the pre-subject derived head. (18)
V V Subj
á
What happens if we try to translate this tree into the new set representation of phrase structure? (19) {, , <Subj, {Subj}>, }
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Like the projection-free tree in (18), this set contains four categories. The first treelet in the set, , corresponds to the highest node in the tree, the second treelet in the set, , corresponds to the second highest node in the tree, and so on. There is a problem with this set. The dominance set of the first treelet contains two occurrences of a category V. The set identity principle in (10) then implies that this set is identical to a set that contains V only once. Thus, the first treelet could more accurately be represented as , which would lead to the following set: (19)’ {, , <Subj, {Subj}>, } However, this only shifts the problem to the level of the phrase structure set. This set contains two occurrences of the treelet , and now the set identity principle implies that this set should rather be represented by the following: (19)” {, <Subj, {Subj}>, } But this set has only three categories, and therefore the simplest informal representation of it would be the following projection-less tree, a structure in which no initial head position is available: (20)
V Subj
á
So ultimately, it turns out that the sets in (19), (19’) and (19”) that are meant to express structures containing a pre-subject head position do not contain such a head. In fact, the three phrase structure sets are identical. On the one hand, this discussion shows that the proposed model of phrase structure is more restrictive than a more conventional analysis that employs tree structures. On the other hand, however, it also raises the question of whether there are any structures at all in which the verb can be pronounced in the pre-subject position of a derived head. The following set differs from those in (19) only in that the higher V has an additional category X in its specifier position, which means that the dominance set of the first category V also contains X. (A tree corresponding to this set is given in (21b) for convenience.) (21) a.
{, <X, {X}>, , <Subj, {Subj}>, }
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b.
V X
V Subj
á
The crucial effect of the additional category X is that now the two treelets that contain copies of the verb have different dominance sets and hence are no longer identical. This structure then contains a pre-subject derived head position, and verb movement can be realized as pronunciation of the verb in that position. Note however that the availability of the pre-subject head position crucially relies on its specifier position being filled. The representations licensed by this theory then give rise to the following generalization: (22) If a moved verb is pronounced in the position of a derived head, it will be preceded by a specifier position. Given the constraints on linearization discussed in the previous section, (21) could be linearized by any of the orders in (23), in which the verb moved to pre-subject position is preceded by a complex “phrasal” constituent, but not as verb-initial. (23) X V [Subj V α] [Subj V α] V X X V [α V Subj] [α V Subj] V X This means that pronunciation of the verb in the position of a derived head cannot be the right device to relate verb movement and preverbal particles. However, the generalization in (22) looks like it could help explain another type of structure in which the subject is obligatorily preceded by a moved verb. As is well known, in verb-second languages like German, a moved verb is typically preceded by a single phrasal constituent that can be of any syntactic category. This pattern is illustrated in (24). (24) a.
[DP Die Kuh] hat auf der Wiese gestern gierig Klee the cow has on the meadows yesterday greedily clover gefressen. eaten “The cow greedily ate clover on the meadows yesterday.” b. [PP Auf der Wiese] hat die Kuh gierig Klee gefressen. c. [AdvP Gierig] hat die Kuh auf der Wiese Klee gefressen. d. [AdvP Gestern] hat die Kuh auf der Wiese Klee gefressen. e. [VP Klee gefressen] hat die Kuh.
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f.
[CP Dass die Kuh Klee gefressen hat] glaube ich nicht. that the cow clover eaten has believe I not “I don’t believe that the cow ate the clover.”
While the categorial promiscuity of the “verb-second constraint” is already problematic for conventional approaches to this pattern, this problem is compounded by the fact that the initial phrase also does not receive a uniform interpretation. Thus, in (25a) the initial constituent is focused, in (25b) it is a topic, and in (25c) it cannot be a topic because it contains a quantifier, but it also does not have to be a focus: (25) a.
Nur das frische Gras hat die Kuh gefressen. only the fresh grass has the cow eaten. “The cow ate only the fresh grass.” b. Die Disteln hat nicht einmal die gierige Kuh gefressen. the thistles has not even the greedy cow eaten “Even the greedy cow didn’t eat the thorny thistles.” c. Alle Schafe haben Gras gefressen. All sheep have grass eaten “All the sheep ate grass.”
The examples in (24) show that the obligatory presence of an initial specifier cannot be triggered by a categorial feature. The examples in (25) show that the initial phrase does not receive a uniform interpretation, which means that there is no independent motivation for a pragmatic feature. This means that a feature checking account of V2 has to stipulate a triggering feature exactly in those structures that have V2 order. This suggests that an analysis of the specifier requirement in V2 in terms of feature checking is circular (see also Haider 1993: 69f.). However, in the model of phrase structure and verb movement developed here, the verbsecond pattern falls out as the default in one particular environment, namely where a moved verb is pronounced in the position of a derived head.19 If derived heads cannot host an initial verb, how can verb-initial orders be derived?
. Verb movement and preverbal particles The discussion in the previous subsection showed that it is not possible to derive verb-initial orders in structures in which a moved verb is pronounced in the position of a derived head. We can then turn to structures in which an additional lexical item occurs. In (26), the subject is dominated not by a derived head, as had been the case in the structures discussed above, but by an independent lexical head F. Two pos-
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sible linearizations of this structure are given in (27). If there is a trigger for verb movement, V can be pronounced in the position of F. In that case, it will precede the subject. Alternatively, it can be pronounced in a position following the subject. (26) a. {, , <Subj, {Subj}>, } b. F V á
Subj
(27) a. F>Subj>V>α (no verb movement) b. F>V>Subj>α (verb movement) An example of this structure is given below from Welsh.20 In this structure, the subject and the object occupy the specifiers of derived heads of the verb. The head in whose specifier the subject sits is dominated by the position containing the complementizer mi. Since the verb in Welsh must precede the subject (possibly for reasons of case assignment; cf. Sproat 1985), it can here be pronounced in the position of the complementizer. (28) a.
Mi welais i Megan. prt saw I Megan “I saw Megan.” (Roberts forthcoming) b. {<mi, {mi, welais, i, welais θ1 , Megan, welais θ1 θ2 ,}>, <welais, {welais, i, welais θ1 , Megan, welais θ1 θ2 ,}>, , < welais θ1 , {welais θ1 , Megan, welais θ1 θ2 ,}>, <Megan, {Megan}>, < welais θ1 θ2, , {welais θ1 θ2, }>} c. mi welais i
welais è1 Megan
welais è1 è2
Recall now the earlier assumption that clause structure is not universal and its implication that a syntactic position that corresponds to a consistently empty lexical head would not be learnable. In the context of (26), this means that the position of F could only be learned, if F contains at least sometimes an overt lexical item. This entails that in a configuration in which a moved verb is pronounced in the pre-subject position of an independent lexical item, the verb will usually be preceded by some overt material.
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Since pronunciation of the verb in the position of a derived head always gives rise to specifier-initial orders, it follows that verb-initial orders can only be derived through head movement of the verb in structures in which the verb is preceded, at least sometimes, by a preverbal particle. This theory then can explain why verbinitial languages have preverbal particles, at least for those languages in which the surface position of the verb is derived by head movement of the verb. Before concluding this chapter, I want to discuss the prediction that verbinitial languages derived by head movement require preverbal particles. An apparent counterexample to this prediction is provided by sentences like (29) from Welsh, where the verb seems to occur in absolute initial position. However, there is good evidence that this sentence is in fact introduced by the same particle as (28) above. This evidence comes from the fact that preverbal particles in Welsh trigger a change on the initial consonant of a following word, what is referred to as mutation. Thus, the base form of the verb ‘see’ is gweld and in (28) the particle mi triggers the omission of the initial /g/ (see for example Jones & Thomas 1977; Roberts forthcoming for more details). While preverbal particles in Welsh can frequently fail to be pronounced, the mutation they trigger typically remains. This is the case in (29a), where underlying initial /k/ changes to /g/. (29b) shows that different particles, in this case the negative particle (cf. (3a)), trigger different mutations. (29) a.
Gafodd hi anrheg ddoe. got she gift yesterday “She received a gift yesterday.” b. Chafodd hi ddim anrheg. got she neg gift “She didn’t receive a gift.”
(Bury 2002: 226)
While these examples then do not constitute a problem for the prediction of this theory, they do highlight the need for a better understanding of what can constitute a preverbal particle. At this point, I do not have much more to say about this issue, but I would like to suggest an explanation for at least one other class of potential counterexamples. It is a familiar notion from inflectional morphology that the existence of a paradigm of overt forms makes it possible for the learner to fill gaps within the paradigm by hypothesizing empty forms realizing certain feature combinations (cf. Pinker 1984: Ch. 5). Something similar may then happen in languages that have a paradigm of preverbal particles. If the paradigm is rich enough, the learner will be able to assume the existence of empty forms. In this case, a language may then contain sentences that seem to challenge the correlation between verb-initial order and preverbal particles.
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. Conclusion This chapter offers an explanation of the generalization stated in (1) that verbinitial languages typically have preverbal particles. Building on the assumption that (narrow) syntax does not uniquely determine linear order, a model of phrase structure is proposed in which structural representations only state the dominance relations between categories. In this model, constraints on the size of clauses (e.g., economy of representation) are not necessary. Instead, clause structure is flexible and can be freely extended. Extended structures occur where an unextended structure would not provide enough head or specifier/adjunct positions. In both cases, such extended structures will involve derived heads; that is, partial or full copies of other categories. Verb movement, which is interpreted as a PF operation that spells out a verb in one of a range of potential positions, can then take place in two contexts. A verb can either be pronounced in the position of a derived head or in the position of an independent category. The fact that clause structure is flexible implies that an independent category will typically contain phonological material and that therefore in such a structure a moved verb will occur adjacent to some other overt element. In contrast, derived heads contain no phonological material, but they always require a filled specifier. This derives the generalization in (1). Where a moved verb lands in the position of a derived head, only specifierinitial orders are possible. Verb-initial orders must then involve pronunciation of the verb in the position of an independent lexical item, which can be realized as a preverbal particle. I want to conclude by putting this result into a broader context. Two things emerge from the studies presented at the Tucson workshop on which this volume is based. The first is that there is an enormous amount of important work being carried out on a wide range of less well-studied languages. The second thing that stands out is that the diversity of languages studied is nearly matched by the diversity of theoretical tools employed in their analysis. Among the tools considered for the analysis of verb-initial structures in different languages are subject lowering, (various types of) remnant movement, head movement, and rightward scrambling. Even allowing for the fact that verb-initial languages show a great deal of structural variation (see e.g., the chapters by Chung, by Davis, and by Otsuka, this volume), this miscellany of tools is problematic from a learnability perspective. Since there is considerable overlap in the (surface) structures that the different tools may allow to generate, a learner encountering a particular language will face the non-trivial task of choosing among several available options (on this point, see also Davis, this volume). Work on verb-initial syntax then highlights the old tension between the need to have a linguistic theory that is flexible enough to de-
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scribe the differences between languages and the need to sufficiently restrict the parameters of variation to make the acquisition task manageable. In this light, it seems necessary to investigate whether all of the tools currently in use are actually needed or whether some of them should be discarded. A case in point is the question of whether both head movement and movement of remnant phrasal constituents are needed to account for phenomena that at the surface seem to involve movement of verbal heads. It is notoriously difficult to answer such questions on conceptual grounds, because there is no obvious metric that would allow the calculation of the conceptual gain of, say, banning movement of heads against the conceptual cost of forcing all constituents other than the head to move out of VP (see, e.g., Bouchard 2001; Fanselow 2002; Koopman & Szabolsci 2000; Mahajan 2003; Williams forthcoming; for some discussion). So ultimately such choices should be made on empirical grounds. To the extent that the analysis presented here is successful (that is, if the correlation between verb-initial orders and preverbal particles predicted here is correct), it provides an empirical argument for the preservation of the distinction between movement of complex constituents and movement of heads. Since this analysis crucially invokes the specifier/head distinction, it is not clear how it could be recast in terms of a theory in which a head can only move as part of the phrase it projects.
Notes * This chapter is based on parts of Bury (2003). An earlier version of this material was presented at the LSK 2002 conference in Seoul. Many thanks to the organizers and participants of the verb-initial syntax workshop in Tucson for stimulating and helpful discussions, to the two reviewers (one was Robert Chametzky) and the editors for their comments that led me (I hope) to write a nicer paper, and to Ad Neeleman for reading various chunks of it and for many discussions. A very special thank you also to Peter Norquest and family for being fantastic hosts. I am responsible for any errors and omissions that remain. . On the assumption that Cinque’s hierarchy describes a real fact about human language, this pattern is expected on any analysis that treats these particles as the highest clausal head in their particular structure. . Oda this volume argues that verb movement in Irish is VP movement. . See Hudson (1976: 108ff.), Meisel and Pam (1979), Gazdar et al. (1985: 44–50), Falk (1983), Travis (1984), Marantz (1989), Neeleman and Weerman (1999: 11ff.), Bobaljik (2002: 213–221), Gil (this volume), for a selection of proposals. . This is not the first time that this property of sets is exploited in a linguistic analysis (cf. Chametzky 1996; Neeleman & van de Koot 2002). . I take as a basic notion the relation of reflexive dominance (RD), which appears to be the default for some authors (cf. Reinhart 1983: 20; Speas 1990: 20f.; Partee et al. 1993: 438;
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Chametzky 2000: 39 Note 73; and also Chomsky & Miller 1961: 293; Bach 1964: 72f.; for whom dominance is a relation between strings). Nevertheless, some remarks on this decision. An alternative choice for a primitive relation would be that of immediate dominance (ID) (cf. Chomsky 1995: 338). This relation can only be useful if it is taken to be irreflexive. (A relation of reflexive immediate dominance would seem to relate each category only to itself.) Given RD and ID, Andrew Carnie raises the question of which relation is more basic. It seems to me that the more inclusive relation is more basic in the sense that it does not introduce divisions among the things it relates that a less inclusive relation may. ID divides the categories in a structure into (i) categories that do not ID other categories (terminals), (ii) categories that both ID other categories and are themselves ID-ed, and (iii) a category that is not itself ID-ed but that ID-s others (the root). In contrast, all categories in a structure are both RD-ed and RD some category. Of course the division among categories implied by ID can also be expressed in terms of RD if the relation RD is amended by a condition of nonidentity between the categories related. If capturing something expressed by ID in terms of RD requires an addition to the formulation of RD, this as well suggests to me that RD is the more basic notion. (Thanks to Hiroyuki Uchida for discussion of this issue.) Ultimately the right choice of theoretical primitives should of course be an empirical question, and to the extent that the proposal made below is successful, it provides the strongest support available for the theoretical choices made here. . An alternative representation of phrase structures could employ a set of ordered pairs, which express the dominance relation between two categories (cf. Partee et al. 1993: 438; Abels 2001). While the analysis proposed in Section 3 would seem to be compatible with this (keeping the same notion of dominance), a representation in terms of treelets makes it easier to refer to syntactic positions. . This has an interesting consequence for the status of the dominance relation. While in conventional frameworks it has always been possible to think of dominance as a representation of something else (e.g. of the containment relation inherited from structuralist IC-analysis or of the derivational history of a structure), this is no longer the case here. And in fact this is what should be expected from a primitive concept of a theory. If a concept can itself be derived, it is no longer a primitive. Having said that, it has been suggested that projection-free structures in some way resemble representations in dependency grammar (cf. Brody 2000: 41). . For example, the definition of c-command needs to be complicated to enable a moved head to c-command its trace. See Brody (2000), Bury (2003: Ch. 1), Mahajan (2003), among others, for more discussion. . More recently, this idea has been used in Bury (2000, 2002), Koeneman (2000), Canac Marquis (2003), Suranyi (2003), and Fanselow (2002). See also Nash and Rouveret (1997) for a related proposal. . Obviously, this does not rule out empty elements altogether. Derivationally empty heads, e.g. traces of movement, are licensed as usual, by whatever makes the movement learnable. Similarly certain context-sensitive deletion rules, e.g. the doubly-filled comp filter, are learnable and hence can give rise to empty positions. For more discussion of the (non-)universality clause structure, see e.g. Iatridou (1990), Bouchard (1995), Thrains-
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son (1996), Cinque (1999), Starke (2001), Roberts and Roussou (2003), and Holmer (this volume), among others. As Heidi Harley points out the claim that clause structure is not universal has implications for the syntax-semantics interface. Thus one might think that the idea is incompatible with a uniform LF interface. However this is not obviously the case since it could in principle be possible to formulate a universal set of mapping principles in such a way that it will abstract away from certain differences that may occur in clause structure (e.g. while two structures may vary in size, they may still conform to Cinque’s functional sequence). In the absence of such a proposal, there seem to be at least two alternatives. One is to give up interface uniformity and have a more elaborate mapping system (see Jackendoff 1997; Koeneman & Neeleman 2001: 226ff.; Szendr˝oi 2001 for discussion). The other is to maintain a uniform interface but to assume a more abstract semantics (Bouchard 1995). . See Kayne (1994: 30) for related discussion. It is not clear to me what constrains the projection of heads lacking intrinsic content in that model, but the proposal does seem in principle to be compatible with the one outlined here. Derived heads can either be full copies of the root category of an unextended structure or partial copies that lack e.g. certain selectional features in cases where a θ-role is assigned by the lower head. For the purposes of the present chapter this distinction is irrelevant. Note however that full-copy derived heads form a head chain with the original category. In this sense such structures are similar to self-attachment structures like (15). Some implications of this are discussed in Bury (2003: Ch. 2). Structures containing derived heads seem to share some properties with the extended base structures of Chametzky (1996). . The identity of (16c) and (16d) is not the same as the impossibility of non-branching projection that holds of Bare Phrase Structure (BPS) theory (Chomsky 1995). Indeed nonbranching structures are possible in the present framework. A projection structure similar to that in (16c) would be one containing one projecting head Z and two projecting categories V (i.e. [VP V [VP V [ZP Z]]]), and as far as I can see there is no principle of BPS that would automatically block such a structure. . Like other theories, this proposal needs to distinguish between copies of the same lexical item (e.g., the two copies of shouldk in (17b, c) and two occurrences of the same lexical item (e.g., the two occurrences of it in It destroyed it.). What is crucial here is that the principle of set identity does not trigger a collapse of e.g., the two its. (Thanks to Robert Chametzky for reminding me of this.) One technical way to ensure this is to assign each item taken from the lexicon an index (whose sole purpose is the identification of the lexical item). See Speas (1990), Kitahara (2000) for some discussion. Note also the prediction, for discussion of which there unfortunately is no space here, that chains linking specifiers cannot involve copies, which offers some explanation for the fact that usually only one position in a (movement) chain is pronounced (see Bury 2003; Cormack & Smith 2002). . In these structures, all arguments of a verb are generated outside what corresponds to the traditional VP-node, the category eat θ1 θ2 above. This is reminiscent of structures proposed independently by Borer (1994) and Arad (1996). . As in the models of Kayne (1994) and Chomsky (1995), there is no distinction between specifiers and adjuncts here.
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Dirk Bury . For empirical arguments for the PF nature of head movement, see Neeleman and Weerman (1999), who argue that head movement may take place at PF for reasons of case checking (cf. also Marantz 1989: 112), Boeckx and Stjepanovic (2001) and Park (2002), who consider evidence from ellipsis, and Abels (2001), who deals with gapping, among others. . This discussion obviously abstracts away from issues such as parenthetical insertion (cf. McCawley 1982). . Since the ‘head tier’ contains more syntactic head positions than overt categories, not all such head positions will actually contain phonological material. . Numerous questions arise that cannot be discussed here (cf. Bury 2003). One concerns the analysis of verb-initial structures found in V2-languages. The present proposal seems to require that such structures be analyzed as V2 structures, whose initial specifier contains an empty operator. Note also that traditional V-to-I movement would be analyzed in the same way as the traditional V-to-C movement of V2. I would suggest that in V-to-I languages such as French the initial specifier position can only contain the subject as a result of conditions on case assignment in the relevant languages. The fact that this type of verb movement typically applies only to finite verbs follows from the HMC (Travis 1984). Where a finite verb occurs, it will be the highest verb in the structure. . It is of course possible that the structure of Welsh is more complex than that in (28). Thus, Roberts (forthcoming) argues in some detail that the subject in Welsh occupies a derived position. The structure given here can easily be extended in the required way. Thus, the correct structure may contain an additional copy of the verb welais in whose specifier the moved subject could occur. I use the simplified structure for expository reasons.
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A note on predicates and heads in Irish clausal syntax* James McCloskey University of California, Santa Cruz
This paper examines the interaction between the processes that determine verb initial order in Irish finite clauses and the processes that determine predicate-initial order in verb-less clauses. It argues that, regardless of how predicate-initial order is determined in verb-less clauses, a head movement must be postulated which raises at least adjectival heads (and optionally prepositional heads) from the predicate to a higher inflectional position. Relevant evidence comes from patterns of ellipsis and coordination. The larger context for this discussion is the issue of whether verb-initial order (in Irish) should be derived by head-movement or by remnant VP-movement.
.
Introduction
Two lines of thought have dominated recent thinking about the syntax of VSO languages and of VSO clause-structure. An older tradition holds that this clausetype reflects raising of the finite verb to a position higher than, and to the left of, the subject. This view assumes the kind of structures seen in (1), where F is some closed-class category in what Rizzi (1997) has called the inflectional layer: (1)
FP F
XP
V
tv
F is typically identified with a Tense node and XP is some category that (properly) contains VP, including all of its arguments and adjuncts. V raises to combine with F and form a complex head (a ‘finite verb’). A more recent line of thought explores the idea that verb-initial order reflects the operation not of head movement but rather of phrasal movement. Specifi-
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cally, VSO order results when a VP is first voided of all its phrasal subconstituents, and is then fronted to a left-peripheral position within the inflectional layer. VSO structures, on this view, are as shown schematically in (2): (2) [TP [VP V t t] DP XP] Here, the arguments of V (DP and XP in 2) have been extracted from VP before it is fronted. VP-fronting thereby mimics (in terms of linear order) an application of (mere) V-fronting. This line of analysis emerged independently in work by Lee, Massam, and in work of Travis and Rackowski (see for instance the contributions of these authors to Carnie & Guilfoyle 2000b and the editors’ introduction in the same volume). Exploration of this idea has produced a rich vein of work and discussion of the relative merits of the two approaches preoccupied the workshop at the University of Arizona out of which the present volume grew (see, for instance, the contributions of Chung, Holmer, Massam, Oda, and Otsuka to the present volume). That debate in turn has a larger context, in that it represents one sub-theme in a more general debate about the relative roles of head-movement and remnant movement in the determination of word order possibilities. One of the most attractive features of the VP-fronting analysis has been the understanding that it seems to make available of a correlation that apparently holds in many verb-initial languages. Specifically, what is found in these languages is not so much verb-initial order as predicate-initial order more generally. However, the non-verbal predicates that occur in initial position are phrases rather than heads. One can tie these observations together by adopting two assumptions: i.
In these languages, phrasal predicates front to initial position (perhaps under EPP pressure, however understood). ii. In the case of VP, but not in the case of the other phrasal categories, all nonhead subconstituents must be moved out before predicate fronting applies. As long as a reasonable understanding of (ii) can be constructed (why should VP differ from other phrase-types in this way?), the XP-fronting analysis provides a way of understanding why there should be a correlation between VSO order and the appearance in verb-less clauses of initial predicative phrases. The head movement analysis seems to provide no basis for understanding why such a correlation should hold. A presupposition that runs through much recent discussion of these issues is that the two modes of analysis (verb-raising and remnant predicate fronting) are mutually exclusive alternatives – one or the other must be the right account of verbinitial order (for a given language, if not in general). The present paper challenges that presupposition. It tries to establish the following claim for one verb-initial language (Irish): even if the positioning of non-verbal predicates reflects application
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of a rule of (phrasal) predicate fronting, one must still postulate head-movement to account for the ultimate position of the finite verb (contra Oda this volume). Once that conclusion is established, however, it is not obvious what explanatory role the assumption of predicate-fronting plays in the understanding of verb-initial order. The second half of the paper probes these issues further, using the following logic. If we can establish that head-movement is what places verbs (and, as it turns out, other predicate heads) in initial position in finite clauses then that movement must of course meet whatever conditions hold in general of head-movement. But that realization in turn provides us with a way of narrowing the hypothesis-space for the analysis of predicate-initial order. If there is movement of the head of such a predicate to a higher position, then the predicate had better not occupy a position from which head-movement is known to be impossible. We thus have a way of eliminating certain analytical possibilities – those that imply impossible head movements. When we follow this reasoning down, what emerges is the following disjunctive (but still useful) conclusion: either there is no predicate fronting at all in Irish, or else predicate fronting is not EPP-driven. The larger moral, it seems to me, is that the hypothesis of predicate fronting does not, in fact, provide (initial appearances notwithstanding) an understanding of the kinship between verbal and verbless clauses in Irish. Furthermore, the hypothesis of predicate fronting is not obviously useful in accounting for verb-initial orders in the language.
. A further step One of the ways in which head-movement analyses of Irish have been useful has been in the kind of understanding that they yield of a very productive ellipsis process in the language – one that elides all of a finite clause but the verb. This process is illustrated by the dialogue in (3). (3) a.
Sciob an cat an t-eireaball de-n luch. snatched the cat the tail from-the mouse “The cat cut the tail off the mouse.” b. A-r sciob? interr-past snatched “Did it?” c. Creidim gu-r sciob. Believe.1s C-past snatched “I believe it did.”
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d.
FP F
XP
V sciob
In (3b) and (3c), nothing survives of the finite clause except the finite verb. When this process is examined in detail, it turns out to mimic all the properties (formal and interpretive) of VP-ellipsis in English (McCloskey 1991). In the context of the head-movement analysis, it can be understood as ellipsis of the complement of the functional head to which V raises (that is, ellipsis of XP in (3d)). On this view, the finite verb ‘survives’ ellipsis because it has raised out of the elided phrase prior to its elimination. And it, in turn then, functions as the required lexical licenser (headgovernor) for the ellipsis (McCloskey 1991, 2003; Fiengo & May 1994). Similar ellipsis processes are attested in Modern Hebrew (Doron 1999; Sherman-Ussishkin 1998; Goldberg 2002, 2003), Ndendeule (Ngonyani 1996), Portuguese, and Gallego (Martins 1994, 2000). This analysis lets us understand the basic properties of the Irish construction and places it in a reasonable typological context. We can maintain that: i.
In English, main verbs do not raise and so never survive VP-ellipsis. In Irish, they do, and therefore survive ellipsis. ii. In Irish, subjects do not raise out of the complement of F, and so do not survive VP-ellipsis. iii. Irish, Hebrew and Ndendeule are alike with respect to the first property; Irish differs from Hebrew and Ndendeule only in the second property. iv. In Irish, there is no raising of V in non-finite clauses and there is therefore no VP-ellipsis in non-finite clauses. If we were to adopt a VP-fronting analysis of Irish VSO clauses, we would presumably say that what this ellipsis involves is elision of the complement of the head that attracts the VP-predicate. The relevant head on this analysis will be null, and so it is less clear how the ellipsis is licensed. But that is not an issue that we need dwell on here. The crucial questions rather concern how this process applies in clauses with a nonverbal predicate. To facilitate that discussion, let me begin by reviewing the basic properties of non-verbal predicational clauses (‘copular clauses’) in Irish. These structures have been the focus of a great deal of work: (Stenson 1981: Chap. 3; Ó Sé 1987, 1990; Carnie 1995, 1997, 2000; Doherty 1996, 1997a, b; Legate 1997, 1998; DeGraff 1997; Adger & Ramchand 2003a). They are exemplified in (4):
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(4) a.
Is comhartha go bhfuil muid pósta an mhalairt cop sign C are we married the exchange fainní seo. rings.gen demon “This exchange of rings is a sign that we are married.” b. Is cosúil le taibhse é. cop like with ghost him “He is like a ghost.” c. Is de bhunadh na h-Éireann í. cop of people the.gen Ireland.gen her “She is of Irish extraction.”
In the examples in (4), one can see an NP-predicate, an AP-predicate, and a PPpredicate respectively, preceded by the element is, which in the Irish grammatical tradition is known as the ‘copula’. This element must be distinguished from the substantive verb bí – very similar to the verb be in English – whose morphosyntax is fully verbal and whose syntax, on the surface at least, is very different indeed from that of (4): (5) Tá Eoghnaí thíos ar an tráigh. be.pres E. down on the beach “Eoghnaí is down on the beach.” Schematically, then, the structure we are concerned with is that in (6): (6) [cop XP DP] where XP can be any of NP, AP, or PP, and DP appears in the accusative (or common) case.1 In semantic terms, the property denoted by XP is predicated of the entity denoted by DP (abstracting away from numerous complexities). A thread which runs through almost all discussion of the syntax of (6) is the idea that the copula itself is an instance of the category T – the inflectional head which provides a specification of Tense and Mood for the sentence (or at least that the copula occupies the T-position by the end of the derivation). This analysis makes sense of the fact that the copula shows the same tense distinctions (present versus past) as other plausible candidates for the T-position such as preverbal tense-markers, and furthermore that there are many varieties in which the past tense form of the copula is identical to the more general past tense marker (in the Irish of Clear Island, County Cork, for instance): (7) a.
Do cheart dúinn guí chun Dé. past right to-us pray.non-fin to God “We should pray to God.” (Ó Buachalla 2003: 85)
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b. Do mhairbh sé é past kill he it “He killed it.”
(Ó Buachalla 2003: 69)
The copula seems also to be distinct from other left-peripheral heads, such as complementizers and the markers of negation (contra Carnie 1995, 1997). The syntactic facts here are obscured by certain morphophonological processes, which tend to fuse these prosodically insubstantial elements together in many circumstances. However, it is not difficult to find contexts in many dialects in which the copula is clearly distinguished from such elements (8–12) and in these cases, the copula always appears to the right of elements from the C-system (as one would expect if it were an inflectional head). (8) dá ba Ghearmánach é if cop German him “if he were a German”
(Ó Sé 2000: 356)
(9) má ’s fíor an ghloine if cop true the glass “If the glass is true”
(Ó Sé 2000: 355)
(10) an rud a bionann agus teip the thing C cop.past same as failure “something that was tantamount to failure” (11) An mb’ fhiú a ghoil ann? interr cop.cond worth prt go there “Would it be worth going there?” (12) ní -bh fhada bhuatha é neg cop.past far from.them it “It wasn’t far from them.”
(SD 2092 )
(Ó Baoill 1996: 62)
(Ó Sé 2000: 349)
Given this much, we can slightly refine (6) as (13) and the analytical challenge is to understand how such structures are licensed and how they relate to verbal clauses. (13) [(C) (Neg) T
XP DP] [Pred]
One final observation will be helpful for what is to follow. When XP of (13) is headed by an adjective that takes a single CP-argument, then DP is often absent – either not present at all or phonologically null.3 (14) a.
Is cinnte go bhfuil an fear leigheasta. cop certain C is the man cured “It is certain that the man is cured.”
(ACO 145)
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b. Is breá éisteacht le máistrí léinn. cop fine listen.non-fin with masters learning.gen “It’s nice to listen to masters of learning. For these structures, the natural assumption is that the adjective in question takes a single (clausal) argument as its complement (a conclusion which will be of some importance at a later point in the discussion). The examples in (14) alternate with those in (15), in which a dummy pronoun appears to occupy the DP-position of (13) and in which the clausal argument appears in absolute right-peripheral position: (15) a.
Is cinnte é go bhfuil an fear leigheasta. cop certain it C is the man cured “It is certain that the man is cured.” b. Is breá é éisteacht le máistrí léinn cop fine it listen.non-fin with masters learning.gen “It’s nice to listen to masters of learning.” (AG 115)
The alternation in (14) and (15) raises a number of interesting and complex questions having to do with the status of the EPP and the status of expletives in Irish. For our immediate purposes, these questions need not be resolved. We will see evidence at a later point in the paper for the complement status of the CP-arguments in (14). With this much as background, let us return to the basic question raised earlier: how does the ellipsis process of (3d) apply in the case of predicative copular clauses? The answer is that it applies differently depending on the category of the predicate (Ó Siadhail 1973: 149–150, 1989: 245–249; Ó Baoill 1996: 60–63; and especially Ó Searcaigh 1939: 266–270). Consider first the case of AP-predicates. The pattern we see here is the one illustrated in (16): (16) a.
An cosúil le taibhse é? interr.cop like with ghost him “Is he like a ghost?” b. Is cosúil. cop like “He is.” c. *Is cosúil le taibhse. cop like with ghost “He is.”
(17) a.
Na-r cheart do Mháire a bheith ann? C.neg-past right to Maire prt be.non-fin there “Shouldn’t Maire be present?”
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b. Cha-r cheart. neg-past right “She shouldn’t.” c. *Cha-r cheart dithe. neg-past right to.her “She shouldn’t.”
(O Baoill 1996: 61)
(18) a.
An fíor go rabh cás cúirte le déanaí agat? interr.cop true C was case court.gen recently at-you “Is it true that you were recently involved in a court case?” b. Is fíor. cop true “It is.” (D 21)
(19) a.
An ionann agus teip é? interr.cop identical as failure it “Is it tantamount to a failure?” b. Ní h-ionann. neg.cop identical “It isn’t.” c. *Ní h-ionann agus teip. neg.cop identical as failure “It isn’t.”
What is important about (16–19) is that the pattern observed is essentially that found with finite verbs; the adjective alone (the head) may and must survive ellipsis. The larger predicate (the head along with its arguments and adjuncts) cannot survive. Nominal predicates behave differently. The question in (20) can be answered as in (21a), but not as in (21b) or (21c). (20) An duine de na fearaibh é? interr.cop person of the men him “Is he one of the men?” (21) a.
Is ea. cop “He is.” b. *Is duine. cop person “He is.” c. *Is duine de na fearaibh. cop person of the men “He is.”
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The element ea in the grammatical (21a) (pronounced variously [a], [e:], [6w] or [6γ] and spelled either with or without a final -dh) is an invariant element whose only function is to support the copula prosodically if it otherwise would have nothing to be dependent on. It also appears, for instance, when the predicative XP undergoes A-bar movement: (22) a.
[Cumadóir ceoil]i is ea ti é him composer music.gen C+cop “It’s a composer of music that he is.” b. [Ó Chorcaigh]i is ea ti iad from Cork C+cop them “It’s from Cork that they are.” (Ó Buachalla 2003: 84) c. [linne]i is feasta ea ti an tigh seo the house demon from.now.on with.us C+cop “It’s to us that this house belongs from now on.” (Ó Buachalla 2003: 84) d. [de-n RIC] a -b ea t cuid mhaith de sna of-the RIC C cop.past proportion good of the hoifigigh officers “It was to the RIC that a large proportion of the officers belonged.” (UIMH 4)
The crucial contrast between adjectival and nominal predicates then is this: when ellipsis applies to an adjectival predicate, the head and the head alone survives (it both can and must survive). When ellipsis applies to a nominal predicate, nothing survives, not even the head.4 The facts about PP predicates are more complex, in ways that I do not fully understand at present. They exhibit both of the patterns seen above (see Ó Siadhail 1989: 246–247; Ó Baoill 1996: 60–62; Ó Searcaigh 1939: 268–269). The ‘nominal pattern’ (in which the head does not survive ellipsis and invariant ea provides prosodic support for the copula) is available, as illustrated in (23): (23) a.
An leob an capall bán sin? cop.interr with-them the horse white demon ‘S eadh, go cinnte cop certainly “Does that white horse belong to them? It certainly does.” (PCF 161) b. An as Éirinn thusa? cop.interr from Ireland you
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Is ea, cinnte. cop certainly “Are you from Ireland? I certainly am.”
(CM 25)
In other cases, however, PP-predicates behave like adjectives, in that the bare preposition (in its agreeing form if it is an agreeing preposition) survives the ellipsis process: (24) a.
An ndeir tú liom go mb’ as Inis Gé Sail Óg interr say you with.1s C cop.past from Inis Gé Sail Óg Rua Rua “Are you telling me that Sail Óg Rua was from Inis Gé?” b. B’ as cinnte. cop.past from-it certainly “She certainly was.” (FCME 39) c. An mar a chéile iad? Is mar. interr like each-other them cop like “Are they the same? They are.”
Interpreting these facts is made difficult by a number of complicating factors – the prosodic lightness of many prepositions, the syntactic status of agreeing prepositions, the possibility that many apparently prepositional predicates may in fact be null-headed nominal predicates (see (4c), for example). But the minimal contrast between (23b) and (24b) suggests strongly that for PP predicates, at least in a range of cases, two patterns are systematically available: the nominal pattern, in which the head does not survive ellipsis and the copula is supported by invariant ea (as in (21)), and the adjectival-verbal pattern, in which the head of the predicate, and the head alone, survives ellipsis. The discussion of Ó Baoill (1996: 60–62) suggests the same conclusion, in that both answer-types are cited systematically for examples involving PP-predicates. How should these patterns be understood? Let us temporarily set aside the more complex case of prepositional predicates, and concentrate initially on the contrast between adjectives and nouns. The conclusion in this case must be, it seems, that adjectives occupy a position that is sufficiently high that they are outside the constituent targeted by the ellipsis process (XP of (3d)). Complements of the adjectival head, however, must remain within that constituent. Given our general framework of assumptions, it seems to follow in turn that the heads of predicative AP’s must undergo raising. To account for the contrast between (16b) and (16c) (similarly (19b), (19c)), it is crucial that this raising be head movement rather than phrasal movement. The natural conclusion seems to be that adjectives (like verbs) raise to the functional head position which licenses ellipsis (F of (3d)).
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This is illustrated roughly in (25), where we can assume that F is T, and that the boxed XP is the target of ellipsis, containing in turn the AP-predicate as a subpart. (25)
FP XP
F F
A
It is hardly a great surprise that verbs and adjectives should pattern alike in such respects, given other well-known patterns of similarity between the two categories. Nouns, by contrast, must occupy a position low enough that they are trapped (with their syntactic dependents) within the elided constituent and so do not survive. Hence they are not subject to the head-raising requirement that adjectives are subject to. This distinction between adjectival and nominal predicates is supported by a further contrast having to do with coordination patterns. Consider (26): (26) a.
Is ceart agus is cóir teacht i gcabhair ar do cop right and cop proper come.non-fin in aid on your chomharsa. neighbor “It is right and proper to help one’s neighbor.” b. *Is ceart agus cóir teacht i gcabhair ar do chomharsa. c. *Is cosúil le taibhse agus éagosúil le duine saolta é. cop like with ghost and unlike with person living him “He is like a ghost and unlike a living being.”
Adjectival heads may not be coordinated independent of the copula. Rather the copula must appear attached to both heads. This, I take to be a reflection of the general requirement that an element may not be coordinated independent of its morphophonological dependents (a reflection in turn ultimately of the Coordinate Structure Constraint). Similar facts hold for verbs: (27) a.
Deir siad gu-r cheannaigh agus gu-r dhíol siad na say they C-past bought and C-past sold they the tithe. houses “They say that they bought and sold the houses.” b. *Deir siad gu-r cheannaigh agus dhíol siad na tithe.
Once again, nominal predicates exhibit different behavior:
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(28) Is cumadóir ceoil agus scríbhneoir nótálta é. cop composer music.gen and writer noted him “He is a composer of music and a noted writer.” These observations can be understood in the same terms as those involving ellipsis. If AP-predicates are subject to a requirement that their head must raise and incorporate into a higher functional head, then (26b) is impossible because either no such raising has applied, or else raising has applied from the left conjunct only, in violation of the Coordinate Structure Constraint. For (26a), the best we can do at present is to assume a derivation in terms of Right Node Raising of the complement CP. Whether or not that turns out ultimately to be adequate, the important point for present purposes is the contrast between (26b) and (28), and the more general point that the impossibility of (26b) reflects the general requirement that coordinated elements must bring with them to the coordination all of their phonological dependents. For nominal predicates, there is no raising requirement and so (28) is possible (in contrast to (26b) and to (27b)). To account for this pair of contrasts, then, we need to assume that, despite the fact that both AP-predicates and NPpredicates appear in initial position, there is a subtle difference between them. The head of AP, but not the head of NP, undergoes a further raising. The landing site for this movement seems to be indistinguishable from the landing site of the finite verb, since, with respect to the phenomena we are dealing with, raised adjectives pattern identically with raised verbs. If we assume, as is common, that the head-position to which verbs raise is T, then we have the patterns schematized in (29): (29) a. [TP T [AP A . . . ]] ⇒ [TP T+A [AP Ø . . . ]] b. [TP T [NP N . . . ]] ⇒ [TP T [NP N . . . ]] For PP-predicates, we will assume that head-incorporation is optional:5 (30) a. [TP T [PP P . . . ]] ⇒ [TP T+P [PP Ø. . . ]] b. [TP T [PP P . . . ]] ⇒ [TP T [PP P . . . ]] When incorporation does not apply but ellipsis does, ea is inserted before the ellipsis-site (or trace), by way of mechanisms that seem to be identical to the lastresort mechanism that inserts do under similar circumstances in English. That is, the Irish paradigm in (32) emerges as being point for point analogous to the English paradigm in (31), the supporting element (ea in Irish, do in English) inserted only before an ellipsis-site or a trace (31c, e), (32c, e), and only when head raising does not apply (31h), (32h). (31) a. She applied for the position. b. *She did apply for the position. c. She did [VP . . . ].
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d. e. f. g. h. (32) a.
b. c.
d. e.
f.
g.
h.
*She [VP . . . ]. . . . and open the door she did [VP ]. *. . . and open the door she [VP ]. She is [VP _ [AP very competent]]. She is [VP ] Is cumadóir ceoil é. cop composer music.gen him “He is a composer of music.” *Is ea cumadóir ceoil é. cop composer music.gen him Is ea [NP . . . ]. cop “He is.” *Is [NP . . . ]. cop [Cumadóir ceoil] is ea [NP ] é. composer music.gen cop him “It’s a composer of music that he is.” *Cumadóir ceoil is [NP ] é. composer music.gen cop him “It’s a composer of music that he is.” Is cosúil le taibhse é. cop like with ghost him “He is like a ghost.” Is cosúil [AP ] cop like “He is.”
This seems like a reasonably coherent account of a rather complex body of observation. It follows from this conclusion in turn, though, that predicate-fronting, even if extended to the case of VP, cannot provide a complete account of VSO order in finite clauses. What we have just established is that the position occupied by initial phrasal predicates is not such that it can, without further elaboration, provide an understanding of the crucial patterns of ellipsis and coordination. The further elaboration required seems to be head-movement – raising of an adjectival or verbal head to a higher inflectional position. When we get to this point, though, it is not clear what explanatory role the hypothesis of VP-fronting might have, since the real burden of explaining verbinitial order in finite clauses is born not by the hypothesis of XP fronting, but rather
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by the hypothesis of head movement. The origin-site of that movement could just have easily have been the base position of V as its position within a fronted VP.
. The positioning of initial predicates We can go a little farther in the deductive process. Say we accept the conclusion from the preceding section that V, A, and P undergo head-movement to an initial position in finite clauses – the first two obligatorily, the last optionally. It follows that the origin-site and the landing-site of that movement must be in such a relation that head-movement will be legal. Under what conditions will this be true? One existing proposal which is fully consistent with the observations of the first half of the paper is the original proposal by Doherty (1996), withdrawn in later work, that there is no predicate fronting in these structures, but rather that the ‘subject’ DP occupies a rightward specifier. A simple version of this proposal would assume the structure in (33) for a case of AP-predication.6 (33)
TP PredP
T
Pred’ Pred
DP AP
A
PP
The head-movements that must be postulated here are movement from A to Pred, and from Pred to T; all of a very routine and well-attested type. Ellipsis is ellipsis of the complement of T, (or perhaps of the complement of Pred7 ), licensed in turn by the presence of appropriate lexical material in T. Pred might well be the position into which the invariant element ea is inserted when it is needed to license ellipsis or a trace of A-bar movement. And given (33), the command relations are straightforwardly as they ought to be (as observed originally in Doherty 1996). This is illustrated for Condition A effects in (34) and for Condition C effects in (35).8 (34) a.
Ba cuid d- a cheile sinn. cop.past part of each.other us “We were part of each other.” b. Ba gar d- a cheile na bailteacha. cop.past close to each.other the towns “The towns were close to each other.”
(AO 82)
(STL 216)
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c.
Ba chomharsain mhaithe dh- a cheile iad cop.past neighbors good to each.other them “They were good neighbors to each other.”
(BOM)
(35) a.
Is gar i ngaol dá chomharsa béal dorais Eoghnaí. cop close in kinship to.his neighbor next door “Eoghnaí is closely related to his next-door neighbor.” b. *Is gar i ngaol do chomharsa béal dorais Eoghnaí é. cop close in kinship to neighbor next door him “Hej is closely related to Eoghnaíj ’s next-door neighbor.”
Although I know of no considerations internal to Irish that tell against this proposal, work on Irish predicational structures since Doherty (1996) has been unanimous in assuming that it is wrong. The consensus has been rather that the initial position of XP-predicates is to be accounted for in terms of predicate fronting of one kind or another. The objection normally raised against (33) is that it involves the postulation of a rightward specifier, something that is widely thought to be at odds with typological expectation and with the effort to develop restrictive theories of phrase structure and constituent ordering. It is not clear to me how much weight to give these considerations (the matter seems to me to be far from clear), and the observations just reviewed about head movement provide, I think, additional cause for worry. If we postulate predicatefronting, then to accommodate the additional head-raising just documented, we must allow for the possibility of head-movement from an origin point within an XP that has previously undergone movement. This would in principle allow an operation, for example, raising the head of a wh-phrase in the specifier of CP to some higher head-position. If that kind of option is ruled out in principle (and this hardly seems unlikely), we are thrown back to Doherty’s original proposal (33). But say we accept for purposes of argument the consensus view that there are no rightward specifiers. We are now assuming that the initial position of phrasal predicates is a consequence of predicate-fronting of some kind. On this view, (34) and (35) will be understood in terms of the mechanisms of reconstruction (Carnie 1995, 2000: esp. fn. 29; Legate 1997), or perhaps by postulation of a subject trace within the fronted predicate, as in Huang (1993). With respect to head-movement, the crucial thing is that the operation of predicate fronting must place fronted predicative phrases in a position from which movement of the head to a higher head-position will be legal. This consideration places severe restrictions on the range of analytical options that are available. It had better not be the case, for instance, that the fronted XP land in a position that would define it as an island. Head-movement across island-boundaries produces severe ungrammaticality, as witnessed, for instance, by the Topic-Island violations in the English examples of (36):
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(36) a. *Might this dish she like? b. *Might on Saturday the Prime Minister resign? It follows, then, that predicate fronting cannot be an adjunction, since adjunction of XP to YP is known to define XP at least as an island. That leaves two options (see the papers by Oda, Holmer, & Otsuka in the present volume) – either predicate fronting is movement into a head position, or else it is movement into a specifier position. The first of these two options is pursued in Carnie (1995, 1997, 2000) (though withdrawn in more recent work). The second option has been widely adopted for Irish (Doherty 1997a; Legate 1997) and for very similar data in Scots Gaelic by Adger and Ramchand (2003a). The corresponding hypothesis is widely adopted in the literature on predicate-fronting in verb-initial languages more generally (see, for instance Massam 2000a, 2001a; Lee 2000a; Rackowski & Travis 2000). This option is most usually associated with the idea that the movement in question is driven by the EPP, and that it therefore targets the specifier of TP. Much of this discussion has, in fact, been framed within a larger set of speculations about the nature of the EPP, and about modes of satisfaction of the EPP. But at this point we have a dilemma. Further head-movement of the kind documented in the first part of this paper should not be possible from a starting point within the specifier of TP. A phrase in the specifier of TP is neither a complement nor (in the general case) the specifier of the complement of an L-marking (L-related) head. That phrase should therefore be a barrier (an island), and head movement originating from a position within it should be severely degraded (Baker 1988; Lightfoot & Hornstein 1994; Koopman 1994; Uriagereka 1994).9 In fact the general evidence suggests that the fronted predicate in Irish is not an island.10 Nominal projections and PP’s are opaque to movement in a general way in Irish (McCloskey 1979) and so NP and PP predicates are unrevealing in the investigation of islandhood in copular structures. No such difficulties obtain in the case of AP, though, and we can point to examples like (37), involving clefting of the complement of an AP-predicate: (37) Is liomsa is cosúil t é. cop with-me cop like him “It’s me that he’s like.” The other experiment that can usefully be run involves unaccusative adjectives that take CP-complements (cases like (14) above). These easily allow wh-movement from their complements, as is shown in (38). In (38a, b), the copula clause is in the matrix and its adjectival head in turn embeds a finite complement. In (38c) the copular clause is itself the complement of a bridge verb and its head selects a nonfinite clause. Note that all three examples exhibit the much-discussed
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successive-cyclic complementizer alternations that are the distinctive signature of wh-movement in Irish. (38) a.
an rud a ba chinnte a rachadh t ar sochar dúinn the thing C cop.past certain C go.cond on benefit to.us “the thing that was certain to benefit us” (ACO 179) b. údar is deimhin a thaitneodh t liom author cop certain C please.cond with.me “an author that it is certain I would like” (MCS 53) c. an t-aon rud a shíl sé féin a b’ fhiú t a the one thing C thought he self C cop.past worth prt innse tell.non-fin “the one thing that he himself thought was worth telling” (SB 10)
The likelihood seems to be, then, that predicate fronting, if real, must target a specifier position below T: (39)
TP FP
T XP []
F
In the structure in (39), XP will not be an island (in virtue of its relation with the L-related head T), and T will be the target for the head movements discussed in the first half of the paper. But if this much is correct, then predicate-fronting is not EPP-driven, and questions arise about the nature and identity of the category F in (39).11 These observations also raise difficulties for the third option considered above – namely that predicate fronting involves adjunction of a phrase to a head. To allow the additional head movement argued for in the first part of the paper in the context of this proposal, one must countenance excorporation. However, the principal arguments in favor of this kind of proposal (see especially Carnie 1995 and Carnie 2000) involve observations suggesting that the material within the fronted predicate is inert for further syntactic operations (because trapped within a word or word-like syntactic object). The observations about syntactic transparency in (37) and (38) above are clearly also a difficulty for this view.12 The point we are brought to then, is this: Along one analytical path, we assume no predicate fronting for Irish at all (for verbal or for non-verbal predicates). Rather, we assume a rightward specifier at least for non-verbal predicates, as in
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(33). The word order facts, the binding facts, and the head-movement facts fall into place with no additional assumptions or machinery. The possibility now arises that verbal predicates have rightward specifiers also. Since it is known that subjects of verbal clauses raise out of VP in Irish in the general case (McCloskey 1996, 2001), the question of what their base-position is is not determinable by simple inspection. Following this path, the question of how initial predicates might be related to verb-initial order becomes the question of why verb-initial languages might tend to have rightward specifiers. In a certain sense, of course, the question is trivial. If there is verb-raising to T, and if T has its specifier on the right, then what we have is a verb-initial, subject-final language. Along the other analytical path, predicates front, but not to the specifier of TP, and probably not under EPP pressure. An idea one could pursue (following suggestions made by Diane Massam during discussion at the Tucson workshop) is that there is a quite general requirement (or tendency) for predicative XP’s to front to a position to the left of, and above, their subjects. The problem of how to ensure that everything but V evacuates VP remains unsolved (as far as I can tell) and, since we still need to appeal to head movement to deal with the facts considered in the present paper, the role of predicate fronting in accounting for verb (and adjective) initial order is diminished. Finally, if this path is pursued, then the kind of head movement that must be postulated to handle the ellipsis and coordination patterns dealt with in the present paper is of dubious legitimacy.
Notes * I am grateful to Julie Legate for commentary on a very early draft of this paper. Comments from Andrew Carnie, Heidi Harley and two anonymous reviewers on the pre-final draft were also extremely helpful. The research reported on here was supported by the National Science Foundation, Project No. BCS-0131767. . Two cautionary notes: First: it is sometimes claimed that only NP is productive in the XP slot of (39), and that the AP-type is lexically and idiosyncratically restricted. I do not know what the empirical basis for this claim is. A quick search of a data-base of attested examples turned up 64 different adjectives in the construction in (6). Second: I follow custom in assuming that nominal predicates are of category NP. This is not obviously consistent with the existence of examples like (i) and (ii): (i)
Ní aon bhligeardaithe iad. neg+cop any blackguards them “They are no blackguards.”
(ii) Is dhá rud éagsúla iad. cop two thing different.pl them “They are two different things.”
(LG 4)
(Doherty 1997b: 139)
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A note on predicates and heads in Irish clausal syntax
Probably what needs to be said is that XP must be of type <e,t> and that this requirement is consistent with the appearance of some, but not all, of the functional structure in the syntactic space between N and D. . The following abbreviations are used for examples taken from literary works: ACO “An Chloch Órtha,” Walter Scott, translated by Niall Ó Domhnaill AG “An Gabhar Sa Teampall,” Mícheál Ua Ciarmhaic AO “Aistí Ó Chléire,” Donnchadh Ó Drisceoil BOM “Bloghanna Ón mBlascaod,” Tomás Ó Criomhthain CM “An Chéad Mhám,” Seán Bán Mac Meanman D “An Draoidín,” Séamas Ó Grianna FCME “Fánaíocht i gContae Mhaigh Eo,” Séamas Mag Uidhir LG “Le Gealaigh,” Pádraig Ó Cíobháin LSUE “Leabhar Stiofáin Uí Ealaoire,” Séamus Ó Duillearga, ed. Dáithí Ó h Ógáin MCS “Mo Chara Stiofán,” Liam Ó Rinn PCF “Peadar Chois Fhairrge,” Seán Mac Giollarnáth SB “Séidean Bruithne,” Joseph Conrad, translated by Seosamh Mac Grianna SD “Sionnach Ar Mo Dhuán,” Breandán Ó hEithir STL “Seanchas Thomáis Laighléis,” ed. Tomás de Bhaldraithe UIMH “De Réir Uimhreacha,” Pádraig Ua Maoileoin . Notice that the existence of these structures raises questions about whether or not the syntax in (13) must always give rise to the semantics of predication in any non-vacuous sense. . In certain conservative varieties of Cork and Donegal, nouns pattern with adjectives in this respect: (i)
an fil’ é seo a-thá anseo? cop.interr poet him this C-be.pres here Is fil’. cop poet “Is this person that is here a poet? He is.”
(LSUE 287)
This pattern of variation suggests that the noun adjective contrast seen in most varieties is not a deep one. For the varieties that have (i), the argumentation in the main text extends to nominal predicates. . Heidi Harley notes an intriguing possible connection between the optionality of preposition-incorporation in these cases in Irish and the optionality of particle movement in English (write your solution up on your own / write up your solution on your own), which might well also involve, as she points out, optional incorporation of a preposition. . I will set aside for the moment the possibility that there is raising from the most prominent position within the lexical projection to the specifier of PredP. For some relevant observations, see (14) above. . On this alternative, licensing of the ellipsis will work as in an English case like (i): (i)
She will apply for the senior position. Will she?
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James McCloskey . I use reciprocals alone to illustrate the effects of Binding Condition A, because the existence of emphatic and logophoric readings for reflexives raises issues which are very tricky to sort out. . Uriagereka (1988, 1994) discusses a case in Galician in which D cliticizes from the subject of an embedded TP or small clause onto a governing perception verb, but crucially not to a governing complementizer. The analysis is that the perception verb directly selects TP, rendering its specifier transparent. C, not being L-related has no such effect. . See Chung’s paper in the present volume (especially section 3.2) for a larger discussion of this general issue. . See Carnie (2000: 71–73) for additional arguments against the idea that predicates front to the specifier of TP. . We are left then with the challenge of accounting for the evidence that Carnie has adduced in favor of the head-adjunction proposal (Carnie 2000: 73–81). There are two principal arguments. The first is that predicates are islands for extraction in a very strong sense – in that they disallow not just movement out but even binding in (binding of a resumptive). We have just seen, though, that AP-predicates at least are not islands for movement. NPpredicates largely disallow movement, but binding of a resumptive into a nominal predicate is at least sometimes possible: (i)
fear ar col ceathrar dó mo mháthair man C.cop cousin to-him my mother “a man to whom my mother is a cousin”
The example upon which Carnie’s argument is primarily based (Carnie 2000: (30b), p. 76) is indeed very ungrammatical, but it involves a number of complicating factors, only some of which I understand. The second argument is based on the ellipsis phenomenon dealt with in some detail in the first half of the paper. Carnie has re-thought the proposals in more recent work.
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Seediq Antisymmetry and final particles in a Formosan VOS language* Arthur Holmer Lund University
This paper presents data from the Austronesian language Seediq, spoken in Taiwan, which has both VOS word order and final particles. It will be argued that the cooccurrence of these two features is unexpected under a pre-antisymmetric analysis, whereas it is easily captured under an analysis couched in Kayne’s Antisymmetry model, under the assumption that VOS order is derived by raising the predicate to a position preceding the subject. An interesting contrast between Seediq final particles and Tagalog second position particles is illustrated, and argued to be the result of different mechanisms deriving verb-initial order in the two languages. An apparent problem concerning the non-interaction of Seediq final particles with what is arguably head raising in Seediq (V→C) is resolved by the proposal that syntactic heads come in two different types, labeled here simply X and Y, which do not interact with each other (in analogy with the A/A’ distinction for phrasal positions).
.
Introduction
Until the advent of Kayne’s (1994) Antisymmetry hypothesis, word order patterns such as SOV and VOS were generally seen as the result of a trivial linear ordering of X◦ and its complement, or X’ and its specifier. For VOS languages, such analyses are found in Guilfoyle, Hung and Travis (1992), in Holmer (1996) and in Chang (1997). Under this view, the subject-predicate relation is held to be identical in SVO languages and VOS languages, the difference being confined to linear order between X’ and its specifier (1).
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(1) a. VOS structure
b. SVO structure
IP
IP
I’
Subj
Subj
VP
I°
I’ I°
VP
V’ V°
V’ V°
O
O
Kayne’s hypothesis marked the beginning of a new era in word order research. Following his claim that c-command and linearity are inseparable concepts, and that, as a consequence, all syntactic structure is underlyingly SVO,1 new types of movement analyses were required to derive word orders such as VOS. Such movement patterns can easily become rather complex (2), and the idea of applying the Antisymmetric hypothesis to VOS languages was therefore often either ignored (Chang 1997) or sharply criticized (Holmer 1996) during the early years following the appearance of Kayne’s model. Even in retrospect, this is a natural reaction: any comparison of (1a) with (2) must naturally view the former as a null hypothesis. Unless empirical support can be found for the structure in (2), its only advantage is the purely theory-internal consideration of a maximally constrained phrase structure. Therefore, the most important test for Antisymmetry lies in finding empirical reasons for assuming that (2) is more correct than (1a). (2) VOS by predicate raising XP VPi
XP V’
tj V
X’
Subjj Obj
X°
ti
During the past few years, serious attempts have been made to provide such empirical support. Some of these studies (e.g., Aldridge 2002) are concerned with the subject-sensitivity of wh-relations and relativization in (primarily Austronesian) VOS languages. Others (e.g., Massam 2000a) have been more concerned with the mechanism which forces leftward movement of the predicate, essentially suggesting that predicate raising is derived by a mechanism analogous to that which raises the subject out of vP in SVO languages (the Extended Projection Principle).2
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Seediq
Since these steps were taken, other fragments of evidence have been appearing which seem to lend empirical support to an antisymmetric account of VOS order. Together, these fragments now build a substantial case for the antisymmetry hypothesis. In particular, it can be demonstrated that traditional symmetric analyses face severe empirical problems that do not obtain with an antisymmetric analysis (cf. Travis this volume). The present paper illustrates one such piece of evidence, namely the fact that an antisymmetric treatment of VOS clause structure captures straightforwardly important facts about final particles in the Seediq language in Taiwan, which a traditional analysis can only describe with massive stipulation, if at all.
. The facts Seediq is an Austronesian language spoken in the mountainous areas of northern Taiwan, in an area stretching from Puli in Nantou county to Hualien on the Pacific coast. It belongs to the Atayalic branch of Austronesian, together with its sister language Atayal, which is spoken further north. Basic word order in the Atayalic languages is VOS (3). (3) M-n-ekan bunga ka Pawan. act-pst-eat sweet.potato nom Pawan “Pawan ate sweet potatoes.” Seediq also possesses a fair number of final particles. There is no evidence that any of these are calques from other South-East Asian languages (where final particles abound as an areal feature), and even if some of them were, the fact that they are present synchronically in the language must still be accounted for. A selection of the final particles in Seediq is exemplified in (4). (4) a.
Wada m-sange ciga bubu mu di. pst act-rest yesterday mother 1sg.gen perf “Yesterday my mother rested (i.e., refrained from work).” b. M-pe-ekan=ku ido seediq na. act-caus-eat=1sg.nom rice person yet “I will still invite someone to eat.” c. M-dengu ka yqeyaq do m-cceka dhenu. act-dry nom wet.field if act-crack consequently “When the wet-field dries up, it (i.e., the mud) cracks.” d. Wada qyux-un alang Tongan sa. pst rain-patf village Tongan quot “Apparently, it rained in Tongan village.”
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e.
M-iicu m-oda habung seediq peni. act-fear act-pass grave person prt “Well, the people are afraid of going past a grave.”
The existence of final particles in a VOS language poses two major problems for a symmetric analysis. The first problem concerns cross-categorial harmony within the structure tree. It seems natural to assume that at least some of these particles are heads, structurally speaking. First, they represent prototypically functional categories, such as complementizers, evidentiality, and aspect. Second, they can never be replaced by phrasal elements of any kind. Third, they can never be clefted or topicalized, whereas phrasal elements in Seediq generally can. Fourth, the linear order is fixed and remains stable across different construction types. These properties are typical of heads, not of phrases.3 Given that Seediq is a VOS language, it is, at some descriptive level, a clear instance of head-initiality. At the same time, the existence of final particles would imply that at least one level of the syntactic structure must be head-final. Worse, since the final particles appear to have to do with different kinds of functional categories (di and na have Tense/Aspect connotations, do is a subordinator, sa represents some kind of evidential meaning, and peni is almost untranslatable into English, but serves as a discourse connector), it would not be sufficient to propose one head-final functional projection – the examples in (4) suggest that at least two, and probably three, head-final functional categories are required. The possible appearance of such a structure is illustrated in (5).
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Seediq
(5)
SubjP Subj’ Subj°
CP C°
EvidP AspP
IP
Evid° Asp°
I’ VP
I° V’ V°
O
Under the traditional (pre-Kayne) view of syntactic structure, this is, of course, not an impossibility. Mixed structures have been proposed for other languages, such as Basque (cf. Laka 1994) and German, albeit to a much lesser extent (in either case, what would be required is a single category with an exceptional structure). In Seediq, however, we would require one half of the functional projections to be head-initial and the other half to be head-final.4 This kind of mixed structure is somewhat at odds with the generalization that Seediq otherwise displays all the trappings of an extremely head-initial language as far as major lexical categories are concerned. Further, if structures such as that in (5), which is mixed VOS (i.e., HeadComplement-Specifier) and OV (i.e., Complement-Head) are possible, it would seem natural to expect that other, slightly different, VOS/SOV mixtures should occur, namely grammars which combine SOV word order with initial particles. Languages with this type of word order pattern have not, to my knowledge, been discussed in the literature, and are either extremely rare or nonexistent. Thus, while there are a few attested examples of the Seediq pattern, “reverse Seediq” apparently does not exist. Facts like this cannot be captured under a traditional analysis. Here we find a clear typological asymmetry, which it would be desirable to account for syntactically. The thrust of this paper will be to illustrate that these facts fall out straightforwardly under an antisymmetric analysis.
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. Antisymmetry and VOS . Predicate raising As we noted in Section 1, the most straightforward antisymmetric treatment of VOS order is as illustrated in (2) above, where VP raises past the position in which the subject is located, an operation generally referred to as predicate raising. This is discussed by, among others, Pensalfini (1995), Pearson (1998b), Rackowski and Travis (2000), and Aldridge (2002) and can be considered the mainstream antisymmetric treatment of VOS languages. Under this analysis, it is generally assumed (cf. Massam this volume) that there is some syntactic feature that forces the predicate to raise, much in the same way as a subject raises in an SVO language. An interesting point to note here is that a single instance of predicate raising might be enough to derive VOS order in a clause that only contains a verb, a subject and an object. It is not, however, enough by far to derive the entire host of syntactic properties in Austronesian VOS languages that seem indicative of VOS structure. The reasons for this are as follows. Seediq displays a typical Western Austronesian “focus” (or voice) system similar to the type found in Tagalog and Malagasy (6a–b). If a directional auxiliary is present (6c), it is the auxiliary that bears the relevant focus morphology, whereas the lexical verb is realized in default ActF morphology (incidentally also the citation form of the verb). M-n-ekan bunga (ka)5 qolic. act-pst-eat sweet.potato nom rat “The rat ate sweet potatoes.” b. P-n-uq-an qolic (ka) bunga. -pst6 -eat-locf rat nom sweet.potato “A rat ate the sweet potato.” c. Yah-un m-ekan qolic (ka) bunga. come-patf act-eat rat nom sweet.potato “A rat will come and eat the sweet potato.”
(6) a.
In (6c), the non-finite verb precedes the Agent. Two alternative interpretations are possible: either the verb has head-raised past the Agent, or the emptied VP has predicate-raised past the Agent. The head-raising option is dubious: first, it begs the question of where the verb has moved, and why this movement has taken place, e.g., is there a position responsible for checking default ActF morphology? More seriously, it makes false predictions concerning word order. Assuming that vP has SVO structure, and verb-initiality is derived by head raising, it would follow that the Agent must be the leftmost NP within vP. If VP is not vacated (e.g., in an oblique focus construction, where the subject is an oblique, and the patient
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Seediq
remains within VP), we would expect the linear order V – AGT – PAT – SUBJ. This order is, however, ungrammatical (7a). In contrast, the VP-raising suggestion predicts the linear order V – PAT – AGT – SUBJ in the same context. This order is in fact possible (7b),7 although the preferred order involves agent extraposition (7c), which is presumably due to a PF restriction concerning the linear distance between verb and subject, and need not concern us further here.8 (7) a. *S-sebuc na Pawan ricah ka btakan. instrf-beat gen Pawan plum nom bamboo b. ?S-sebuc=na9 ricah na Pawan ka btakan. instrf-beat=3sg.gen plum gen Pawan nom bamboo c. S-sebuc=na ricah ka btakan, Pawan.10 instrf-beat=3sg.gen plum nom bamboo Pawan “Pawan strikes plums (down from a tree) with the bamboo.” A natural conclusion is therefore that the Agent is the last element within vP. Thus, to derive the correct order in Seediq it is necessary to assume firstly that VP raises to adjoin to vP, and further that the entire predicate (i.e., basically the entire clause with the exception of the subject) raises past the surface position of the subject. This is indeed what Aldridge (2002) does in her analysis of Seediq. A subsection of the resulting structure is illustrated in (8) – the category labels are based on Aldridge’s (2002) terminology (Ka◦ is the functional head where the nominative particle ka is located).11 (8) Wada puq-un qolic ka bunga.12 pst eat-patf rat nom sweet.potato “The sweet potato was eaten by rats.” KaP TPj T° wada
Ka’ vP vP
VPi puqun
Ka° ka
qolic
Top’
NP bunga v’
v°
TopP
Top°
tj
ti
Further, the order of adverbs in Malagasy prompts Rackowski and Travis (2000) to assume several cyclic applications of predicate raising, termed intraposition, the
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purpose being to account for the fact that while preverbal adverbs appear in the order predicted by Cinque (1999), any postverbal adverbs appear in the reverse order. The mechanism of cyclic predicate raising gives rise to extremely complicated structures on the left edge of the clause.13 In particular, given Rackowski and Travis’ (2000) analysis, there can be no fixed number of instances of predicate raising. It follows that there can be no principle forcing each individual occurrence of predicate raising. Rather, we must assume that it is a generalized process occurring in VOS languages. It is not clear whether such a generalized predicate raising pattern can be motivated by a single instance of a syntactic feature corresponding to the value of an EPP feature in T◦ (in the sense that a [+D] feature forces NP raising and a [+Pred] features forces predicate raising).14 This is, in theory, a potentially problematic issue. In practice, however, it seems an unavoidable conclusion when viewing a typical VOS language from an antisymmetric point of view. It might be speculated that such generalized patterns might be the antisymmetric equivalent of directionality parameters, i.e., the beginnings of an antisymmetric account of cross-categorial harmony. We defer consequences of this to future research.15
. Predicate-raising and head-finality One interesting feature of the predicate raising analysis is the following: while designed to emulate a specifier-final surface appearance, it does not, structurally speaking, actually produce a specifier-final result. In this section it is tacitly assumed that predicate raising involves the movement of XPs, not of X’-level constituents. (9) a.
b.
XP
VPi
X’
Subj
YP Subj
Y’ Y°
X’ X°
YP
X°
XP
VP
Y’ Y°
ti
If we apply predicate raising to the structure in (9a) to derive a subject-final order (9b), the linearly last position in the clause is actually not the specifier of YP itself, but rather the head Y◦ . In other words, predicate raising automatically generates structures which are potentially head-final, with no further stipulation: if
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Seediq
Y◦ is phonologically realized, the result is an apparently head-final construction, whereas if Y◦ is silent, the result is an apparently specifier-final construction. This is the crucial point of the account presented here: given the mechanism of predicate raising to derive VOS order, the existence of final particles is as expected under an antisymmetric analysis as it is unexpected under a traditional analysis. It should be noted, however, that this type of account requires the assumption that VOS order is derived by several cyclic occurrences of predicate raising – exactly the mechanism necessary for deriving other aspects of western Austronesian word order (e.g., Agent position in Seediq “passives”, cf. Section 3.1, and adverb placement in Malagasy, cf. Rackowski & Travis 2000). How, then, do we derive the correct order and correct clause-final placement of the final particles? Let us assume an antisymmetric structure with the particles generated in structural positions that more or less correspond to their meanings. Since Seediq has a set of final particles of different categories, as well as clause-initial subordinators, we must assume a rather finely articulated split within both the C and the Infl domains. As far as the C domain is concerned, we have labeled the top two categories C1P and C2P respectively (roughly corresponding to Pearson’s 1998b SubP and ForceP). Our reasons for choosing more neutral labels are simply that both C1P and C2P can host subordinators (clause-initial and clause-final respectively). Further, we propose the level EvidP, where the evidential particle sa is located. The Infl domain includes AspP, where the particles di and na, which deal with aspectual interpretation, are located. Note that the relatively high position of Asp◦ in Seediq mirrors not only its linear position, but also its interpretation: these particles dictate the aspectual interpretation of the entire clause, crucially including the polarity.16 The Infl domain also includes KaP, TopP and TP (used more or less as defined in Aldridge 2002; cf. example (8) above – these three categories are primarily responsible for deriving VOS surface order in a rather mainstream predicate raising analysis, and will not be discussed further in this context, where the existence and order of the final particles is our primary concern). The resulting structure is given in (10).17
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(10)
C1P C1’ C1°
C2P C2’ C2° peni/do
EvidP Evid’ Evid° sa
AspP Asp’ Asp° di/na
KaP Ka’ Ka°
TopP Subj Top°
Top’ TP
Let us now apply cyclic predicate raising to the structure in (10), in much the same way as Rackowski and Travis (2000) derive adverb placement. In simple terms, this implies raising each phrase to the next available specifier upwards in the structure, up to, but not including, C1P (allowing for a clause-initial subordinator position). The resulting structure is shown in (11).
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Seediq
(11)
C1P C1’ C1°
C2P
EvidPl
C2’
AspPk Asp’
KaPj Ka’
TPi V ... O
Ka° Ka
C2° peni/do
Evid’
Asp° di/na
Evid° sa
tl
tk
tj
TopP Subj
Top’ Top°
ti
As can be seen from the structure in (11), the only elements that follow the grammatical subject in the specifier of TopP are aspectual particles (di or na), the evidential particle (sa) and a subset of subordinators and discourse connectors (do and peni respectively). These can co-occur, and when they do, the linear order is exactly that generated by the structure in (11). Examples of co-occurrences are given in (12). kiyaka puq-un=daha gaya babuy si (=sa)18 peni, then eat-patf=3pl.gen law pig quot well.you.see “. . . it is said that they then just ritually eat a pig, you see. . . ” b. Cghuun seediq do, m-usa m-ekan seediq kiya gaga cghuun hang person if, act-go act-eat person that be hang kiya di si (=sa). there perf quot “If someone hangs himself, they (the crows) go and eat the person that has hanged himself, so it is said.”
(12) a.
The linear order in itself is not a problem for the traditional pre-Kayne analysis, since right-headed structures would also generate the same placement of the particles (the higher the functional category, the further rightwards its linear placement). What (11) and (12) are intended to show is that an antisymmetric analysis
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is equally capable of deriving the correct ordering of the particles as the order of the arguments, without having to stipulate a mixed structure.
. VOS and VSO order In view of the traditional analysis of VSO order as being derived by head movement of the verb past the subject, a possible prediction in this respect would be that the existence of final particles be connected with basic word order – under the present analysis, we would expect final particles in VOS languages, but we would not expect them in VSO languages (given that head-raising, as opposed to predicate-raising, does not strand syntactic heads in clause-final position). To date, no such correlation has been found. Final particles are attested in Atayalic languages (VOS) and possibly in Malagasy19 (VOS), cf. Section 4.1, as well as in San Lucas Quiaviní Zapotec (VSO), cf. Lee (2000a, this volume). The exact extent of the distribution of final particles in verb-initial languages remains to be determined. However, it should be noted that the present analysis does not, in fact, necessarily exclude VSO languages. Crucially, it claims that final particles should be possible in languages that derive verb-initial order by predicate raising (i.e., all VOS languages), but not in languages that derive verb-initial order by head-raising. It has recently been proposed in the literature that many VSO languages also apply predicate raising, i.e., what is often referred to as VP-remnant raising, where the VP raises after having been emptied of all material other than the verb.20 In fact, in Oda (this volume), a typology of VSO languages is proposed based on whether the order is derived by head-raising or VP-remnant raising. VSO languages for which VP-remnant raising has been suggested for independent reasons include Niuean (Massam this volume)21 and San Lucas Quiaviní Zapotec (Lee this volume). Thus, the predictions of the present analysis are perhaps more modest than might be supposed at first glance (13). (13) Movement type: XP-raising X◦ -raising Basic word orders VOS, SOV, (some) VSO (some) VSO Final particles likely unlikely As an empirical test, this prediction can be falsified by finding final particles in a language where it can be argued, for other reasons, that verb-initial order is derived by head-movement rather than by predicate raising (typical tests for predicate raising include the possibility of nominal predicates, pseudo-noun-incorporation etc., cf. Massam this volume; Otsuka this volume).
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Seediq
. Further correlates Having shown that final particles in verb-initial languages can be captured quite elegantly under an antisymmetric analysis, the next question is whether any independent empirical support can be found for this account. In this section, two such pieces of evidence are reviewed. In Section 4.1, the placement of the polar (yes/no) interrogative particle in Seediq, Atayal and Malagasy is discussed, and Section 4.2 focuses on the striking parallels between Seediq final particles and Tagalog second position clitics. Both of the discussions lend support to the present account of the nature of final particles.
. Placement of the interrogative particle The Atayalic languages differ greatly with respect to the placement of the polar interrogative particle. In Seediq, the particle ye is clause-initial, and serves as host for the cliticization of pronominal agreement markers (14a). In Atayal, the corresponding element quw is a final particle (14b). Perhaps even more intriguingly, the normal placement of the Malagasy interrogative particle ve is neither final nor initial, but between the predicate and the subject (14c). However, given their common function, we would expect the particles in all three languages to be base-generated in the same position. Further, given the shared VOS word order of the three languages, we would also expect the structures involved to be quite similar. Thus, the challenge for the present account is to derive all three placements from minimal parametric differences between the languages. Seediq ye=su m-n-ekan hlama kiya? interr-2sg.nom act-pst-eat steamed.rice that “Did you eat that steamed rice snack?” Atayal (Mayrinax) b. kia’ ‘i’ ma-qilaap ‘i’ yaya’ quw? asp LINK act-sleep nom mother interr “Is mother sleeping?” (Huang 1995: 176) Malagasy c. Nanome vola an-dRabe ve ianao? gave money acc-Rabe interr you “Did you give Rabe money?” (Keenan 1976b: 252)
(14) a.
Let us begin by assuming that the polar interrogative particle is located in a head position within the C-domain. Following our discussion above, we use the label C2◦ here, which corresponds roughly to Pearson’s (1998b) Force◦ . Under the symmetric view, this would make C2P head-initial in Seediq and head-final in Atayal, an undesirable difference for two extremely closely related languages, which are otherwise almost identical syntactically. Worse, the placement
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in Malagasy, between the predicate and the subject, would be completely impossible to derive without crucially resorting to movement.22 On the other hand, under the antisymmetric account, we can assume that the structure involved is identical in all three languages. Let us assume, as we did above, that split C in the three languages consists of the levels C1P for clause-initial subordinators and C2P, primarily responsible for illocutionary force and clause-final discourse connectors and subordinators. Let us further assume, contra Pearson (1998b), that the interrogative marker in all three languages is base-generated in C2◦ . In (10) and (11) above we presented further categories which hosted final particles. These have been omitted, for reasons of space, from the structure in (15). (15)
C1P C1°
C2P C2’ C2° ... Asp°
EvidP...
KaP Ka’ Ka°
TopP Subj
Top’ Top°
TP
We are now concerned with deriving the correct surface order for Seediq, Atayal and Malagasy. To derive clause-level VOS order, all three languages apply predicate raising of TP to the specifier of KaP. The differences between the languages can be expressed in terms of other subsequent instances of raising. For Seediq, we noted in (11) that EvidP raises to the specifier of C2P, resulting in clause-final position for elements in C2◦ . In practice, if we disregard the host of categories between C2P and KaP, this implies cyclic raising until KaP is located in the specifier of C2P. A simplified structure is given in (16).
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(16)
C1P C1°
C2P KaPj
C2’ Ka’
TPi Ka° ka
C2°
tj
TopP Subj
Top’ Top°
ti
This derivation is sufficient to generate the correct order as far as the Atayal clausefinal interrogative particle quw is concerned. For Seediq, one further step is required. Assuming, as we do, in the interests of cross-linguistic comparison, that Seediq ye is base-generated in C2◦ , its placement in initial position can be derived by head-movement of the particle from C2◦ to C1◦ . Head-movement to C1◦ is motivated in Seediq by the requirement that C1◦ be lexically filled (see below), analogous to the received analysis of V2 as V-to-C movement in Scandinavian (cf. Holmberg & Platzack 1995). Why the same movement does not apply to Atayal quw is a question that we will return to in Section 5. A minimal parametric difference thus results in a maximal surface difference as far as the linear placement of the interrogative particle is concerned. Another possibility might be that Q is located in the same position (C2◦ ) on the surface in both Seediq and Atayal, and that only Atayal, but not Seediq, applies the final instance of predicate raising to the specifier of C2P. The resulting configuration in Seediq and Atayal would be as in (17). (17) a. Seediq
b. Atayal
C1P C1°
C1P C2P
C1° C2’
C2° ye
C2P
EvidPi EvidP
C2° quw
C2’ ti
This analysis is untenable, however. The placement of clitic pronouns, enclitic to clause-initial subordinators (18a) or interrogative ye (18b), depending on which is
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present, indicates that they must occupy the same position on the surface, i.e., C1◦ . For this reason, it is clear that the surface position of ye is C1◦ . Note that we are not dealing with true second-position clitics, but elements that are crucially enclitic to the first syntactic head within the clause. Thus, clause-initial adverbials (18c), conjunctions (18d, e) and non-head wh-words (18f) are not valid hosts for cliticization, despite the fact that they are not separated from the remainder of the clause by any intonational break.23 Note that ini huwa ‘it is OK’ is clearly within the clause, given that a question particle ye preceding it is a valid cliticization host (18g). (18) a.
Netun=su m-imah sino, bsukan=su dhenu. if-2sg.nom act-drink wine drunk-2sg.nom consequently “If you drink wine you will get drunk.” b. Ye=su m-n-imah sino ciga? interr-2sg.nom act-pst-drink wine yesterday “Did you drink wine yesterday?” c. Ini-(*su) huwa-(*su) m-ekan=su tmaku neg=(*2sg) how.act.conneg=(*2sg) act-eat=2sg.nom tobacco hini. here “It’s OK if you smoke here.” d. Anisa-(*ku) ini=ku ekan tmaku. but=(*1sg.nom) neg=1sg.nom eat.act.conneg tobacco “But I don’t smoke.” e. . . . ma=(*mu) ini=mu qta-i quyu kiya. and=(*1sg.gen) neg=1sg.gen see-patf.conneg snake that “. . . and I didn’t see that snake.” f. Ima=(*su) q-n-ta-an=su ciga? who=(*2sg.gen) -pst-see-locf=2sg.gen yesterday “Who did you see yesterday?” g. Ye=ku ini huwa m-ekan tmaku hini? interr=1sg.nom neg how.act.conneg act-eat tobacco here “Is it OK if I smoke here?”
The above evidence shows that pronominal cliticization in Seediq is not intonationally, but clearly syntactically, determined, and that clitic placement is therefore most straightforwardly captured by assuming cliticization to a fixed position combined with head-raising of the interrogative particle (or, indeed, the structurally closest head) to C1◦ . The final challenge lies in deriving the correct order in Malagasy. As opposed to the situation in Seediq and Atayal, the interrogative particle ve is not clauseperipheral, but is located between the predicate and the subject. Assuming that it
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is located in C2◦ , we can derive this order straightforwardly by raising only TP instead of KaP (or the structure containing TopP24 ) to the specifier of C2P. The result is illustrated in (19). (19)
C1P C2P
C1°
C2’
TPi
KaP
C2° ve ti
Ka’ Ka°
TopP Top’
Subj Top°
ti
The above model shows that we can derive the differences in the placement of the interrogative particle in three Austronesian VOS languages by means of minimal parametric differences based on operations on identical structures. The exact nature of the parameter that causes TP, rather than KaP (as in the Atayalic languages), to raise to the specifier of C2P is not entirely clear. However, one conceivable answer might be connected with the status of KaP. If the acquisition of structure is determined by the existence of lexical or morphological cues, it would follow that KaP is not projected in Malagasy (as opposed to the Ataylic languages). Assuming, then, that cyclic predicate raising operates in a bottom-up fashion, this would imply that the first landing site for TP would, in fact, be the specifier of C2P, and that further predicate raising would be excluded.25 Note that this analysis further predicts that Malagasy should not have a set of final particles, a prediction that is more or less borne out.26
. Final particles vs. second position clitics One interesting point we can note about the final particles in Seediq is that they, to a remarkable extent, correspond semantically to second position clitics in Tagalog. A selection of such correspondences is given in (20).
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(20) Seediq final particles di na uri sa
Tagalog 2nd-position clitics na pa din daw
Meaning ‘perfective’ ‘still’ ‘also’ ‘reportedly’
The examples in (21) illustrate the use of the respective particles in Tagalog and Seediq. (21) a.
b.
c.
d.
e.
f.
g.
h.
Seediq Uxe m-e-eyah heya di neg.fut act-fut-come 3sg.nom perf “S/he won’t come anymore.” Tagalog Hindi na ako pu-punta roon. neg perf 1sg red-go there “I won’t go there anymore.” (Schachter & Otanes 1972: 418) Seediq Ini=ku ekan ido na. neg=1sg.nom eat.act.conneg rice yet “I haven’t eaten yet.” Tagalog Hindi pa siya um-a-alis neg yet 3sg act-red-leave “S/he hasn’t left yet.” (Schachter & Otanes 1972: 419) Seediq . . . dadan ta heya uri. relative 1pl.incl.gen 3sg.nom also “. . . she’s also a relative of ours.” Tagalog Um-a-awit din si Carmen act-red-sing also nom Carmen “Carmen is singing, too.” (Schachter & Otanes 1972: 422) Seediq Wada qyux-un alang Tongan sa. pst rain-patf village Tongan quot “Apparently, it rained in Tongan village.” (Schachter & Otanes 1972: 422) Tagalog Mabuti raw ang ani. good quot nom harvest “They say that the harvest is good.” (Schachter & Otanes 1972: 423)
An intriguing question is whether there is any way of deriving these facts by means of the analysis we have presented. It seems possible that we can. Let us tentatively follow Aldridge (2002) in suggesting that word order in Tagalog is derived by Xmovement rather than by XP-raising. This is not entirely uncontroversial, since Tagalog, as well as Seediq, allows for NP predicates (22a). However, given that Aldridge’s analysis captures the fact that adjunct wh-movement is grammatical in
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Tagalog (22b) but not in Seediq (22c, d), the consequences of deriving Tagalog word order by X-movement are worth exploring. (22) a.
[bantog na siyudad] ang Maynila famous lig city nom Manila “Manila is a famous city.” (Schachter & Otanes 1972: 122) b. Saan=ka b-um-ili ng libro? where-2sg.abs -act.perf-buy obl book “Where did you buy books?” (Aldridge 2002: 415) c. *Inu=(su) m-n-ari=(su) patis? where?=(2sg.nom) act-pst-buy=(2sg.nom) book d. M-n-ari=su inu patis? act-pst-buy=2sg.nom where? book “Where did you buy books?”
Let us therefore assume, in a greatly simplified structure, that the particles are located in the same position structurally in both Seediq and Tagalog, namely X◦ in the unlabelled structure in (23). Let us further assume that where Seediq applies the final instance of predicate raising to the specifier of XP, Tagalog instead applies head-movement of the verb to X◦ . The result of the two derivations is given in (23). (23) a. Seediq XP-raising
b. Tagalog X◦ raising
XP ZPi
XP X’
X°
X’ ti
ZP
X° Z°i
AP
Z’ ti
BP
In (23a), the particle prt is located linearly in the last position in the clause, the correct linear order for Seediq. In (23b), the same particle is located immediately following the first head of the clause as a clitic, which is exactly what we find in Tagalog.27 The validity of this as evidence in support of our analysis relies crucially on the correctness of the assumption that Tagalog applies head raising rather than predicate raising,28 and this may be subject to debate. However, it should also be noted that Aldridge’s (2002) head-raising analysis for Tagalog accounts for two other important differences between Seediq and Tagalog, one being the grammat-
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icality of adjunct wh-movement in Tagalog but not in Seediq, and the other being the tendency towards VSO order in Tagalog, in contrast to VOS in Seediq.29
. Cliticization and verb raising – an apparent problem It might appear from the preceding discussion that we consider head raising and predicate raising to be mechanisms which occur in complementary distribution, as alternative derivations which can lead to V-initial order. In fact, there is no a priori reason to assume that one operation excludes the other, as long as freezing effects30 in the raised predicate are respected. Thus, we could envisage a situation where the verb head-raises out of VP, and the remainder of the VP (without the verb) subsequently raises for reasons of its own.31 Indeed, given that the common denominator of the two operations concerns the effect (V-initial surface order) rather than the cause,32 it would be surprising if they were necessarily in complementary distribution. It will be argued here that Seediq is an example of a language where both operations co-occur. In Seediq, each can be independently motivated empirically, notwithstanding the fact that either of them is sufficient to derive V-initial order by itself. While it is possible to assume mechanisms that render V-raising unnecessary for the checking of verb morphology in Seediq (e.g., local Spec-Head relations at various levels), the positioning of the clitics is more problematic. In Seediq, nominative and ergative agreement is realized by enclitic elements which attach to the first head position in the clause (24). This head may be a subordinator (24a), a T/A marker (24b), a negator (24c), a manner adverbial, syntactically a head in Seediq33 (24d), the main verb (24e) or even the N◦ head of a nominal predicate (24f). (24) a.
Netun=su ini ekan ido, m-uure=su if=2sg.nom neg eat.act.conneg rice act-hungry=2sg.nom dhenu. conseq. “If you don’t eat, you will get hungry.” b. Wada=mu qta-un ka huling su. pst=1sg.gen see-patf nom dog 2sg.gen “I saw your dog.” c. Ini=ku kela r-m-engo kari seediq. neg=1sg.nom know.act.conneg -act-speak language person “I can’t speak Seediq.” d. skret-an=daha m-ekuy quwaq salo tight-locf=3pl.gen act-tie mouth pot “They tie the mouth of the pot tightly.”
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e.
f.
M-n-ekan=ku ido ciga. act-pst-eat=1sg.nom rice yesterday “I ate rice yesterday.” Seediq=ku Paran yaku. person=1sg.nom Paran 1sg.nom “I am a person from Paran village.”
It seems unlikely that the clitics are simply sensitive to the linear order of the heads.34 The null hypothesis here must be that the host of the clitics is a discrete syntactic position. Given that clitics can attach to subordinators (24a), and assuming that downward movement is illicit, this syntactic position must be C1◦ . This in turn implies that we must posit movement of the highest lexically realized head to C1◦ , presumably motivated by a feature in C1◦ requiring this position to be lexically filled.35 If no other lexical material intervenes, the result is V-to-C movement as in (24e). Such movement can be blocked by other preverbal heads, such as negators and T/A particles, which themselves raise to C1◦ to host the clitics. Assuming V-to-C movement unless blocked by an intervening lexically filled head, this derivation clearly complies with Travis’ (1984) Head Movement Constraint (HMC). Further, as discussed in Holmer (1996), morphological evidence in Seediq, including verb morphology and the behavior of connegatives following negations, clearly supports the same hierarchical ordering of the syntactic heads as that suggested by the clitic system. The problem instead arises when we consider the final particles. While the various syntactic heads at the left periphery of the clause (auxiliaries, verbs, negators etc.) interact with each other in ways which are consistent with the HMC, such constructions in no way affect or are affected by the distribution of final particles, which is problematic if the latter are also analyzed as heads. Why do final particles not block V-to-C movement? There is clearly some important difference between the heads which are realized left-peripherally and those which are realized right-peripherally.36 The question is how this difference is to be captured.37 One possible option might be that left-peripheral and right-peripheral heads are located in different ranges of the clause, e.g., that all final particles are hierarchically higher than all left-peripheral heads, and that V-to-C movement does not reach the positions occupied by the final particles. This option is improbable, given the wide functional variety of the final particles, ranging from aspectual meanings to illocutionary force. While a certain amount of cross-linguistic variation in the hierarchical ordering of syntactic features might be conceivable (cf. Holmer to appear), the placement of aspectual elements intervening hierarchically between various levels of subordination is probably stretching this type of variation beyond the limits of plausibility. Therefore, we should examine other avenues to account for the lack of interaction between clause-initial heads and final particles.
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In some sense, the left-peripheral heads and the right-peripheral heads are invisible to one another. A possible account is that offered by Carnie, Harley and Pyatt (2000), who posit that head positions are subject to an A/A’ distinction in the same way as XP’s are, following Borsley, Rivero and Stevens’ (1996) account of Long Head Movement, who refer to this distinction in terms of L-relatedness. Viewed in this light, the HMC is constrained by Relativized Minimality (Rizzi 1990) and does not necessarily exclude head movement across another head as long as the target of movement and the skipped head position belong to two different categories (e.g. A/A’) which do not interfere with one another. Let us assume the same type of distinction in Seediq. Given that in Seediq the analogy with A-positions and A’-positions is somewhat unclear (which would be the A-positions: the left-peripheral heads or the right-peripheral heads?), let us adopt a more neutral terminology and refer to the left-peripheral heads as X-heads and the right-peripheral heads as Y-heads. Let us further state that X-heads and Yheads do not interact, i.e., that they belong to different categories in the same sense as A-positions and A’-positions belong to different, non-interacting categories.38 What follows is the unraveling of an interesting set of properties of the two types of heads, which lends further support to the anti-symmetric hypothesis. The properties of X-heads and Y-heads are given in (25). (25) X-heads Y-heads involved in head-movement not involved in head-movement initial final It should be noted that, even under a symmetric analysis (where certain categories may be projected head-finally and others head-initially), the problem of the noninteraction of X-heads and Y-heads would still remain. Regardless of whether heads take their complements to the left or to the right, they would normally be expected to take part in any existing chains of head-movement. Thus, the need of positing two types of head is the consequence not of the application of antisymmetry, but of any generative analysis which assumes (a) head movement of the verb and (b) head status for final particles. Further, we see that the distinction between X-heads and Y-heads rests on two logically independent properties, namely involvement in head-movement and linear position (initial or final). It seems an intriguing coincidence that these two factors should coincide so exactly, unless, of course, they are in some way interrelated. Under a symmetric view, there would seem to be no plausible reason why a head-final category should not be involved in head movement operations, while a head-initial category is. However, the crucial point is that, under an antisymmetric analysis, there are no head-final categories as such. Apparent head-finality is the result of leftward movement of the complement of the head concerned. Fol-
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lowing the assumption of antisymmetry, therefore, both properties of the two types of heads can be defined in terms of movement: X-heads are involved in head-movement, whereas Y-heads force the leftward movement of the complement instead. In Seediq, at any rate, there do not seem to be any clear examples of categories that apply both head-movement and complement raising (except possibly v◦ , depending on how we analyze V-movement). The properties in (25) can therefore perhaps be reduced to a single property under an antisymmetric analysis (26). (26)
X-heads Y-heads Movement: head complement (/predicate)
If (26) is a valid generalization of the behavior of heads, it would follow that Xheads and Y-heads can be distinguished by the types of movement in which they can be involved. X-heads partake in head movement, and do not trigger predicate raising, whereas Y-heads, which trigger predicate raising, can neither undergo nor block head movement. Given antisymmetry, Y-heads will have a head-final surface appearance, whereas X-heads will typically be clause-initial. The prediction of this classification would be that (apparently) head-final categories will be unable to undergo or block head-movement. This is possibly trivial with final particles, but could perhaps be tested more fruitfully with SOV languages. We can now return to the parametric difference between the Seediq and Atayal polar interrogative constructions discussed in 4.1. Recall that the remaining problem was accounting for the fact that Atayal quw is not forced to raise from C2◦ to C1◦ , as opposed to Seediq ye. In terms of the present typology, Seediq ye is an X head and is a valid candidate for head-movement to C1◦ , whereas Atayal quw is a Y head and cannot head-move, instead forcing predicate raising.39 The exact implications of this analysis are not clear at present. While it is clear that head-raising and predicate-raising can co-occur in a given language, there is no evidence that they co-occur within the same category projection. Possible reasons for this are deferred to future research. This much is certain, however: the generalization in (26) can only be expressed in antisymmetric terms, not in traditional symmetric terms.
. Summary and conclusion In this paper it has been demonstrated that a traditional symmetric analysis fails to capture various important facts about final particles in Seediq, facts which fall out automatically under an antisymmetric predicate raising account of VOS word order. First, the antisymmetric account can derive the presence of final particles
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using exactly the same mechanism as that which derives VOS word order, namely predicate raising. Second, this account predicts that there should be an asymmetry between V-initial languages with final particles and V-final languages with initial particles, the latter being extremely rare or non-existent. This prediction appears to be borne out empirically. Third, our account captures neatly the differing placements of the interrogative particles in Seediq, Atayal and Malagasy with a minimum of stipulation. Fourth, the realization of the same semantic categories as final particles in Seediq and as second-position clitics in Tagalog follows directly from viewing Seediq as a predicate-raising language and Tagalog as a head-raising language. Fifth, our analysis suggests an account for the fact that clause-final heads (viz. final particles) do not participate in or obstruct head-movement processes, whereas clause-initial heads (viz. subordinators, T/A markers, auxiliaries, negators and verbs) demonstrably do. A traditional symmetric account has no choice but to regard these two facts as entirely unrelated. Thus, this paper shows that Kayne’s Antisymmetry hypothesis can be defended, not only as a matter of theory-internal issues, but also on clearly empirical grounds.
Notes * The Seediq material included in this paper is the result of fieldwork conducted in Taiwan during 1993, 1995 and 1998. I gratefully acknowledge financial assistance from the Bank of Sweden Tercentenary Foundation, the Swedish Research Council for the Humanities and Social Sciences, and the Lundberg Ido Foundation, which together made this research possible. Naturally, my deepest debt of gratitude goes to my principal consultant and friend Teminawi Tseng, of Puli, Taiwan. I am also grateful to the audience of the Workshop on the Syntax of Verb-initial Languages in Tucson, Arizona, February 2003, for valuable comments and helpful suggestions, especially from Andrew Carnie, Sheila Dooley Collberg, David Gil, Heidi Harley, Eloise Jelinek, Hilda Koopman, Diane Massam and Lisa Travis, as well as two anonymous reviewers. Any mistakes or flaws are mine and mine alone. . Or perhaps more aptly described, Spec-Head-Complement. We will henceforth follow a common practice and use word order type abbreviations to refer to various linear settings of structure. . The rationale for predicate raising is to ensure that both the verb and the object precede the verb in VOS languages. In some VSO languages, predicate raising can be applied to account for Pseudo Noun Incorporation, where indefinite (but not definite) NP objects precede the subject. . cf. Gasde and Paul (1996) for a treatment of final particles in Mandarin Chinese as heads. . From an acquisition point of view, the symmetric analysis and the antisymmetric analysis are presumably equally straightforward or problematic – the learner must either deduce the directionality of the structure or the types of predicate raising involved. I thank an anonymous reviewer for drawing my attention to this point. Note, however, that final heads do
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not partake in / interfere with verb movement. Under the symmetric analysis, this must be coincidental; under an antisymmetric analysis these facts are connected. . The nom particle ka is optional in Seediq. . I adhere to the common practice of glossing infixes as -infix-. Thus the root in (6b) is puq-, whereas past is realized by the infix -n-. . Or at least less ungrammatical than (7a). . For more details on Seediq word order patterns in Seediq cf. Holmer (2002a). Examples (7a) through (7c) are initially inspired by similar examples in Chang (1997), given in topicalized word order. The (non-topicalized) word order patterns given here have been tested with a native consultant. . The bound pronoun na ‘3sg.gen’ is obligatory unless immediately followed by the Agent (cf. (7a)). . Note that (7c) involves a noticeable intonational break before the extraposed Agent. . I have followed Aldridge (2002) in assuming that KaP is the level which links the subject with the predicate, given that the particle ka can only occur once in a clause. Alternative views are possible, i.e., that ka is simply a case marker and is located together with the NP in the specifier of TopP. Nothing in the present analysis hinges crucially on this assumption. . Note that word order here is not VSO, but rather V-Agent-S, with a non-subject Agent and a subject Patient. Structurally speaking, this is equivalent to VOS order, since vP-internal elements precede the grammatical subject. . Summarized very briefly – postverbal adverbs in Malagasy are viewed as heads which trigger complement raising (analogous to predicate raising), the result being that for each adverbial level, the complement consistently precedes the head. . Further, the fact that the subject raises to the specifier of TopP (to get its surface position to the right of the predicate) shows that a [+Pred] EPP value does not exclude DP movement. Whether DP movement takes place for EPP reasons, as argued in Holmer (1996) and Holmer (1999) – albeit in a GB analysis – or whether it takes place for Case checking reasons, as suggested by Aldridge (2002) is a question outside the scope of this paper. The fact remains: to combine VOS order with an antisymmetric analysis requires DP-extraction from the predicate before predicate raising takes place. . A possible solution might be the following. It is generally assumed that the underlying parametric distinction is concerned with whether the EPP has the value [+Pred] (in predicate raising languages) or [+D] (in argument raising languages). In a [+D] EPP language, the subject may have to raise cyclically (phrase to phrase) to reach the position where it can satisfy the EPP (depending on the amount of structure assumed to be present in the clause). It is conceivable that generalized predicate raising may be the [+Pred] equivalent of this kind of cyclic movement. Possible consequences of this view are, however, beyond the scope of this paper. . The suitability of the label AspP may be debated (Anders Holmberg, p.c.). However, both the function and the position are rather clear. Seediq di can be fruitfully compared with Mandarin Chinese clause-final le, which indicates that the truth value of the entire proposition is new. Seediq na, on the other hand, indicates that it is unchanged.
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Arthur Holmer . The most suitable labels for the various categories are, of course, open to debate. It might even be conceivable that the categories proposed are language-specific (cf. Holmer to appear for a discussion). However, this is not really the issue at hand. . The realizations sa and si are in free (possibly idiolectal) variation. . In Malagasy they are not actually clause-final, but rather predicate-final, located between the predicate and the subject. . For further references cf. Lee (2000a), Massam (2000a). . But not Tongan (cf. Otsuka this volume). . Unless we follow Pearson (1998) in generating ve in a position which is structurally lower than the surface position of the subject, in which case both the symmetric and the antisymmetric analysis can yield identical results. . Preposed topics which are intonationally separate from the clause are naturally not valid cliticization hosts either. . As there is no direct evidence for the existence of KaP in Malagasy, the null hypothesis is that the complement of C2◦ in Malagasy is TopP rather than KaP. Nothing hinges on this assumption, so we have simply included KaP for ease of comparison. . An interesting consequence of this view would be that VOS languages which lack overt nominative/subject particles should have pre-subject polar interrogative particles, a very strong prediction indeed, which is worth examining further. . The status of possible clause-final occurrences of ve reported by Jill Heather Flegg (Lisa Travis, p.c.) is not clear in this model at present. We defer this issue to further research, given that any analysis must take into account the exact circumstances under which this construction is at all possible. . The clitics in Tagalog are second position clitics, but crucially do not attach to clauseinitial topics. In practice, therefore, they usually attach to syntactic heads. A possible counterexample might be the fact that they sometimes attach to certain adjuncts (cf. Aldridge 2002: 413ff., see also example (22b) above). However, as has been argued in Holmer (2002b), adverbial categories which are XPs in English are demonstrably syntactic heads in various Formosan languages, and possibly in Western Austronesian in general. If this is the case in Tagalog, then Tagalog second position clitics are, in actual fact, enclitic to the first syntactic head in the clause, just like the pronominal clitics in Seediq (note that we have demonstrated above that clitic placement in Seediq is syntactically, not prosodically, determined). . Or rather, that Tagalog applies only head-raising, whereas Seediq applies both headraising and predicate raising; cf. Section 5. The motivation for head raising is assumed here to be analogous to the strong feature in C◦ assumed for Scandinavian V2 languages; cf. Holmberg and Platzack (1995). . Basic word order in Tagalog is not entirely uncontroversial, given that the order of the arguments is relatively free. For ActF clauses, VSO is the least marked order; cf. the discussion in Guilfoyle, Hung and Travis (1992). . I.e., that a moved constituent becomes a syntactic island, from which further extraction is impossible.
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Seediq . In a sense, the mirror image of remnant VP movement. . V-raising could, for instance, be triggered by a strong feature in C◦ ; cf. Holmberg and Platzack (1995). Predicate (VP) raising, on the other hand, could be triggered by a mechanism analogous to the EPP (cf. Massam this volume). . For evidence of the head status of manner adverbials in Seediq and various other Formosan languages cf. Holmer (2002b). One such piece of evidence involves verbal inflection on manner adverbials. . Cf. examples (18c–g) which show that these are not Wackernagel clitics. . Cf. V-to-C movement in V2 languages (Holmberg & Platzack 1995). . If we follow Aldridge (2002) in placing the nominative particle ka in Ka◦ , this head also becomes a potential problem. This would not be a final particle, but a post-predicate particle analogous to the Malagasy interrogative particle ve. It is not entirely clear whether there are any advantages to be derived from treating ka as a head. In fact, if it is, KaP would be a partial exception to the generalization in (25), i.e., a category that partakes in neither head-movement nor complement movement. The exact implications of this are deferred to future research. . This difference could be described such that left-peripheral heads are part of the clause itself, whereas final particles are in some sense extra-syntactic and not subject to the same behavioral restrictions (as suggested by David Gil, p.c.). On the descriptive level, there is a great deal of truth in this statement. Unfortunately, however, generative grammar does not permit us to adopt it as it stands: we cannot simply exclude functional elements from the syntax. In a sense, the present analysis, in differentiating between two different kinds of heads which cannot interact with one another, comes as close to this suggestion as possible within a Principles and Parameters framework. . It does not seem possible at this stage to capture this classification of heads purely in terms of a simple A-A’ distinction, given that some subordinators are clause-initial and others clause-final. Further, Aspect markers are clause-final while (relative) Tense is clauseinitial. In fact, the present analysis suggests that the Seediq polar interrogative marker ye is an X-head, whereas the Atayal polar interrogative marker quw is a Y-head. . Seediq ye seems to be a partial exception to the X/Y typology in another sense, under the analysis given here (assuming that it is located in C2◦ and thus both undergoes headraising and triggers predicate-raising). However, the most likely solution is that interrogative ye and final subordinators are not located in the same structural position (C2◦ ), but that the C-domain has an even more articulated structure, where the head hosting final subordinators is of type Y, while the head hosting ye is of type X. Of course, assuming cross-linguistic variation in the base-generation of categories (cf. Holmer forthcoming), the solution is simple: ye would be base-generated in C1◦ and quw in C2◦ . Which model is closer to the truth remains to be seen.
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VP-internal structure in a VOS language* Lisa deMena Travis McGill University
VP-ellipsis has been widely documented in English but less widely documented in other languages. By investigating VP ellipsis in Malagasy, I argue that we learn more about both VP ellipsis and the details of the VP-internal structure of such a language. What emerges is that VP-ellipsis in Malagasy is significantly different from VP-ellipsis in both an SVO language like English and a VSO language like Irish. In order to account for the VP-ellipsis facts of Malagasy I argue that (i) the structure of the VP is created via iterative predicate fronting, and (ii) the basic mechanics of VP-ellipsis are the same as in English and Irish and that the apparent differences are due to an extra step of specifier-head licensing in Malagasy that is missing in VSO and SVO languages.
.
Introduction
VP-ellipsis has been widely documented in English (for an overview see Johnson 2001) and less widely documented in other languages (see e.g., McCloskey 1990 for Irish; Doron 1999 for Hebrew; and especially Goldberg 2003 for an overview of VP-ellipsis cross-linguistically). Certainly we can learn more about the exact mechanisms of VP-ellipsis if we expand the study of this phenomenon to a larger number of languages. Part of the goal of this paper is to do just that. The other goal of this paper, however, is to investigate the VP-internal structure of a VOS language, in this case, Malagasy. It has been suggested (Pearson 1998a, b; Rackowski 1998; Rackowski & Travis 2000) that VO in a VOS language might have a dramatically different structure than VO in an SVO language. By investigating VP ellipsis in Malagasy, I argue that we learn more about both VP-ellipsis and the details of the VP-internal structure of such a language. What emerges is that VP-ellipsis in Malagasy is significantly different from VP-ellipsis in both an SVO language like English and a VSO language like Irish. In order to account for the VP-ellipsis facts of Malagasy I will argue that (i) the structure of the VP is (as proposed by Pearson 1998a, b; Rackowski 1998; and Rackowski & Travis 2000) created via iterative pred-
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icate fronting, and (ii) the basic mechanics of VP-ellipsis are the same as in English and Irish and that the apparent differences are due to an extra step of Spec-head licensing in Malagasy that is missing in VSO and SVO languages.
. Background As a starting point, I will outline several different ways that the basic VOS word order of a language like Malagasy can be represented. Malagasy (and related languages) allows a wide range of elements to appear in the sentence-final subject/topic position.1 The function of this element is encoded in a rich system of verbal morphology. In the examples below we see actor topic morphology (at) in (1a), theme topic morphology (tt) in (1b) and circumstantial topic morphology (ct) in (1c).2 (1) a.
[Manasa ny lamba ho an’ny ankizy] ny lehilahy pres-at.wash det clothes for-det children det man “The man washes clothes for the children.” b. [Sasan’ny lehilahy ho an’ny ankizy] ny lamba tt.wash-det man for-det children det clothes “The clothes are washed for the children by the man.” c. [Anasan’ny lehilahy ny lamba] ny ankizy ct.wash-det man det clothes det children “The children are washed the clothes by the man.”
The general schema for a Malagasy sentence is given in (2). The DP that acts as the subject/topic appears sentence-finally and outside a constituent that contains the V and other arguments. The agent appears adjacent to the V (triggering phonological changes on the verb; see Keenan’s 2000 discussion of “N-bonding”) and precedes all other arguments within this constituent.3 (2) [V Agent Theme] subject/topic
. Guilfoyle, Hung, and Travis (GHT 1992) Perhaps the most straightforward representation of Malagasy phrase structure, within a Principles and Parameters type approach (Chomsky 1981), is the phrase structure proposed by Guilfoyle, Hung, and Travis (1992). The main point of that paper was to posit an argument position within the specifier of VP to account for an adjacency condition between the V and the agent (when the agent has not been promoted to a sentence-final subject/topic position) as shown above in (1b and
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c). The subject-final order is achieved simply by having the specifier of IP follow rather than precede the I’. In (1c) above we saw an example sentence which fleshes out the schema in (2) most fully. Here it is a benefactive that appears sentence finally. The role of this DP is encoded in the morphological form of the verb (here circumstantial topic ct indicating that the DP is something other than an agent or theme). The GHT type of structure for such a string would be that given in (3) below where strikethrough notation indicates material that has been deleted through movement. (3)
IP I’
DP Subj/topic (Benefactive) V1P
I V1 V2
I V1
V1’
Agt V1
V2P Theme V2
V2’ Benefactive
While such a tree can account for the sentence-final character of the subject/topic and the adjacency of the agent to the V, as we will see below, it cannot handle more intricate facts.
. Intraposition Rackowski (1998) proposes quite a different structure for Malagasy. Starting with two assumptions – (i) all specifiers are to the left (as in Kayne 1994) and (ii) adverb ordering is accounted for by ordered adverbial heads (as in Cinque 1999) – she posits iterative predicate fronting to achieve the word order facts of Malagasy. A more detailed schema of the basic facts is given in (4) below. (4) V > Agent > Themeindef > Adverb2 > Themedef > Adverb1 > subject/topic An indefinite theme appears to the left of all post-verbal adverbs while a definite theme may appear to the right of adverbs. Further, adverbs that appear following the verb appear in an inverse order to their hierarchy. Rackowski generally follows Cinque’s proposal concerning adverbs with one difference that we will adopt here as it will be crucial to the analysis later. Rather than placing adverbs in specifier
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positions, she places them in head positions. Another way of looking at this is that adverbs represent the functional categories along the extended projection of the verb (much like particles do in, for example, creole languages in Cinque’s work). Two further assumptions that are crucial for her overall account of word order in Malagasy are that argument DPs appear in the Specifier position of AgrPs and that these AgrPs are not visible for further movement. A version of her phrase structure (before any movement) is given below. Following Kayne, all specifiers are on the left and all complements are on the right. Following Cinque, Adv1 asymmetrically c-commands Adv2.4 (5)
Adv1P Adv1’ Adv1
AgrSP
Subj/Top AgrS’ AgrS’
Adv2P Adv2’ Adv2
AgrOP AgrO’ AgrO
FP F
VP V’
Agt V
theme
Now we will see how predicate fronting can derive the appropriate word order facts. First V moves to some functional category external to the VP and the (definite) theme moves to the specifier of AgrOP.
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(6)
Adv2’ Adv2
AgrOP
themedef
AgrO’
AgrO
FP VP
F V
F
Agt
V’ V
theme
The next movement will involve moving the closest predicate projection to the specifier of Adv2P. Since AgrOP is invisible for further movement, the closest predicate projection will be FP. After FP moves to the specifier of Adv2P, the following tree will be the result. (7)
Adv2P FP
Adv2’
F V
Adv2
VP F
Agt
themedef AgrO’
V’ V
AgrOP
theme
AgrO
FP
Next, the subject/topic moves to Spec-AgrSP, followed again by predicate movement to Spec-Adv1P. As AgrSP will be invisible for this movement, Adv2P moves and the following structure is the result.5
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(8)
Adv1P Adv2P
Adv1’
FP
Adv2’
F V
Adv2
VP F
Agt
AgrOP
theme
AgrO
AgrSP
Subj/Top AgrS’ AgrS
themedef AgrO’
V’ V
Adv1
Adv2P
FP
Here we have derived the appropriate word order of V-Agt-Adv2-themedef-Adv1Subj/topic. Given multiple predicate fronting, we can show that we can get the appropriate word order, all the while keeping assumptions of Kayne and Cinque, but now we can raise the question as to whether there is any independent evidence for such an analysis. Before discussing yet another possible view of Malagasy phrase structure, we will take a brief aside here to look at some arguments that have been given for an intraposition account.6
. Two types of (VO) languages Pearson (1998a) proposes that there are two types of VO languages – direct VO languages and inverse VO languages. He gives several reasons for this typology, all coming from word order facts. First, in direct VO languages, the structurally casemarked indirect object precedes the direct object, while in inverse languages the indirect object typically follows the direct object. An example of the latter would be Malagasy as in (9) and of the former English as in the translation of (9). (9) Nanolotra ny dite ny vahiny ny zazavavy. past.offer det tea det guest det girl ‘The girl offered the guests the tea.’
(MP: (3))
Another difference comes from adverb ordering facts of the type discussed by Rackowski (1998). In an inverse language we get a different adverb ordering from that of a direct language, as shown by the Malagasy example below when compared to its English translation. (10) Manasa tsara ny lambany foana i Ketaka. pres.wash well det clothes.3 always det Ketaka ‘Ketaka always washes his clothes well.’
(MP: (7))
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Finally, in a direct language that has object shift such as Icelandic, the definite object appears in a position to the left of the canonical object position, while in an inverse language, the definite object appears to the right of the canonical object position. An example of the canonical object position in Malagasy is given in (11a) and of the shifted object position in (11b). (11) a.
Nijinja vary haingana ny mpamboly past.cut rice quickly det farmer “The farmer harvested rice quickly.” b. Nijinja t haingana ny vary ny mpamboly.
In other words, head-initial VPs are not all created alike. Some examples of direct and inverse languages are given below. While direct languages may be either VO or OV, all of the inverse languages are head-initial. Not only are they head-initial, they are all VOS. (12) Direct: VO: English, French, Indonesian, Icelandic. . . OV: Dutch, Turkish,. . . Inverse: Malagasy, Tzotzil, Q. Zapotec, Palauan, . . . . Pearson uses such data to argue, like Rackowski, for an intraposition account for the word order of Malagasy (see Pearson for details of the analysis itself).
. Rightward adjunction Before turning to data from VP-ellipsis in Malagasy, I will outline a third possible phrase structure account of Malagasy that has to be considered. In order to account for the order of the adverbs as well as the object shift to the right, we could use a tree similar to the GHT tree in (3) and simply adjoin the adverbs to the right and have object shift be rightward movement. Given that specifier of IP is on the right in the GHT tree, it is not a great leap to say that specifiers of agreement phrases are generally to the right (and the specifier of IP would now be the specifier AgrSP). We will show that the simplest form of this version of phrase structure will not work because of some conjunction data that has been observed by Keenan (2000). To account for these observations, we will adopt a slightly more complicated form of an adjoined tree structure for the purpose of the comparisons that we will be making later. In example (13) below, we see a phrase structure where there is an unnamed functional category above the VP that houses the moved verb in its head and the moved subject/topic DP in its specifier. Adverbs are shown as being right-adjoined to the VP, and the shifted object in this tree has also adjoined to the VP, but it could just as well be in a rightmost specifier of another functional category.
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(13)
XP X’
DP Subj/topic
X V
VP X
VP
DP theme
Adverb
VP V’
Agt V
theme
Keenan (2000) pointed out a problem for the GHT analysis which is also a problem for the tree above. In the GHT type trees given in (3) and in the tree above, the moved V and the agent do not form a constituent, yet these two elements can conjoin to the exclusion of other elements that are arguably in the VP. (14) below gives an example of such a conjoined structure (Keenan 2000: 43). In (14a) we have a circumstantial topic form of the verb indicating that a DP other than the theme or the agent is in the subject/topic position. In this case, a benefactive is sentence-final. The agent remains within the predicate, and, in its pronominal form, it cliticizes completely to the verb.7 The string in (14a) is conjoined with the string in (14b) to produce (14c). In (14c), the first conjunct is V+agent and the second conjunct is V. (14d) is a slightly different case. Here two circumstantial topic forms have been conjoined, using two different agents. In this case each of the two conjuncts has the form V+agent. (14) a.
Nividianako ilay boky ianao. pst.ct.buy-1sg that book 2sg “You were bought that book by me.” b. Namaky ilay boky ianao. pres.at.read that book 2sg “You read that book.” c. [Nividianako] sy namaky ilay boky ianao. pst.ct.buy-1sg and pres.at-read that book 2sg “You [were bought by me and read] that book.” d. Nividian-dRabe sy namakian-dRakoto ilay boky ianao. pst.ct-buy-Rabe and pres.ct-read-Rakoto that book 2sg “You were bought that book by Rabe and read that book by Rakoto.”
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These data suggest that we need a phrase structure in which the V and the agent form a constituent as shown schematically in (15) below. (15) [[V Agt] theme] Subj/topic Further work on this type of conjunction shows that it is not possible to conjoin V+agent when the object is indefinite as shown below.8 (16) *Nividianako sy namaky boky ianao. pst.ct.buy.1sg and pres.at.read book 2sg “You [were bought by me and read] a book.” In order to have a GHT type tree account for these data, we must have the position to which the shifted definite object moves higher in the tree than the landing position of the moved V. Further, since adverbs may be outside of this conjunction structure, they too must be adjoined higher. The tree in (17), then, which I will call the high adjunction analysis, is a slightly more complicated version of the GHT tree, but one that can capture Keenan’s conjunction facts. The constituent that would be conjoined is the X’ shown in the box in (17) below.9 (17)
IP I’
DP Subj/topic
I
XP X’ Adverb
X’
VP
X V
DP themedef
X
Agt
V’ V
theme
Now we are at a point where we have a variety of ways of creating a phrase structure for Malagasy using facts from word order and conjunction. In an effort to try to further probe these structures, I now turn to data from VP ellipsis.
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. VP ellipsis . Expectations Following analyses of VP-deletion like that of Lobeck (1995), I will start by assuming that the main inflectional head (which I will begin by labeling I), under certain circumstances, licenses deletion of its sister. An example of English VP-deletion is given in (18) below. (18) a.
The parents will eat spaghetti and . . . the children will _____ too.
b.
IP I’
DP the children
I will
VP (deleted)
In a verb-initial language like Irish, the proposal has been (see McCloskey 1990) that the head that houses the verb following verb movement allows deletion of its sister as well. In the case of Irish, the sister to this verbal head contains not only the predicate but also the subject. The relevant data and a sketch of the approximate structure are given below.10 (19) a.
Ar cheannaigh siad teach? interr comp buy.pst they house “Did they buy a house?” b. Creidim gur cheannaigh believe.1sg comp.pst buy.pst “I believe they did.” c. IP I V
XP (deleted) I
We start off with the null hypothesis that Malagasy works the same way as English and Irish. The highest inflectional head, under certain conditions, will allow deletion of its sister VP. If this is the case, we have the following predictions from various hypotheses about Malagasy phrase structure. In the simple GHT tree, we would expect deletion of everything except for the verbal complex and the subject/topic. In other words, the VP including the agent and all the arguments of the verb would elide.
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(20) a. V Agt theme Subj/topic b. IP I’
DP Subj/topic
I V
VP I
DP Agt
V’ V
DP theme
In an intraposition account such as the one proposed by Rackowski (1998) and Pearson (2001), due to movement of certain elements out of the VP before the VP is fronted via remnant movement, we find different predictions. Adverbs will be in projections above the VP and the definite theme will have moved out of the VP. Given this, the only elements that are predicted to remain within the VP and be affected by VP-ellipsis will be the agent in the specifier of VP and the indefinite theme. This prediction is outlined schematically below. (21) a. V Agt themeindef Adv2 themedef Adv1 Subj/topic Adv1P b. Adv1’
Adv2P FP
Adv2’
F V
VP F
Agt
Adv2 V’
V
AgrOP
Adv1
Subj/Top AgrS AgrS
themedef AgrO’ themeindef
AgrSP
AgrO
Adv2P
FP
In the high adjunction analysis, the elements in the right hand area of the predicate (to the right of the first adverb) have adjoined to a position (or moved to a specifier position) above the position of the moved verb. Again, in this case, the only elements that are left in the VP are the agent and the indefinite theme. (22) a.
V Agt themeindef Adv2 themedef Adv1 Subj/topic
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b.
IP I’
DP Subj/topic
I
FP DP themedef
F’ F’
Adverb
F V
VP F
Agt
V’ V
themeindef
The three analyses have in common the prediction that at least agents and indefinite objects should delete. Now we turn to the data to test our predictions with the aim of working out the appropriate analysis of Malagasy.
. Data First we must determine if Malagasy allows free internal argument drop.11 If internal arguments drop freely, then it is very difficult to argue for VP-ellipsis as an independent phenomenon (see Goldberg 2003 for a discussion of this problem). While many speakers of Malagasy allow these arguments to drop freely, for some speakers, free argument drop is not possible. For the rest of this paper, I will only be reporting data from one such speaker. As the data below show, for this speaker of Malagasy, certain verbs require all internal arguments to be realized.12 (23) a.
Mametraka ny boky eo ambonin’ny latabatra Rakoto. pres-at-put det book there top’det table Rakoto “Rakoto puts the book on the table.” b. *Mametraka eo ambonin’ny latabatra Rakoto. c. *Mametraka ny boky Rakoto.
This is true even in contexts where it is clear from the discourse what the referent for the dropped argument would be. (24a) below sets up the discourse environment. For speakers who cannot drop internal arguments, the only way to avoid referring to the book directly in the syntax is to promote the theme to the subject/topic position where it may go unexpressed (either through pro-drop or topic-
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drop, depending on whether this DP is analysed as a subject or a topic). As (24c) shows, if the theme remains within the VP, it must be expressed.13 (24) a.
Natao inona ilay boky? pst-tt-do what det book “What happened to the book?” b. Napetraka teo ambonin’ny latabatra –. pst-tt-put pst-there on’det table (theme topic with topic drop) c. *Nametraka – teo ambonin’ny latabatra Rakoto. pst-at-put pst-there on’det table Rakoto (Object drop)
However, in environments that typically allow VP-ellipsis,14 arguments may remain unexpressed in spite of their position within the VP. Note further that if one of the obligatory arguments is unexpressed, both must be unexpressed. I assume that this is due to VP-ellipsis where the V has moved out of the relevant phrase leaving behind only these arguments. (25) Mametraka ny boky teo ambonin’ny latabatra ve Rakoto? pres-at-put det book pst-there top’det table Q Rakoto “Does Rakoto put the book on the table?” (26) Nilaza Rasoa fa . . . pst-at-say Rasoa that a.
. . . nametraka ny boky teo ambonin’ny latabatra . . . pst-at-put det book pst-there top’det table Rabe/izy Rabe/he b. . . . nametraka ny boky teo ambonin’ny latabatra Rabe. c. *. . . nametraka ny boky teo ambonin’ny latabatra Rabe. d. *. . . nametraka ny boky teo ambonin’ny latabatra Rabe. At first glance, the deletion facts look very similar to the deletion facts we have seen for Irish. The V has moved out of the VP and everything left behind in the VP has been deleted. The difference between Irish and Malagasy is that the subject/topic has also moved out of the VP in Malagasy and is spared from deletion. On closer inspection, however, and keeping some of our predictions in mind, we uncover a problem. In the example above, a definite shifted object has been deleted. Both the intraposition account and the high adjunction account would have trouble accounting for this. Only the GHT account makes no distinction between the deletion of indefinite and definite objects. But we have seen that the GHT
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account, precisely because it does not distinguish between definite and indefinite objects cannot account for the conjunction facts presented in (14). To attack these problems, we deepen our understanding of the VP ellipsis data in Malagasy by adding examples from other verb forms. So far we have only been looking at actor topic verb forms where the agent is in the subject/topic position. Consider next cases where something other than the agent has been raised out of the predicate. These will be theme topic forms (where the theme has been moved out) and circumstantial topic forms (where something other than the theme or the agent has been moved out). In the data below, we will see that agents are not elided when they are not in the subject/topic position. Similarly, indefinite objects are not be elided. Further, we see that adverbs must be remaindered (left behind) in VP deletion. First we note that agents that appear in the position directly following the verb cannot be elided. In other words, non-promoted agents must be remaindered. We start with the appropriate discourse environment for VP deletion in (27). In this case, the verb form is theme topic and the theme (ny savoka ‘the wax’) is in the subject/topic position. The data in (28) show that the agent cannot be dropped and still refer to Rakoto, the agent of the question in (27). If the agent is dropped (as is possible with any theme topic construction), then it refers to some implicit arbitrary agent much like a passive in English. (27) Empon-dRakoto ve ny savoka? tt-melt-Rakoto Q det wax “Does Rakoto melt the wax?/Is the wax melted by Rakoto?” (28) Nilaza Rasoa fa. . . pst-at-say Rasoa that. . . “Rasoa said that . . . ” a. . . . empon-dRakoto ny savoka. b. *. . . empona (-dRakoto) ny savoka. (29) Empona ny savoka. tt-melt det wax “The wax is (being) melted.” The fact that agents can’t be deleted via VP-ellipsis is surprising since, as we have seen above, all three of our phrase structures predict that agents will be deleted (much like subjects are deleted in Irish). The other element that the three phrase structures predict will delete are indefinite objects. The definite versus indefinite object ellipsis data is subtle. My consultant produced the following contrasts. In (30) where the object is indefinite, she resisted deletion (shown in (31)).15
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VP-internal structure in a VOS language
(30) Nanosotra menaka ny latabatra ve Rabe? pst-at-polish oil det table Q Rabe “Did Rabe polish the table with oil?” (31) Nilaza Rasoa fa . . . pst-at-say Rasoa that . . . “Rasoa said that . . . ” a. *. . . nanosotra menaka ny latabatra . . . pst-at-polish b. . . . nanosotra menaka ny latabatra . . . pst-at-polish oil
izy. he izy. he
With a similar environment, but one that contains a definite object, it was impossible to remainder the definite object when the other obligatory argument had been elided (32) and (33). (32) Nanosotra ny menaka ny latabatra ve Rabe? pst-at-polish det oil det table Q Rabe “Did Rabe polish the table with the oil?” (33) Nilaza Rasoa fa . . . pst-at-say Rasoa that . . . “Rasoa said that . . . ” a. . . . nanosotra ny menaka ny latabatra izy. b. *. . . nanosotra ny menaka ny latabatra izy. Exactly what we expect to drop, in fact, doesn’t drop (agents and indefinite objects) and what we don’t expect to drop, in fact, does drop (definite objects and PPs). Consider one more observation. When trying to force arguments to appear in the rightmost domain of the predicate by adding adverbs to their left, another surprising fact turned up – adverbs do not elide. In example (34) below we have added the adverb tsara ‘good/well’. If this adverb is elided, its meaning is not entailed. (34) Empon-dRakoto tsara ve ny savoka? tt-melt-Rakoto well Q det wax “Does Rakoto melt the wax well?” (35) Nilaza Rasoa fa . . . pst-at-say Rasoa that . . . “Rasoa said that . . . ” a. *. . . empon-dRakoto tsara ny savoka. b. . . . empon-dRakoto tsara ny savoka.
(won’t mean tsara)
We can see, when we compare this to a similar English construction, that this behaves differently from English VP-ellipsis.
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(36) a. Was the wax melted well by Rakoto? b. Rasoa said that it was.
(means ‘melted well’)
It may be hard to see the effect of VP-ellipsis in the Malagasy example above. In the theme topic construction, the only element that could possibly elide would be the adverb since we have already seen that agents don’t elide. Below we have another example, this time using an actor topic construction. Here the retention of adverbs is more surprising since the elided material will end up being non-contiguous in the antecedent construction. There are two obligatory internal arguments and these two arguments are interspersed with two adverbs. We have seen that if one of the obligatory arguments is dropped, then both must be dropped. We have also seen that adverbs must remain. The effect is that we have the appearance of the deletion of a non-continguous constituent.16 (37) Mandraraka tsara ny rano foana ao anatin’ny vilany ve pres-at-pour well det water always there in’det pot Q Rakoto Rakoto “Does Rakoto always pour the water into the pot well?” (38) Nilaza Rasoa fa . . . pst-at-say Rasoa that . . . “Rasoa said that . . . ” a. . . . nandraraka tsara foana Rakoto. b. . . . nandraraka Rakoto. Summing up the phenomena discussed in this section, for speakers who have obligatory internal arguments, in a VP-ellipsis context, it is possible to elide these arguments; but if one elides, all must elide. The exceptions to this are (i) agents that remain within the predicate, (ii) indefinite themes (objects), and (iii) adverbs. This is shown schematically in (39) below. (39) V Agt themeindef Adv themedef Adv PP Adv Subj/topic
. Account Among the analyses sketched above, only the intraposition account provides a structural environment that can account for the details of VP ellipsis in Malagasy. Note that only inverse VP languages (languages with intraposition or iterative predicate fronting) must move their predicate complements into specifier positions. One conceptualization of this is that there is a difference between languages that front predicates rather than arguments (as in Rackowski & Travis 2000) and
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VP-internal structure in a VOS language
languages that satisfy EPP features on inflectional heads by moving predicate projections (as in Massam 2000a; and Massam & Smallwood 1997), or languages that license complementation via Spec-Head licensing. In any case, what appears on the surface in many languages (like English) as complementation appears in Malagasy as a Spec-Head relation. If one has VP-ellipsis in such a language, one might expect that where VP-ellipsis in English involves a relationship between an inflectional head and its complement there is instead a relationship between an inflectional head and its specifier.17 However, it is not the entire specifier that deletes. If the specifier were to delete, we would have only the subject/topic remaining. I propose that VP-ellipsis involves two relationships in all languages. The two relationships are (i) licensing of a maximal projection by an inflectional head and (ii) deletion of a complement by an inflectional head. In English, the licensing is licensing of a complement, so the two requirements are collapsed into one. In Malagasy, where licensing is of a specifier, the process must go one step further to find a complement.18 Let us look at how these two processes appear on an intraposition type structure. Recalling that adverbs are heads in our system, the active inflectional head in Malagasy will be Adv1. The relevant relationship it has will not be headcomplement as we would find in English, but, being a predicate fronting language, a specifier-head relationship instead. As such, deletion will not be possible. It appears instead that Adv2 is able to act like the active inflectional head and allow deletion of its complement. This is shown in the tree structure below. The merged position of a theme is indicated by themeindef while the shifted definite object position is indicated by themedef . The positions for PPs, agents in merged positions, and subject/topic are also given.
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Lisa deMena Travis Adv1P
(40)
Adv1’
Adv2P FP F V
Adv2i
VP F
Adv1i
Adv2’
Agt
AgrOP
V’ V
AgrSP
Subj/Top AgrS’
themedef AgrO’ VP
themedef V
Agr
PP
Adv2P
AgrPPP PP
V’
AgrS
AgrPP’
AgrPP
FP
Before getting into the problems that this analysis encounters, we should note that with the intraposition tree and this view of VP-ellipsis, we can explain why the agent and the indefinite theme will survive ellipsis. In fact, VP-deletion leaves the VP intact and deletes a very different constituent. Many questions remain, however. Why can Adv2 delete its complement while Adv1 cannot? Why can non-contiguous constituents be deleted? We turn to these two questions now. While it may appear to be hair-splitting, we have to say that Adv1 can only license via a Spec-head relation, while for Adv2, the complement relationship is relevant enough to allow deletion. It’s as if the main inflectional head has to follow its main relationship (either complement or specifier), while subordinate inflectional heads can follow the complement relationships. In fact, when we turn to the more complicated case of multiple internal arguments and discontinuous constituents deleting, we gain more insight into this second relationship. Recall that the two internal arguments must delete and the two adverbs must be remaindered (the relevant example is repeated below). anatin’ny vilany (41) . . . mandraraka tsara ny rano foana ao pot pres-at-pour well det water always there in’det Rakoto. Rakoto “. . . Rakoto always pours the water into the pot well.” Given the intraposition account, we would have a phrase structure like the one given in (42) below. With adverbs in the head positions, it seems that the licensing
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VP-internal structure in a VOS language
heads remain, that the Spec-head relationship between the inflectional heads is iterative, and that obligatorily there are two cases of complement deletion giving the appearance of discontinuous deletion. Adv1 licenses Adv2 via Spec-head. This licensing allows Adv2 to delete its complement (AgrPPP). At the same time as Adv2 triggers deletion, it also licenses the head of its own specifier (Adv3) to in turn trigger deletion of its complement AgrOP.19 (42)
Adv1P Adv1’
Adv2P
FP
V
Adv2i
Adv3’
F
VP Adv3i
AgrOP
V’
themedef AgrO’
F Agt V
VP
themeindef V
Adv1i
Adv2’
Adv3P
Agr
Subj/Top AgrS’
AgrPPP PP
AgrPP’
AgrPP
AgrSP
AgrS
Adv2P
Adv3P
FP
V’ PP
The problem of discontinuous constituents is solved, but other problems are raised, two of which I address briefly here. First, if this licensing is iterative, why does it stop with Adv3? Second, what happens when there are no adverbs? I answer these two questions together using observations from Lobeck (1995). To account for a range of ellipsis and sluicing data, Lobeck proposes that ellipsis can occur only in the environment of strong agreement. Her definition of strong agreement is given in (43) below. (43) Strong Agreement (Lobeck 1995: 51) An X is specified for agreement iff X0 , or the phrase or head with which X0 agrees, morphologically realizes agreement in a productive number of cases. Lobeck allows agreement to include features such as Tense, Kase, and wh. Malagasy shows very little marking of agreement (as in number, gender, etc.) so I would recast the relevant agreement relation as the feature checking relation that requires an extended projection of a predicate to move to a specifier position. Therefore,
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what is required of a functional head to trigger ellipsis would be the feature that is checked by the predicate in its specifier position. Returning to the tree in (42), we see that Adv1, Adv2, and Adv3 have triggered movement to their specifier positions, and therefore have the appropriate features to trigger ellipsis. As mentioned above, however, Adv1, since it is not within a specifier itself, cannot trigger ellipsis. F, since it hasn’t triggered movement to its specifier position, does not have the features necessary to trigger ellipsis. This indirectly answers the question concerning empty Adv heads.20 Presumably, these will also trigger movement, though the effect of this movement will not be so visible, and the ellipsis will still be triggered since the relevant features would be present. Certainly, in English, phonologically null heads can trigger ellipsis as is the case with sluicing (‘We want to invite someone but we don’t know who [e]’).
. Conclusion In conclusion, I investigated the details of VP ellipsis and geometric relations of phrase structure in Malagasy. As is often the case in syntactic research, I showed that we have to make more precise our understanding of the mechanisms, structures and relationships of syntactic theory before we can propose an analysis for a specific construction in a specific language. I propose a picture of VP-ellipsis for Malagasy to account for its language-specific behavior while participating in a language universal phenomenon.
Notes * This paper benefited from comments from the participants of the V-initial Workshop at the University of Arizona, especially Andrew Carnie and Heidi Harley and an anonymous reviewer, as well as from discussions with Lotus Goldberg. The author is grateful for funding of this research from Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRCC 410-2001-1486) and Fonds Québécois de la Recherche sur la Société e la Culture (FQRSC 2002-ER-75657). . There is some debate as to whether the sentence final position is a subject (see e.g., Keenan 1976a; Paul 2000) or a topic (see e.g., Pearson 2001). If it is a topic position, then Malagasy is, in fact, a [[V S O] topic] language. I will try to remain agnostic concerning this question and call the final element a subject/topic. . The link between the verbal morphology and the theta-role of the subject/topic is not a perfect fit (see e.g., Paul 2000 for a discussion), but it suits our purposes here. Circumstantial topic morphology is generally used for subject/topics that are neither actors nor themes (for example benefactives, instrumentals, locatives).
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VP-internal structure in a VOS language . N-bonding is a fairly complex phenomenon which is indicated orthographically either with an apostrophe or hyphen. What is important for the purposes of this paper is that the determiner (or pronoun or proper name) becomes phonologically incorporated into the verbal form (e.g., it can trigger a shift in stress), and it is sensitive to structure since objects adjacent to the verb do not show the same effect (see Travis 2004 for an account where N-bonding is triggered by D0 movement). N-bonding occurs not only with non-promoted agents, but also with objects of prepositions and possessors. . I am ignoring some of the details of VP structure here such as the possible existence of vP (Chomsky 1995), VoiceP (Kratzer 1996), or EventP (Harley 1995) etc. I believe that these shouldn’t affect the issues that I will be considering. I have left the identity of the functional projection immediately above the VP vague, although in other work (Travis 1994, 2000) I have labeled it EventP (different from Harley’s EventP). . Phonetically realized elements are given in outline format. . In recent work (Travis 2004), I propose a language typology in which the verbal feature in the functional heads within the extended projection of V is satisfied by head movement in languages such as French and German and by XP movement in languages such as Malagasy. VP movement, then, in Malagasy would serve the same function as V movement in French. Agr type phrases would be invisible for such XP movement as they would not have the appropriate verbal feature. . Recall that even full DP agents “bond” in some way to the verb (Keenan 2000 on Nbonding). It is not this cliticization that allows conjunction as the data in (14d) shows. I should point out that the consultant that I used for the VP-ellipsis data found (14c) awkward and provided (14d) as a type of example she preferred. More work needs to be done on the constraints of this sort of conjunction. . Note that indefinite objects are neither incorporated nor pseudo-incorporated (see Massam 2001a) into the verb. This is shown in example (i) where the verb moves around the agent, stranding the indefinite object. (i)
Nividian’dRabe boky ianao. pst.ct.buy-Rabe book you “You were bought a book by Rabe.”
. Phillips (2003) proposes that conjunction can be sensitive to incremental left-to-right tree building. This would mean that at the point in the left-to-right structure building where the conjuncts in (14c, d) are added, the V and that agent would be a constituent. I do not pursue this line for an account, however, since I do not see how this view of coordination could account for the definiteness restriction on the object. . In McCloskey (1990), the proposal is that a small clause containing the subject and the predicate has been elided. What is important for us is that it is the sister of the inflectional head that contains the verb and that the elided material includes the subject. . I specify internal arguments because non-promoted agents can be unrealized, in which case they are interpreted the way implicit agents are interpreted in English passives. See Note 13, and examples (27)–(29) for more discussion of this.
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Lisa deMena Travis . I have worked with two other speakers on this issue, but one (from Antananarivo) allows free argument drop while the other (from Antsiranana) allows no drop at all. The one speaker I have worked with (from Fianarantsoa) has been consistent with the data over several sessions; however, the data require confirmation from more speakers. . The literal translation of (24a) is ‘What was done to the book?’ where the agent is dropped. As will be seen later, agent DPs do drop freely when some DP other than agent is in the subject/topic position. . I used question/answer pairs but embedded the sentence that contained the elided VP. . In this case, the indefinite object is an instrumental. Paul (2000) discusses ‘instrumental advancement’. She also gives data to show that it is not incorporation as in (i) below. (i)
Didian’iBozy antsy ny hena. Cut-tt-N-Bozy knife det meat “The meat was cut by Bozy with a knife.”
. My consultant feels that (38a) is the best answer and the answer in (38b), while grammatical, does not have the meaning of either ‘always’ or ‘well’. However, she has as a possible alternative: . . . nandraraka foana Rakoto, where foana ‘always’ has been remaindered but tsara ‘well’ has been elided. The generalization appears to be that the ‘topmost’ or rightmost adverb must be retained, but that a ‘lower’ adverb may, then, be elided. It is tempting to solve this problem by invoking Lobeck’s Generalized Government Transparency Corollary (Lobeck 1995: 87) where a higher head can identify a lower head, but I leave this for further study. . Lobeck shows that not all inflectional heads allow ellipsis of their complements. Some of the requirements of the head that triggers ellipsis (agreement features) will be discussed below. . Another way of looking at the difference between a head-complement relation and a head-specifier relationship is discussed in Travis and Lamontagne (1992). It is argued in this paper that the former is a relationship between a head and a maximal projection and the latter is the relationship between two heads. If VP-deletion requires a maximal projection to be identified for deletion, then a Spec-Head relation wouldn’t suffice. . There are intriguing similarities between ellipsis in Malagasy and pseudo-gapping in e.g., English ‘Although I wouldn’t introduce Fred to Susan, I would – Bill –’ . In both cases, deletion arguably occurs to a remnant, and in both cases, apparently discontinuous elements are being deleted. There are also intriguing differences. In Malagasy (but not English), the core elements of the VP cannot be part of the remnant that is elided. In other words, the elements that are least likely to move are the ones least likely to elide. The other side of this is that the elements that escape ellipsis in English (direct objects) are exactly the elements that must elide in Malagasy. This warrants further study. . Because I assume these Adv heads represent the extended projection of the verb, in many, and maybe all, cases, they will still be syntactically represented even when phonologically empty.
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P II
Categories, information structure, and prosodic factors
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Lexical categories, lack of inflection, and predicate fronting in Niuean* Diane Massam University of Toronto
This paper proposes a connection between the isolating morphology/lack of copular verbs in Niuean (Polynesian, Tongic) and the predicate initial nature of the language. It is a salient property of Niuean that the language has no inflectional morphology, and it is claimed that this is not a morphological accident; that the lack of inflection in Niuean is crucial to its current syntax. Building on traditional claims that Polynesian verbs are different from verbs in languages such as English, it is claimed that the Niuean verb is not a morphosyntactic verb, but is more participial in nature, bearing no features for finiteness or tense. For this reason, like a participle, it does not establish head relations with the light verb and with INFL and is thus able to undergo predicate fronting to a specifier position instead of head movement to INFL. The paper addresses the general issue of the nature of cross-linguistic lexical categorization.
.
Introduction
. Overview One persistent goal of linguistics is to find correlations between various grammatical characteristics of a language. In this paper I will propose a connection between the isolating morphology (and lack of copular verbs) in Niuean, a Polynesian language of the Tongic subgroup, and the predicate initial nature of the language. It is a very salient property of Niuean that the language has no inflectional morphology. There is no φ-agreement in the language, and there is no tense inflection on the verb or auxiliaries.1 One possibility, based on a common view of object agreement in languages such as English, is that this is just a morphophonological accident. In this view, Niuean is a language with all the φ and tense featural material that has been tied to verbal inflection and subject agreement within the Minimalist theory, but it has lots of phonetically-zero morphology. If this were the case, Niuean could
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Diane Massam
develop morphological inflection with no other concomitant change, since all the featural operations upon which inflection rests are already in place. Another possibility is that this is not the case, and that the lack of morphological inflection in Niuean is related to the spare featural system of the language, and thus to its syntax. This means that the relation between functional heads, such as Infl, and verbs and arguments is quite different from that in a language with φ features, so that if agreement were to emerge in the language, other aspects of its syntax would have to change fairly radically at the same time. In this paper I will explore this latter view, arguing that the lack of inflection in Niuean is related to the fact that, at the level of morphosyntax, where featural properties are relevant, there is no category ‘verb’ in the language to trigger Agree or Move relations with Infl, and this is in turn related to the predicate-initial (vs. verb-initial or verb-medial) nature of Niuean. (The idea that in some VSO languages the verb is less verbal than in other languages is a recurring one: For related ideas, see Gil (this volume, 2000b); Jelinek and Demers (1994); Jouitteau (this volume), Koopman (this volume); Ouhalla (2002).) As well as arguing that there is no morphosyntactic categorization in Niuean, I will also explore the separate question of whether there are lexical categories N and V in the language. In line with Biggs’ (1969, 1971) discussion of M¯aori, I will argue that there are two categories, corresponding to N and V in English, for example, but that the verbal category is not identical to that in English, but is less categorially specified, allowing for a broader distribution of verbs than is found in English. Our discussion will crucially involve the existence of two levels of functional categories over V – namely light verb (v) and Infl. These correspond to two levels where categorization is relevant.
. Niuean as a predicate-fronting language Recent analyses of some V-initial languages have appealed to the notion of longdistance or successive remnant VP fronting rather than V fronting to derive the predicate initial word order of various languages (e.g., Davies & Dubinsky 2001b; Herd 2002; Kahnemuyipour & Massam 2002; Koopman this volume; Koopman & Szabolcsi 2000; Laughren, Pensalfini, & Mylne this volume; Lee 2000a, this volume; Massam 2000a, 2001a, b; Massam & Smallwood 1997; Oda 2002, this volume; Pearce 2003; Rackowski & Travis 2000; Shlonsky 2002; Travis this volume). An example derivation for Niuean appears in (1a), where the object has undergone object shift out of VP prior to the fronting of the VP. This derivation would apply to a basic VSO sentence such as (1b).2
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Lexical categories in Niuean
(1) Niuean Transitive Clause (1b)3 a. IP VPi kai eat
I’ vP
I [EPP] he pusi . cat
vP
e moaj . birdj v [] [⁄]
v’ traceVPi (V
b. [kai] he pusi e moa. eat erg.com cat abs.com bird. “The cat ate the bird.”
traceDPj)
(FN)
The reasons for such an analysis are not immediately obvious, looking only at sentences such as (1b), which might readily be analyzed by head movement, with the verb moving from its base position to head-adjoin to the light verb, and then to Infl, and perhaps also moving higher, to Comp. (Sproat 1985; Emonds 1980; Macaulay this volume; McCloskey 1991; Otsuka this volume; Alexiadou & Anagnostopoulou 1998, 1999; among many others. See Carnie & Guilfoyle 2000a for an overview.) The main reason for the VP fronting approach is that Niuean is not in fact V-initial, but is more properly described as predicate-initial, since maximal phrases (in bold in (2)) such as predicate nominals (2a), prepositional locatives (2b), pseudo-nounincorporation (PNI) structures (2c), and other XP predicates can appear in precisely the same slot as the verb (between the complementizer-tense marker and the adverbial clitics), rendering a simple V-movement analysis of VSO word order inappropriate, at least in some cases. Others, such as Carnie (1995), Chung (1990), Doherty (1996), Koopman and Szabolsci (2000), Lazard and Peltzer (1991), and Lee (2000a), also make this observation for various V fronting processes. In order to provide a uniform analysis of Niuean clauses, sentences such as (1b) are also analyzed as involving remnant XP fronting, rather than head movement. (2) a.
Ko e fale ke lima aki e fale i k¯o. pred abs.com house sbjv five inst abs.com house loc there “That house over there is the fifth house.” (SP53)
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b. H¯a he fale a ia. pred loc house abs.prop she “She is in the house.” (M66) c. Ne kumi motu ke nonofo ai n¯ı a lautolu. pst seek island sbjv settle there just abs.prop they “They just looked for a place to live.” (FN02) While VP fronting analyses solve some problems, they raise others (See papers by Davis, by McCloskey, and by Chung in this volume). In this paper, one question will be addressed: How is it that the verb can escape establishing head relations with Infl or Tense, as it is generally assumed to do via an operation such as affix hopping, head movement, merger, or Agree, and instead regularly undergo VP movement to a specifier position? In Section 2, I address this question with the leading idea that perhaps the verb’s lack of relation with Infl is due to the fact that the Niuean ‘verb’ is not morphosyntactically a true verb but instead is featurally more participial or even nominal in nature, in that it bears no features for finiteness such as agreement or tense. Whether the lexical item should still be considered a lexical verb is an open question, which will be addressed below in Sections 2 and 3. It is proposed that its partially non-verbal character allows for the externalization of the predicate in Niuean in a way equivalent to externalization of an argument in other languages in that both movements satisfy a grammatical need for clausal bifurcation, as argued also in previous papers, Massam and Smallwood (1997) and Massam (2000a, 2001a, b).
. Lexical categories . Lexical categories in Polynesian languages Interestingly, it has long and widely been claimed that within Polynesian languages, there is no lexical noun/verb distinction, hence that there are no true lexical verbs in these languages.4 Broschart (1997) provides an overview of some of the relevant literature, which includes Biggs (1969, 1971); Mosel and Hovdhaugen (1992); Tchekoff (1984); and specifically for Niuean, McEwen (1970).5 It is likely that these claims reflect some valid differences between lexical categories in Polynesian languages and those in Indo-European languages. There are essentially two points of view in the literature on Polynesian word classes, which I categorize rather broadly here. Some authors claim that there is no N/V distinction at all in Polynesian languages (I include in this group Biggs 1969, 1971; Hengeveld 1992 (as cited in Broschart 1997); Tchekoff 1984; and McEwen
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Lexical categories in Niuean
1970), while others more cautiously claim that this is no lexical N/V distinction in these languages (Mosel & Hovdhaugen 1992; Burgmann 1941 (as cited in Broschart 1997); Wunderlich 1996 (as cited in Broschart 1997), and see also Foley 2000). In the latter view, the category of an item is determined by which particle elements it appears with, so the N/V distinction is created in the syntax, by association of unclassified roots with functional heads such as Tense and Article. In this paper I will argue that at the lexical level, which is relevant for cselection by light verbs and nouns, there is a categorical distinction between nouns and verbs in Niuean, but that this distinction is not as robust as it is in English in that Niuean verbs are less verbal, and less distinguished from nouns. I will further argue that at the inflectional level, where relations between functional heads such as Infl and the verb hold, there are no categorial distinctions in Niuean.
. Approaches to lexical categories The idea that category membership is determined post-lexically in Polynesian is similar to proposals by Alexiadou (1999), Chomsky (2000), Harley and Noyer (1998), and Marantz (1997), among others (see Pesetsky 1995).6 But for the Polynesian authors this state of affairs is not considered to hold in all languages, but only in Polynesian languages, while for the second group of authors cited above, this is proposed as a general theory of lexical class. In this view, functional heads might be seen as assigning categorial status to roots. A different theory of lexical class is proposed by others, such as Baker (2003), Davis and Matthewson (1999), and Grimshaw (1991), who argue that the N/V lexical distinction is universal. Baker for example, considers that nouns are inherently referential and verbs are inherently predicational at the root level. For such authors, the relation between functional heads and lexical items would be one of c-selection, recently discussed in Collins (2002).7 Note that authors on both sides of this discussion rely on a relationship between functional and lexical heads, whether one such as category assignment or c-selection. The essential difference is whether the roots enter the derivation with categorial status or not. Within both systems, the question arises as to how we capture categorial differences between languages. Broschart (1997) argues for a difference to be made between languages like English and the Polynesian language Tongan (Niuean’s closest relative), in that English has a lexical N/V distinction whereas Tongan does not. In his view, in languages with lexical nouns vs. verbs, there must always be categorial matching, but in a language without such a distinction, there is no matching required. In his view, if there are no lexical categories N/V, there are no functional categories that are specifically nominal or verbal either.
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Although Broschart does not consider Tongan to encode a true noun/verb distinction, he does consider that roots can be valued as [+/– Pred] depending on context: a root embedded under Tense is a predicate, whereas a root embedded under Case is a non-predicate.8 Broschart considers the difference between predicates and non-predicates to be typologically similar to a N/V polarity, but not identical. In Tongan, unlike languages with a N/V distinction, there is no distinction between a verbal lexical paradigm with finite word forms and a nominal paradigm without finite word forms; rather, the dominant distinction is between items that are markedly referential (i.e., have functional material) and those that are not. The two systems are subtypes within the same prototype framework. His schema is presented in (3). For Broschart a lexical head is [–ref], a predicate, under a predicate functional head is [+ref +pred], and an argument, under a non-predicate functional head is [+ref –pred]. (3) Tongan Categorial Distinctions (Broschart 1997: 159) [TAM = Tense, Aspect Mood particle] TOKEN [+ref] TAM-PHR [+pred] “IP”
TYPE [–ref]
ART-PHR [–pred] “DP”
. Distribution of lexical categories in Niuean I argue that Broschart’s general insight into Tongan is correct for Niuean: that is, categories are different in Niuean than in English, for example, in that Niuean fails to have certain functional/lexical relations that are found in English. In particular, in Niuean, there is no distinction between a verbal lexical paradigm with finite word forms and a nominal paradigm without finite word forms. Furthermore, like Broschart, I consider the relevant missing Agree relation (present in English but not in Niuean) to be at the point where inflection is relevant. For Broschart, the level of categorial selection and the level of inflection are one and the same, since for him, the only functional element at work is Tense (for predicates). In the system of this paper, there are two functional levels: the level of the light verb, and the level of Tense. It is at the second level where Niuean and English differ significantly. At the lower level in Niuean, I consider, unlike Broschart, that it is not possible to claim that there is no c-selection relation between light functional heads and complements because there is distributional evidence that there are two classes of words with respect to which lexical items may freely appear as the complement of the light verb.
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Broschart (1997) and others have argued for various Polynesian languages that lexical items are completely unspecified because they can appear freely embedded under predicative (Tense) or non-predicative (Article) functional heads with no derivational morphology. (4) Tongan (from Broschart 1997: 136–137) a. ’Oku fu’u fo’i ‘ulu lani pul¯u e kakaá. pres cls.big cls.round head color blue art parrot.def “The parrot has a big round blue-colored head.” b. Na’e kau faiako (‘a) e Siasi. pst pl.hum teacher.def abs art church “The church provided the teachers.” (lit. “the church (the) teacher-sed.”) This is not fully the case in Niuean. Lexical items that we would intuitively classify as nominals are not freely able to function as predicates. If they are to act as predicates, they appear with a predicative element ko (2a – predicate nominal) or h¯a (2b – predicate locative). This argues that there is a fundamentally nominal category (Baker 2003) and that there is a c-selection relation holding between light verbs and their complements. Furthermore, it argues that this relation is not one of contextual assignment, since the categorial label ‘verb’ is not freely assigned to lexical items under Tense. On the other hand, the lexical items that appear as predicates without ko or h¯a, that is the class of lexical items that we would intuitively classify as verbs, can apparently freely embed under nominal functional heads, as in (5). (5) a.
ke he t¯amate e Tofua e kul¯ı. goal loc kill erg.prop Tofua abs.prop dog “(about) Tofua’s killing the dog” b. e tele haaku i a ia. abs.com kick me.gen loc art him “my kicking him”
(S.82a.119)
(S.89b.121)
Note that there are two types of nominalizations here (Seiter 1980; Massam 2000b). The first (5a), consists of an IP (that is, a sentence, minus the complementizer) embedded under a nominal functional head, namely a case marker: the complex goal/locative case marker ke he. The second possibility (5b) is where a predicate phrase (a “VP”) is embedded under a light noun. The principal difference between the two nominalization types is in the case marking: in the first, the arguments receive regular sentential cases (ergative and absolutive) and in the second, the arguments receive nominal cases (genitive and locative). It appears then, that a predi-
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cate can freely embed under a nominal functional category, with no morphological evidence of conversion. In addition to nominalizations such as those in (5), some lexical items that we would intuitively class as verbs take a suffix -aga, when appearing in a nominal phrase. Two examples are kamataaga, ‘beginning’, from kamata ‘begin’, and gahuaaga ‘workplace’ from gahua ‘work’. This might be considered a lexical process of nominalization (Chung 1973), but it is debatable in that -aga is not fully productive (Seiter 1980). Broschart points out that in Tongan, such “nominalizations” with Tongan -anga can themselves freely function as predicates, and that the suffix can also attach to stems that would be intuitively considered to be nouns, such as api ‘home’, to form apitanga ‘homestead, headquarter’ (Broschart 1997: 146). He considers that the suffix expresses the semantic concept of domain, rather than being a true nominalizing suffix. For Niuean -aga, Seiter states that it derives a number of abstract nouns and locative nominalizations. A detailed exploration of the morphological and semantic properties of Niuean -aga remains to be undertaken, but I will put this issue aside here, on the assumption that what holds in Tongan also holds in Niuean, so that -aga is not to be analyzed as a true nominalizing suffix. Interestingly, the possibility for a lexical item that is intuitively a verb to appear in the same position where nouns are found holds also in pseudo noun incorporation cases, as noted in Whittaker (1982), although the true nature of the relevant sentences remains to be studied.9 In normal PNI, as illustrated in (2c) above, the verb takes a complement NP which, being non-referential (i.e., not a DP), acts to modify the verb, as is often the case with noun incorporation (Mithun 1984). When the verb undergoes fronting, the NP is carried with the verb. In the examples below, it appears that a verb has taken a V or VP as its non-referential modifying complement, and the VP has fronted with this complement (Massam 2001b: Note 26). (6) a. fano fana peka. . . ‘go hunt flying fox’ (W: 12) b. N¯a ma mea ua tagi, ko e motu kehe Shush oh darling, don’t cry, pred abs.com island foreign a e nai ne nonofo paea ai a taua emph abs.com this nfut dwell migrate there abs.prop we “Shush oh darling, don’t cry, this is just a foreign land where we live in exile.” (NAH: Ch. 1) c. Ti ko e mogoia foki ka tugi ai e ia Then pred abs time just nfut light then erg.prop he e tau afi kua fakatokatoka takai he male. abs.com pl fire perf scatter be.around loc place “He then proceeded to light the fires scattered around the place.” (NAH: Ch. 3)
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This is of particular interest because in PNI contexts there are no functional nodes above the incorporated element to contextually derive a non-verbal categorial status. This suggests that these lexical items might have intrinsic properties, since functional elements are not necessary to their legitimacy in syntax. It also shows, though, that verbs can be interchanged with nouns to a greater degree in Niuean than in some other languages. The situation with respect to lexical category in Niuean is similar to that discussed for M¯aori by Biggs (1969, 1971), whose analysis was mentioned briefly in Section 2.1 above. (See also discussion in Bauer 1997.) He posits that M¯aori has five lexical classes, including universals and statives, (which can appear with either nominal or verbal particles), nouns, locatives, and personals. The difference between universals and statives is based on the ability of the former, but not the latter, to passivize. This distinction does not appear to be made in Niuean, so that we might collapse statives and universals into a single group. In the next section, I will develop this idea into a rudimentary featural system for Niuean. From the above distributions, it seems that light nouns (and verbs, in PNI contexts) take as complements either nouns or universals, but light verbs can appear only with universals. This means that at least in the case of light verbs, some kind of selectional relation must hold between the functional light element and the lexical head that appears with it. So within the domain of vP and nP, it seems that Niuean does have functional/lexical head relations, and thus, arguably, lexical categories – albeit somewhat differently organized lexical categories than are found in English. For authors such as Broschart, there are no functional light n and v categories hence any functional/lexical relations that exist must hold between Tense and Article and V and N. In a system that includes light n and v, however, it is possible to maintain a more cross-linguistically consistent view of basic lexical category, by positing a c-selection relation at this lower level (i.e., to posit the existence of lexical categories, used for c-selection) but to differentiate between languages at the level of higher functional relations. This differentiation is tied to the morphosyntactic properties of lexical category. The basic claim is that lexical categorization does not govern the presence or not of any ‘optional’ (in the sense of Chomsky 1995) features, thus that category differentiation is not made at the morpho-syntactic level of Niuean grammar.
. Morphology and syntax In a system such as that of Marantz (1997), the category, and hence the morphology that depends upon the category, is a reflection of the syntactic environment of an item, and whether it appears or not is an issue largely of language-specific vocabulary insertion and pronunciation rules. But in another approach (e.g. Chomsky
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1995), morphology is a reflection not of context, but of featural properties of an item, which can be either inherent, or ‘optional’ features, where the latter are amassed automatically, based on category, prior to Numeration. In this view, the English verb (for example) is a category that enters Numeration with finiteness features – uninterpretable agreement and tense (Cowper 2003, forthcoming), and these uninterpretable features must undergo agree and be valued against Infl, which also contains finiteness features. On the other hand, verbs in languages of the non-inflecting type might be featurally distinct from verbs in English in not bearing any features for finiteness. Further, Niuean has no infinitive clauses (Seiter 1980) or copular verbs, arguing that Infl as well as verbs lack finiteness features (Joseph 1983: 10, 214). (Note that I put aside languages with fully-featured verbs that always exhibit null morphology, if such languages exist.) Because they lack such features, Niuean verbs (or predicates) are not verbs from the morpho-syntactic point of view, because there is no optional featural (paradigmatic) distinction made between categories in the language, and consequently they will not enter into the head system of the language through any Agree or checking relation, but rather they will remain independent, in situ, and thus will be available for later fronting via predicate (XP) movement. This is consistent with the Minimalist concept that inflectional morphology is related to optional morpho-syntactic features that are present on the item at Merge, and it is not fully compatible with the view that inflection is purely a matter of syntactic position: since Niuean and English lexical categories merge into the same positions, they should be equally nominal or verbal in the two languages. In sum, Niuean lexical items do not bear features for finiteness, ruling out any chance of a relation with higher inflectional heads such as Infl, and ruling out any inflectional morphology.
. Lexical categorial features in Niuean Given the Niuean distributional facts outlined above, whereby items we would intuitively class as nouns are not freely able to appear as predicates, the following system can be developed for Niuean lexical categories. As with English and other languages, within the noun/verb conceptual space of Niuean, there are two parts of speech, but they correspond to a nominal category (with the feature [–pred]), and an underspecified category, rather than being strictly parallel to English nouns and verbs. These categories correspond more or less to Biggs’ (1969, 1971) nouns and universals. Of course, we could simply label these categories as N and V, but given the differences between Niuean and English, I will here use the more transparent labels of Biggs (1969, 1971).10 Note the Noun class includes items that cannot ap-
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pear under light v, whereas the Universal class includes items that can appear under either light n, light v, and perhaps V (in PNI sentences). (7) Noun [–pred] Universals [ ] Within this system, the c-selection relation between a functional head and the following lexical item bears similarities to both the Marantz (1997) system and that of Davis and Matthewson (1999), in that operations of category matching and category assignment are both involved in c-selection. A light verb, which has a [+pred] value, c-selects a like complement, hence light verbs are incompatible with noun complements, which have an inherent [–pred] value. If the complement of the light verb is unmarked, on the other hand, we assume c-selection is not violated, and the value of [+pred] is contextually assigned to the lexical item, more or less as proposed by Broschart 1997. Light nouns, which have a value of [–pred] (as do verbs in PNI cases), also c-select their complements. In this case, selection never fails. If the complement of the nominal functional head is [–pred], c-selection is successful. If the complement is unmarked, then c-selection is not blocked, and a value of [–pred] is contextually assigned to the complement. Thus, nominal functional heads are compatible with both nouns and universals. C-selection, a specialized case of agree, can consist of Match alone, or of Match and Valuing (Bejar 2003; Chomsky 2000; Pollard & Sag 1994).11 What role do ko and h¯a play in this system? In order to act as a predicate, a nominal phrase must be embedded under an element that is compatible with the [+pred] value of the c-selecting light v. Ko and h¯a are such elements. Ko and h¯a are not like universals (“verbs”) though; rather they are like prepositional roots (Harley 2002), in a way yet to be fully explored.12 Furthermore, they are case assigners. Otherwise, their object should undergo object shift, and ko and h¯a would front alone, which they do not, as seen in (2). Furthermore, also unlike universals, ko and h¯a do not embed under determiners or prepositions. They take a [–pred] complement (in the case of ko, at least, the complement can be a universal), and themselves have a [+pred] value. If we assume they assign case to their complements, we can explain why the object does not move out, thus why (9) involves fronting of the whole predicate phrase, and not remnant movement.13 (8)
v’ v
v’ v
‘V’P ‘V’
DP
KoP ko
DP
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(9) a.
Ko e kamuta a au. pred abs.com carpenter abs.com I “I am a carpenter.” (FN) b. *Ko a au e kamuta. “V” abs.prop I abs.com carpenter c. *Ko he kamuta a au “V” erg.com carpenter abs.prop I
For Niuean, I posit the following partial classification for lexical items, including prepositions for the sake of comparison. (10) Classification of Niuean Lexical Items (preliminary and partial) Universal (V) Noun ko/h¯a Preposition [ ] [–pred] [+pred] [–pred] [+Abscompl ] [+Abscompl ] The proposed system for Niuean contains elements of each of the systems discussed above, but it is not identical to any one of them. Like Broschart (1997), I consider that the predicational feature is more appropriate than a true verbal feature to distinguish what might loosely be termed nouns and verbs in Niuean, because there are significant differences between Niuean and English lexical categories in terms of their inflectional and distributional behavior. Like Biggs (1971) I capture the elastic distribution of the non-noun class, and their non-verbal behavior, by using the term universals. Similarly to Marantz (1997) and others, the specification of the categorial value for a lexical item can depend on its syntactic position, in particular on what functional head it is situated under. And like Davis and Matthewson (1999), I consider that there is a c-selection relation between functional and lexical heads, and that while there are subtle differences between categories cross-linguistically, there are also strong universal trends.
. Lexical category and predicate fronting The next issue is: How are the categorial properties of Niuean universals correlated with the phenomenon of predicate fronting in the language? The proposal is quite simple. Because the Niuean predicates are not morphosyntactically verbs, and do not house inflectional features such as finiteness, tense, and agreement, there is no Agree relation between them and any higher functional projections such as Infl, thus they do not enter into the head system of the language, unlike languages with verbal inflection. Let us hypothesize that a φ Agree (inflectional) relation across a head system rules out maximal phrasal movement by other means.14
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(11) Hypothesis: Phrasal movement cannot apply between a head Z and an XP if X has an inflectional Agree/Move relation with Z or an intervening head, Y. Whatever the true characterization is for this, it is clearly related to the concept of morphological merger as outlined in Marantz (1988), Embick and Noyer (2001), and others. These authors consider that if two heads are to have a morphological relation of a particular type, there are locality constraints that must hold, akin to adjacency. If something like (10) holds, the lack of inflectional morphological features in Niuean opens the door for predicate fronting to occur. Of course, lack of inflection does not in itself cause predicate fronting, so there could well be languages with isolating morphology but without predicate fronting. What is unexpected is a true predicate fronting language with rich inflection on the verb.15 There is also a correlation between having inflection (that is, having true morpho-syntactic finiteness features) and having copular verbs, and of course, do-support. The intuitive idea that auxiliary and copular verbs are at least in part required because there has to be a morphosyntactic verb in the sentence in order to encode inflectional features has been developed in many ways by different authors since at least the earliest days of transformational grammar. A language such as Niuean has no inflection on the verb, and arguably it has no inflectional features in Infl either, since copular verbs are not found in the language. A language could have predicate fronting and inflection, however, but in such a language copular verbs would appear in all sentences, since verbs would in essence always be participial in nature. As with many typological characteristics usually held to be properties of languages, it is probable that predicate fronting is actually a property of constructions rather than languages. Note that predicate fronting appears to be an option in English and French too, in certain evaluative or exclamative constructions, studied by Vinet (1991). Of particular note here is that these constructions do not include a copular verb. (12) a. Pretty good, this cake! b. Toujours le directeur, ce type! “Always the director, this guy!” (Vinet 1991) Perhaps relatedly, VP fronting rules do not include an inflected verb, although in these cases a copular verb appears to bear the inflection.16 (13) She said she eats slowly, and eat slowly she does. Whether this correlation can be maintained across a wide range of putative predicate fronting languages and constructions, of course, remains to be seen.
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If the lack of inflection in Niuean, allows for, but does not cause, predicate fronting, we are left with the question of what indeed triggers predicate fronting. I will not deal with this question extensively here, but I have argued in other papers (Massam & Smallwood 1997; Massam 2000a, 2001a, b) that all languages must bifurcate the clause (Rothstein 1983), by attracting some element out from within the thematic domain to the grammatical domain (Manning 1996). In most wellstudied languages this element is usually the subject, but in a predicate fronting language, the element is the predicate, defined as the sister of v (Herd 2002). In accordance with what has been said in this paper, the predicate will be a lexical phrase with a head that is compatible with a predicative value c-selected by the light verb: VP, koP, h¯aP, and perhaps AdjP.
. Conclusion In this paper it has been claimed that there is a direct connection between two aspects of the syntax of Niuean: predicate initial word order and isolating morphology. The claim is that predicates extract (for purposes of predication) in Niuean, and that this possibility is tied to the nature of the category verb in the language. In particular, building on insights developed by others such as Biggs (1969, 1971) and Broschart (1997), the Niuean verb is not robustly a verb, but is more participial or even nominal in nature. This is clearly the case from the morphosyntactic point of view, as there are no optional verbal finiteness features in the language. For this reason, the predicate head does not enter into a Checking, Move, or Agree relation with the functional head Infl. By hypothesis, this leaves it available for predicate fronting. Although there is no morphosyntactic category of verb in Niuean, I have argued that there are at least two principal lexical classes in the language. Whether we consider these to be nouns and verbs, or, following Biggs (1969, 1971), nouns and universals, it is clear that Niuean predicates have a broader distribution than verbs in English, for example. A partial feature system for Niuean nouns and verbs was developed, using concepts from the Polynesian and general theoretical literature (e.g., Davis & Matthewson 1999 and Marantz 1997). The discussion in the paper suggests that a true predicate fronting language (or construction) must be one without rich verbal inflection, and hence with a weakened category of verb. The construction may utilize a copular verb, if Infl has finiteness features in the language, but Niuean does not exhibit any finiteness features in Infl and no copular verbs are used. This analysis assumes that a finiteness Agree relation between Infl and a verb rules out predicate fronting. What remains to be explored is to what extent these observations, which seem clearly defined for Niuean, have relevance cross-linguistically, both in other predicate fronting languages, and in predicate
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fronting constructions in languages that do not normally exhibit this general typological property.
Notes * I would like to thank Ofania Ikiua and Harry Manamana for their much-valued work as Niuean data consultants, David Beck and Sarah Fullerton for bibliographical help, and Emma Johnson for formatting help. For important input, I would also like to thank two excellent anonymous reviewers, Gabriela Alboiu, Andrew Carnie, Elizabeth Cowper, Heidi Harley, Yves Roberge, Donna Starks, and the audiences of the 6th Bilingual Workshop in Toronto and the Workshop on the Syntax of Verb Initial Languages in Tucson. I am grateful for funding for this work, provided by Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (#410-01-1415). . Seiter (1980) describes a form of reduplicative agreement for number in Niuean, but Abdolhosseini et al. (2002) show that this indicates plural aspect and is not agreement. . Data sources are McEwen (1980) = (M), Seiter (1980) = (S), Sperlich (1998) = (Sp), Whittaker (1982) = (W), and field notes (FN). . Since Infl does not contain any inflectional features, it might be better labeled ‘Pred’ (Bowers 2002) but I use the more familiar label ‘Infl’ here. . The status of adjectives is clearly a related issue, since in Niuean adjectival predication does not involve a copular verb; rather, adjectives behave like (stative) verbs, so that it could be argued that adjectives are another lexical class not found in Niuean. However, I will not include adjectives at all in the discussion in this paper. (See Beck 2002 and other overview references cited in this paper.) . There are other points of view on Oceanic lexical categories, such as Vonen (1993, 2000), as well as Clark (1983), as cited in Broschart (1997). Sperlich (1998) acknowledges that the noun/verb distinction in Niuean is not a clear one, but he continues to use the two classes in the Niue Dictionary. (Note: Broschart 1997 cites an earlier, unpublished version of Wunderlich 1996.) . There is a vast literature on the topic of lexical category, since it is such a fundamental issue in linguistic theory. I make no attempt to do justice to the literature in this short paper. See, to give just a few examples of recent extensive treatments: Baker (2003), Croft (1991), Comrie and Vogel (2000), Schachter (1985). I focus here on some recent discussions that have explicitly discussed lexical category in terms of the relation between functional and lexical heads. . For Davis and Matthewson (1999) and Grimshaw (1991), the role of functional heads in determining lexical category is directly addressed, whereas for Baker (2003) this issue is not foremost. . For Broschart (1997), the functional head that would determine the [+pred] value of a lexical item is the complementizer/tense particle (traditionally referred to as the TAM, or
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Tense Aspect Mood marker), and for a [–pred] value, it would be Article, since for him, VSO order is basic and not derived, and there are no categories of light verbs and nouns. . I would like to thank the anonymous reviewer who brought this issue to my attention. Baker also discusses the relation between noun incorporation and part of speech (Baker 2003: 178). . Whether we use the terms noun and verb or some other terms is not really the issue here. For example, while Davis and Matthewson (1999) argue that both English and St’át’imcets have lexical nouns, distinct from verbs, they also argue that English nouns and St’át’imcets nouns do not bear the same features, since the former are inherently mass, and the latter inherently count. It is an open question, and to some extent a matter of terminological opinion, whether two categories in two different languages should both be termed ‘nouns’ or ‘verbs’. It depends on how fine-grained, or how coarse, these definitions are held to be. Broschart, unlike Davis and Matthewson, considers that the definitions must be very fine-grained and that we should distinguish differences in categories very precisely in our terminology. In this paper, I do not wish to enter into this debate, but rather to keep the discussion at the fine-grained level of featural differences between lexical categories in different languages, whatever their ultimate labels might be. . Of course, this leaves open the question of what happens in the PNI cases in (6). If there is no c-selecting functional head, does the unmarked value for the universal complement remain unvalued? An alternative is that the Verb c-selects for a [–pred] complement, and can take either an NP, DP, or VP. We leave this question open, pending further study of sentences such as those in (6). . Another clear option is to consider ko and h¯a to be light verbs or Pred, similarly to Adger and Ramchand (2003a) for Irish and to Baker (2003: 46) for Niuean among other languages. This is initially problematic, however, as Niuean predicate fronting has been considered to apply to the sister of a light verb, and not to include the light verb. But in predicate fronting in clauses with ko or h¯a these items also front, rendering a light verb analysis problematic, though promising. An in-depth study of these particles is required to determine their true categorical status. . What remains unexplained, as an anonymous reviewer points out, is why ko and h¯a are incompatible with Tense markers (see Seiter 1980). Clearly, there are many aspects of these morphemes that are poorly understood, and to attempt a full analysis here is not possible. I leave this issue aside for future study. . Note that a c-selection relation does not prevent XP movement, since the light v c-selects the VP, which can later undergo predicate fronting across light v. . Of course this raises interesting questions about other languages, for instance, Irish, which has predicate fronting but also arguably a form of agreement and a copular verb. I put other languages aside (e.g., Arabic) here in order to focus on Niuean, but obviously my ideas would need testing and refining against other VSO languages. . Related, perhaps, are participial fronting constructions in Slavic, and locative inversion constructions, as discussed by Broekhuis and Migdalski (2003).
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Word order without syntactic categories How Riau Indonesian does it* David Gil Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Leipzig
Riau Indonesian has been argued to possess an extremely impoverished inventory of syntactic categories, with just one open category S(entence). In particular, Riau Indonesian has no distinction between lexical categories such as noun, adjective and verb; no distinction between lexical and phrasal categories; and no distinction between lexical and functional categories. Nevertheless, Riau Indonesian appears to exhibit most of the characteristic word-order correlates of a verb-initial language, such as nominal arguments usually following the verb except for subjects which often precede, adjectives and other attributive modifiers usually following the head noun, and so forth. The question thus arises: how can these word-order properties be stated without reference to syntactic categories such as noun, adjective, and verb? This paper argues that most of the word-order phenomena of Riau Indonesian can be accounted for in terms of a single principle pertaining to head-modifier structure: heads precede modifiers. A residue of word-order facts is accounted for in terms of two additional principles associated with different grammatical domains: iconicity and information flow. Thus, the apparent verb-initial nature of Riau Indonesian turns out to be essentially epiphenomenal.
.
Introduction: Explaining word order
Most or all languages have constraints on the possible order of words. Linguists describe these constraints, and try to explain them, using terms associated with a variety of distinct domains of grammar, such as syntactic categories (“adjectives come after nouns”), grammatical relations (“subjects precede objects”), thematic roles (“agents come before patients”), semantic categories (“colour words follow words denoting shape and size”), information flow (“old precedes new information”), and so forth. Often, a single account of word order combines reference to
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two or more distinct domains, such as, for example, syntactic categories and grammatical relations (“verbs precede subjects”). In principle, for each and every word order phenomenon under investigation, the linguist should weigh the relative merits of alternative accounts making reference to distinct domains of grammar, in order to choose the one that is most appropriate to the case at hand. In practice, however, this is a task that is all too often sidestepped. What happens accordingly is that a particular grammatical domain is uncritically, even unthinkingly, imposed on the phenomenon in question. In many cases, the domain in question is that of syntactic categories. In particular, it is the traditional parts of speech of the Greek and Latin grammarians, which, in their various modern guises, are often imposed on English and on languages of very different syntactic types; see Gil (2000b, 2001a) for further discussion. Imagine, for example, being confronted with a new and unfamiliar language in which basic intransitive sentences look something like Ran Susie, Smiled the boy, Fell an apple, and so forth. “Aha”, goes the common reaction, “a verb-initial language”. Such reactions provide the underpinnings for most descriptive work on individual languages, for much of the field of linguistic typology, as epitomized by Greenberg’s (1963) seminal study of word-order universals, and for a substantial amount of current work in generative grammar: indeed, their echo can be discerned in the title of this volume, “Verb First: Papers on the Syntax of Verb Initial Languages”. Nevertheless, several papers in this volume suggest that the class of languages called “verb initial” is not uniform, and that different languages end up being verb initial in different ways and for different reasons. Verb-initial word order is thus epiphenomenal. This paper joins forces with the above-mentioned papers by proposing yet another path that languages can take appearing to be verb initial. Most accounts of word order constraints make reference in some form or another to syntactic categories. This paper argues that it is possible to account for the major word order patterns of a language without any reference to syntactic categories. In particular, it is shown that a rich array of word order facts can be derived from a single principle of linearization making reference to head-modifier structure. Specifically, it is argued that head initial word order yields the appearance of a typical verb initial language, complete with many of its typological correlates, without any reference to verbs or to other syntactic categories. In principle, one could make the above argument following either of two strategies. One might choose a language such as Welsh, with robust syntactic category distinctions, and try to account for its word-order patterns without reference to its syntactic categories. This paper, however, adopts an alternative strategy, namely, examining a language for which there is good reason to believe that there are no distinctions between major syntactic categories, and attempting to construct an account for its word-order patterns.
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The language chosen is the Riau dialect of Indonesian.1 Elsewhere, see Gil (1994, 2000b, 2001a), it is argued that in Riau Indonesian (henceforth RI) there is but a single open syntactic category S, corresponding roughly to the intuitive notion of sentence. Thus, in RI, there is no distinction between lexical categories such as nouns, adjectives and verbs, no distinction between lexical categories such as V and phrasal ones such as VP, and no distinction between lexical categories such as V and functional ones such as Infl. Almost all words, and all multi-word expressions in RI, are thus members of S, that is to say, complete and non-elliptical sentences. In addition, RI does not have well-defined grammatical relations such as subject and object. Nevertheless, RI exhibits word-order constraints; a superficial glance might suggest that it is not totally unlike a language such as Welsh. If it had verbs, one might say that it was a verb-initial language, though its word order is probably more flexible than many other verb-initial languages. More specifically, if it had subjects and objects, one might wonder whether verb-subject or subject-verb order were the more basic; one would also observe that objects may occasionally precede the verb, though much less frequently than subjects. If there were a distinction between clauses and NPs, one would note that, as in many other languages, NPinternal word order is somewhat more rigid, with noun-initial order as the general rule. However, if one could distinguish syntactically between quantifier, adjective, relative clause and nominal modifiers, one might observe that quantifiers more often precede the noun, while adjectives and relative clauses usually follow, and nominal modifiers always follow. So how, then, can one say all of the above without reference to syntactic categories, and without all of the grammatical terms that were used in the preceding paragraph? This paper argues that most of the above can be said quite simply in a single principle pertaining to head-modifier structure: heads precede modifiers. The remainder of the facts can be accounted for in terms of two additional principles associated with different grammatical domains: iconicity and information flow. The bulk of this paper is devoted to showing how the word order of RI is largely determined by the principle of head-initiality; the remaining two principles are touched upon briefly in Section 4.
. Introducing Riau Indonesian Consider the following English sentence: (1) The chicken is eating. There are two natural and idiomatic translations of this in RI:
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(2) a.
Makan ayam. eat chicken b. Ayam makan. chicken eat “The chicken is eating.”
Sentences (2a) and (2b) each consist of two monomorphemic words, makan and ayam; the only difference between them is with respect to word order. They mean the same thing, and they are of equal naturalness, though their pragmatic appropriateness conditions differ, in accordance with principles such as those discussed in Section 4. Superficially, sentences (1) and (2) seem quite similar; however, a closer look reveals important differences. The table in (3) summarizes some of the more salient differences between sentence (1) in English and its two translations into RI in (2):2 (3) symmetry
number (on chicken) definiteness (on chicken) tense (on eat)
English The chicken is eating asymmetric: agreement: The chicken → is government: is → -ing marked: singular marked: definite marked: present
aspect (on eat)
marked: progressive
thematic role (on chicken)
marked: agent
ontological type marked: activity (on chicken eat)
Riau Indonesian Makan ayam / Ayam makan symmetric
unmarked: also... ‘The chickens are eating’ unmarked: also... ‘A chicken is eating’ unmarked: also... ‘The chicken was eating’ ‘The chicken will be eating’ unmarked: also... ‘The chicken eats’ ‘The chicken has eaten’ unmarked: also... ‘Someone is eating the chicken’ ‘Someone is eating for the chicken’ ‘Someone is eating with the chicken’ unmarked: also... ‘The chicken that is eating’ ‘Where the chicken is eating’ ‘When the chicken is eating’
The first difference in (3) is a formal one. The English sentence (1) exhibits numerous structural asymmetries. Two morphosyntactic asymmetries are easily visible on the surface: the NP the chicken controls agreement of the auxiliary is, and the
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auxiliary is in turn governs the -ing ending on the verb. Lurking beneath these morphosyntactic asymmetries are a host of syntactic asymmetries, providing the motivation for grammatical analyses of sentences such as (1) as involving subject and predicate, NP and VP, or whatever. In contrast, the RI sentences in (2) are completely symmetric, their two constituent parts being totally balanced. Moreover, the lack of morphological asymmetries mirrors the absence of any deeper syntactic asymmetries. Words such as makan ‘eat’ and ayam ‘chicken’ have the same distributional privileges and, more generally, identical syntactic behaviour. The two RI sentences in (2) are instances of sentential coordination, with a structure of the form [S S S]; see (14) below. The remaining differences in (3) are semantic. In English (1), the subject NP is marked for number and definiteness. In contrast, in RI (2), ayam ‘chicken’ is unmarked for number and definiteness; in RI, number marking is almost completely absent, while definiteness marking is optional. Similarly, in English (1), the verbal phrase is eating is marked for tense and aspect, like most other verbal phrases in English. In contrast, in RI (2), makan ‘eat’ is unmarked for tense and aspect; in RI, these two categories are expressed by optional periphrastic devices, which are for the most part only weakly grammaticalized. RI (2) has a wider range of interpretations than its English counterpart, as suggested by the additional translations of (2) back into English in (3). In English (1), the NP the chicken is an agent. In RI (2), the expression ayam ‘chicken’ is underspecified for thematic role; as suggested by the alternative translations of (2) back into English in (3), ayam ‘chicken’ could also be interpreted as patient, or, given an appropriate context, as benefactive, as comitative, or as standing in any other thematic role whatsoever. The indeterminacy of thematic roles in RI sentences may be illustrated from the corpus of naturalistic texts. As abstract sentences, each of the following examples is indeterminate with respect to thematic roles; however, as actual utterances, each is associated with a specific interpretation, as indicated in the translation. Since the interpretation of the utterance is heavily context-dependent, the context is also indicated, right above the translation, within square brackets. agent – patient Beli aku laser, ‘kan. buy 1.sg laser q [Contemplating a shopping trip] “I’ll buy a laser, right.” patient – agent b. Beli nasi goreng aku. buy rice fry 1.sg [Group of people decide they want to play cards; somebody tells speaker to go out and buy some; speaker objects on the grounds that
(4) a.
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it’s somebody else’s turn to go out] “I bought the fried rice.” agent – patient Saya pakai kaca mata, Vid. 1.sg use glass eye fam.David [Speaker putting on a new pair of glasses] “I’m wearing my glasses, David.” patient – agent b. Honda pakai abang Elly. motorcycle use elder.brother Elly [Interlocutor tells speaker to go and buy food; speaker doesn’t budge; interlocutor asks speaker why he isn’t going; speaker explains] “Elly’s using the motorcycle.” agent – patient (6) a. Si Pai aku usir. pers Pai 1.sg send.away [Complaining about his younger brother Pai, who won’t have anything to do with him] “Pai sent me away.” patient – agent b. Abang dia sendiri dia usir. elder.brother 3 one.ag.stand 3 send.away [Complaining about his younger brother Pai, who won’t have anything to do with him] “His very own brother, he sent away.” (5) a.
In each of the above examples, a word denoting an activity is in boldface, and its two associated participants are in italics. In (4) the activity word occurs before its two participants, in (5) it occurs between them, and in (6) it occurs after them both. Within each of the three sentence pairs, the activity word is the same; however, the agent precedes the patient in the first sentence while following it in the second sentence, as indicated on the right. Thus, each of the three sentence pairs constitutes a near minimal pair illustrating the indeterminacy of thematic role assignment. Together, sentences (4)–(6) show that in a basic sentence consisting of activity, agent and patient, these three items may occur in any of the six possible orders. Examples such as the above occur frequently in the corpus; other similar examples are cited in Gil (1994, 1999, 2002b). Examples such as these suggest that in RI, thematic roles play a much smaller role in the grammar than in most other languages. Most commonly, thematic roles are unmarked. There is no case-marking, no morphological agreement, and, as shown by the above examples, word order is flexible. Moreover, as argued in Gil (2003, forthcoming a), intonation plays no role in the differentiation of thematic roles either.3 With regard to the preceding semantic categories in (3), number, definiteness, tense and aspect, most linguists would agree that the under-differentiation evinced
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by RI is most appropriately viewed as an instance of vagueness rather than ambiguity. What about thematic roles? Are RI sentences vague with respect to thematic roles, like they often are with respect to number, definiteness, tense and aspect, or are they ambiguous? Two good reasons suggest that they are indeed vague rather than ambiguous. The first is syntactic. A number of other languages have instances of thematic role indeterminacy, though generally of a much more restricted nature. For example, in Hebrew, if a number of morphosyntactic variables are set right, it is possible to construct sentences such as Kelev radaf yeled [dog chase.pst.3.sg.m boy], which can mean either ‘A dog chased a boy’ or ‘A boy chased a dog’.4 Crucially, however, in Hebrew there are plenty of subject-object asymmetries and other grammatical phenomena, which suggest that strings such as Kelev radaf yeled actually can represent two distinct sentences with two different syntactic structures corresponding to the two interpretations. In contrast, in RI, there is no evidence whatsoever for the existence of distinct syntactic structures corresponding to different interpretations involving different associations of thematic roles with particular expressions. In the absence of such syntactic evidence, the preferred account is the simpler description, which characterizes the indeterminacy of thematic roles in Indonesian as an instance of vagueness rather than ambiguity. The second reason is based on a pragmatic diagnostic for distinguishing between vagueness and ambiguity: the speaker’s intention test. If a linguistic form F is associated with meanings M1 and M2 , it is vague between M1 and M2 if it is possible to imagine a normal context in which a speaker uttering F is indifferent between M1 and M2 ; otherwise it is ambiguous between M1 and M2 . To take an obvious example, spring is vague with respect to the material from which it is made, since it is quite easy to imagine an everyday context in which one might say John bought a spring without caring whether the bouncy spiral coil was made of metal or of plastic. On the other hand, spring is ambiguous between spiral coil and source of water, since it is impossible to imagine a normal context, not involving a special instance of word-play, in which one could use the word in an utterance not caring whether it referred to a spiral coil or a source of water. With this diagnostic in mind, let us now return to thematic roles in RI. At first blush, it might seem that we are dealing with ambiguity, since in most cases, it is hard to imagine being indifferent with respect to whether one is, say, the agent or the patient of an activity. Nevertheless, a closer look at the corpus does reveal some instances of apparent indifference with respect to thematic roles: (7) Aku Cina tak makan lah. 1.sg China neg eat contr [Going out to eat, approaching a Chinese looking place] a. “I’m not eating Chinese food.”
patient
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b. “I’m not going to eat in a Chinese place.”
locative
(8) Ini bisa juga. dem.prox can also [Playing laptop game, speaker discovers that another key also works] a. “This one can too.” theme b. “With this one you can too.” instrument c. “This one makes you able to do it too.” cause Each of the above examples can be translated into natural idiomatic English in two or more ways, which differ with respect to the thematic roles associated with one of the participants; these different thematic roles are indicated to the right of the respective translations. However, only English translators, or linguists with a ready-made tool-kit of thematic roles, see distinct interpretations here. In the given context, the two translations end up meaning roughly the same thing, and it is hard to imagine that the speaker could have been intending to convey one interpretation to the exclusion of the other. Rather, it is a safe bet that what they had in mind, in both (7) and (8) was a single undifferentiated interpretation encompassing the given glosses. Thus, based on the above arguments, we may conclude that RI sentences are indeed vague rather than ambiguous with respect to thematic roles. The final difference between (1) and (2) presented in (3) is perhaps the most fundamental one; it pertains to the ontological type of the expressions. Whereas English (1) denotes an activity, RI (2) is unmarked for ontological type. Again, RI (2) has a wider range of interpretations than its English counterpart, as suggested by the additional translations of (2) back into English in (3). As suggested by these translations, the sentences in (2) could also denote a thing (‘The chicken that is eating’), a place (‘Where the chicken is eating’), a time (‘When the chicken is eating’), and so on. Once more, one may pose the question: Are RI sentences vague with respect to ontological types, or are they ambiguous? Application of the speaker’s intention test provides support for the conclusion that they are merely vague. Any naturalistic corpus of RI is chock full of constructions that are indeterminate with respect to ontological types: (9) Cantik gol. beautiful goal [Watching replay of football goal on TV] a. “That goal was beautiful.” b. “(That was) a beautiful goal.” (10) I, mantap India. excl cool India [Channel surfing, speaker discovers an Indian movie is on]
property activity
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a. “Eee, that Indian one is cool.” b. “Eee, (it’s) a cool Indian one.”
property thing
(11) Mobil rusak. car break.down [Standing on balcony looking down at street, speaker sees some men pushing a car] a. “That car’s broken down.” property b. “(There’s) a broken down car.” thing (12) Cewek bawa. woman drive [In car, going fast down rural road, another car suddenly pulls out dangerously in front of us; speaker sees the driver and comments] a. “A woman is driving.” activity b. “(It’s) a woman driving.” thing Each of the above utterances can be translated into natural and idiomatic English in either of two very different ways, shown in (a) and (b) respectively. In the first translation of each utterance, in (a), the italicized RI expression is rendered into English as a predicative sentential construction, with a subject NP followed by a predicative VP. In contrast, in the second translation, in (b), the same expression is rendered into English as an attributive nominal construction, consisting of a head NP modified by an attributive adjective or participle; this entire NP in turn functions as the predicate nominal in a predicate nominal construction. Thus, each of the above utterances has two distinct English translations that differ with respect to the attributive/predicative distinction and with respect to ontological types. But how important are these distinctions to the speakers of RI who produced the above utterances? Although the (a) and (b) translations map onto very different linguistic semantic representations, at a deeper level they end up conveying similar meanings, which are also similar to those of the respective RI source sentences. Thus, it is actually awfully hard to imagine that any of the speakers of the above utterances had in mind a meaning corresponding specifically to one of the above English translations to the exclusion of the other. Thus, application of the speaker’s intention test provides further support for the claim that the indeterminacy of ontological types in RI is an instance of vagueness rather than ambiguity.
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. The grammar of Riau Indonesian In this section, the outlines of RI syntax and semantics are sketched, and explicit representations for the observations made in the preceding section are proposed. In doing so, the two sentences in (2) are used as a convenient point of reference. The analysis proposed in this section is predicated on the methodological assumption that each and every piece of grammatical machinery posited for the description of RI must be motivated from within the individual language itself, not from a theory of language, or Universal Grammar, developed on the basis of the study of other languages. Although the analysis proposed herein ends up being quite minimalist, the methodology invoked is thus at odds with current generative assumptions, sharing more of an affinity with some of the premises of linguistic typology and American structuralism. To the extent that the account is minimalist, then, this is a consequence of general methodological principles, such as Occam’s razor, in conjunction with some of the specific and rather unusual characteristics of RI.
. Syntax As suggested in Gil (1994, 2000b, 2001a), and mentioned in the introduction, in RI there is but a single open syntactic category S, or sentence. All members of S exhibit the same syntactic behavior, including the same distributional privileges. In particular, all members of S can stand alone as complete non-elliptical sentences. The category S includes makan ‘eat’ in (2), and practically all other words whose translational equivalents into English are verbs, and also ayam ‘chicken’ in (2), and just about all other words whose translational equivalents into English are nouns. In addition, the category S includes most words whose translational equivalents into English are adjectives, prepositions, and determiners, plus a variety of words whose closest English counterparts are function words or morphemes: among such words are tak, marking negation; udah, denoting the perfect; sendiri, which expresses a variety of notions including restrictive focus, intensification and reflexivity (Gil 2001b); and sama, whose usages range over categories such as non-absolutive, conjunction, togetherness, reciprocity and sameness (Gil forthcoming b). Alongside individual words, the category S includes all multi-word expressions in the language, among which are makan ayam and ayam makan in (2). In addition to the open syntactic category S there is also a closed syntactic category S/S, which contains a couple of dozen semantically heterogeneous words, including kalau marking topics, tiap ‘every’, dengan ‘with’, ‘and’, and others. The “slash” notation used for the category S/S comes from categorial grammar, and captures the fact
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that a member of S/S may combine with a member of S to yield a superordinate member of S. The syntax of RI can be stated very simply. Syntactic structures are hierarchic but unordered trees, in which each node is labelled with one of the two syntactic categories, S and S/S. Of course, in any physical representation of such trees on a page, it is impossible not to introduce a linear order; however, it is important to keep in mind that such order is not part of the actual representation. A number of scholars working within different theoretical frameworks have provided arguments in support of unordered tree structures and the representational separation of hierarchic structure and linear order; see, for example Sanders (1975), Keenan (1978b), Keenan and Faltz (1986), and Kayne (1994). Syntactic tree structures are formed from subtrees of the following two kinds: (13) Two kinds of subtrees S a. S1
...
b.
Sn
S S/S
S
In (13a), n expressions belonging to S combine with each other to constitute a superordinate S. Although there is no strict upper limit on the size of n, branching is most commonly binary, and rarely goes beyond ternary. Formally, (13a) has the structure of a coordination, in which each of the constituent parts is equally ranked. In (13b), a single word belonging to the category S/S combines with a single expression belonging to the category S to yield a superordinate expression of category S. Complex hierarchic structures are built up recursively from the two kinds of subtrees represented in (13). For present purposes, we shall be concerned only with the former of the two kinds of subtrees. Setting n equal to 2, (13a) yields a representation for the syntactic structure of the two sentences in (2): (14) Syntactic Structure of (2): S S makan
S ayam
Since the structure in (14) is unordered, it provides an equally appropriate representation for both makan ayam in (2a) and ayam makan in (2b).
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. Association The fundamental semantic structure of RI is also simple. Every expression in RI has a basic semantic structure in the form of an unordered tree that is isomorphic to that of its syntactic structure: each node of the semantic structure represents the interpretation of the corresponding node of the syntactic structure of the expression. Whereas the interpretation of terminal nodes is specified in the lexicon, that of non-terminal nodes is derived by compositional principles from that of their constituent nodes. In fact, the overwhelming majority of the compositional semantics of RI can be captured in a single simple rule making reference to the association operator, which is defined as follows: (15) The Association Operator A: Given a set of n meanings M1 . . . Mn , the association operator A derives a meaning A(M1 . . . Mn ) read as “entity associated with M1 and . . . and Mn .” Two subtypes of the association operator may be distinguished, the monadic association operator, in which n equals 1, and the polyadic association operator, for n greater than 1. In its monadic variant, the association operator is familiar from a wide variety of constructions in probably all languages. Without overt morphosyntactic expression, it is manifest in cases of metonymy such as the often cited The chicken left without paying, where the unfortunate waiter uses the expression chicken to denote the person who ordered the chicken. Using upper case letters to represent the meanings of individual expressions, we can represent the meaning of chicken in the above sentence by means of the monadic association operator as A(chicken), or “entity associated with chicken”. The nature of the association between the entity and the chicken is left open by the association operator, to be filled in by the context, which, in the case of a restaurant, is the obvious one involving a dishonest or perhaps forgetful customer who had ordered chicken. Even more often than the above cases, the monadic association operator is overtly expressed via a specific form, which is commonly referred to as a genitive, possessive or associative marker. Consider, for example, the English possessive enclitic ’s. Application of ’s to John yields the expression John’s, which has the interpretation A(john), “entity associated with John”, where the nature of the association is unspecified. Some idea of how unconstrained the association is can be obtained by comparing the obvious meanings of phrases such as John’s father, John’s nose, John’s shirt, John’s birthday, John’s suggestion and so forth, or by considering the range of meanings of a single phrase such as John’s book, which could denote the book that John owns, the book that John wrote, the book that’s about John, or, in more specific contexts, the book that John was assigned to write a review of, and so forth.
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In its polyadic variant, the association operator provides the default case for the most basic principle of compositional semantics, whereby the meaning of a complex expression is derived from the meanings of its constituent parts. Thus, in many languages, genitive constructions are formed by the bare juxtaposition of the two expressions, in which case the derived meaning may be represented by means of the polyadic association operator applying without any overt morphosyntactic expression. For example, in Yagua, a language isolate of north eastern Peru, Tomáása rooriy has a range of interpretations resembling that of its English translation “Tom’s house” (Payne & Payne 1990: 348); its meaning may thus be represented as A(tom, house), “entity associated with Tom and house.” In RI, the polyadic association operator applies across the board as the standard mechanism for assigning compositional meaning to structures such as in (14). This is expressed in the Polyadic Association Rule (PAR): (16) Polyadic Association Rule of Semantic Compositionality: Given a syntactic structure [X X1 . . . Xn ] (n > 1) where X1 . . . Xn have interpretations M1 . . . Mn respectively, [X X1 . . . Xn ] is assigned the interpretation A (M1 . . . Mn ). The PAR says, quite simply, that whenever two or more expressions are combined, the meaning of the combination is obtained by applying the association operator to the meanings of the individual expressions. In other words, when X1 to Xn , with meanings M1 to Mn , are put together, the resulting meaning is A (M1 . . . Mn ), or “entity associated with M1 to Mn .” Since the constituent meanings M1 to Mn are unordered and equally ranked, and they are not linearly ordered, the resulting meaning may be characterized as a conjunction. The PAR thus provides a unified semantic representation for RI sentences, reflecting their characterization as vague with respect to thematic roles and ontological types.5 The way in which the PAR works may be illustrated through the semantic representation that it provides for the sentences in (2): (17) Semantic Structure of (2): “entity associated with eating and with chicken” A(, )
The PAR applies to the collocation of the two meanings of the word, and assigns them the interpretation A(eat, chicken), “entity associated with eating and with chicken.” Since eat and chicken are unordered and equally ranked, the interpretation A(eat, chicken) is thus a completely symmetric conjunction. The above structure constitutes a single unified meaning, encompassing the entire range of
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interpretations of the sentences in (2), including, among others, those expressed by the various translations of (2) into English provided in (3). In particular, it accounts for indeterminacy with respect to thematic roles, allowing for the chicken to assume any role whatsoever in relation to the eating; and for indeterminacy with respect to ontological types, permitting makan ayam and ayam makan to denote activities, things, places, times, and so on. The PAR produces basic semantic structures forming a skeleton which may be subsequently fleshed out by further more specific semantic rules applying whenever appropriate to produce more elaborate semantic representations, involving domains such as coreferentiality, quantifier scope, conjunctive (focus) operators and many others. One particular kind of semantic enrichment, central to the account of word order in RI, is that effected by the assignment of headedness.
. Headedness Headedness may apply wherever hierarchical tree structure is present, in accordance with the following rule: (18) Headedness Assignment Rule: Given a structure [X X1 . . . Xn ], one of its constituents, Xj, may be coindexed with the entire structure for similarity: [X X1 . . . Xj i . . . Xn ]i . In a structure X consisting of X1 to Xn , one of the constituents, Xj , is singled out as bearing a resemblance to the entire structure, X, with respect to a certain unspecified feature. In such a case, Xj is said to be the head of the structure X, and all the other Xi (where i = j) are the modifiers of Xj . The following rule, a particular case of the Headedness Assignment Rule in (18) above, assigns headedness in the domain of basic semantic structures built up by the Polyadic Association Rule: (19) Headedness Assignment Rule for Associative Interpretations: Given an associative interpretation A (M1 . . . Mn ), one of its constituent substructures, Mj, may be coindexed with the entire semantic structure for coreferentiality: [A(M1 . . . [Mj ]i . . . Mn )]i . In (19), the general notion of similarity referred to in (18) is replaced by a more specific kind of similarity, namely, coreference. In a headed semantic structure, the head constituent projects its referential identity up to the entire meaning, whose range of interpretations is accordingly narrowed down. Thus, a headed semantic structure is more specific than the corresponding headless structure.
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The effect of assigning headedness to basic semantic structures may be illustrated through the application of headedness to the interpretation of the two sentences in (2) shown in (17) above: (20) Semantic structure of (2) enriched with headedness a. “eating associated with chicken” [A(i, )]i i
b. “chicken associated with eating” [A(, i)]i
i
In (20) above, headedness is represented twice: by coindexation and by an extra dashed line running up from the head constituent to the root node, tracing the projection of referential identity. By projecting referential identity, headedness narrows down the range of possible interpretations of the superordinate meaning. In (20a), the head eat projects its identity up to [A(eat, chicken)]. Accordingly, the superordinate interpretation no longer denotes an arbitrary “entity associated with eating and chicken” but rather the actual eating, or, more specifically, “eating associated with chicken”. The resulting interpretation retains its indeterminacy with respect to number, definiteness, tense, aspect and thematic roles, but loses its indeterminacy with regard to ontological type, which is now identical to that of the head eat, namely, activity. Thus, when eat is assigned headedness, the interpretation necessarily denotes eating. Some of its possible translations into English might include “The chicken is eating”, “Someone is eating the chicken”, and so forth. How prevalent is headedness in the syntax of RI? As suggested by examples (9)–(12) in Section 2 above, the Headedness Assignment Rule frequently fails to apply. If the semantic structures of these examples were headed, the head would project its ontological type up to the superordinate interpretation, and, in doing so, restrict its meaning to one of the two English translations to the exclusion of the other. The vagueness of these examples with respect to ontological type thus shows that they are unheaded. Nevertheless, in many other cases, the superordinate interpretation is more limited, in ways that suggest that the semantic structure may indeed be headed. In particular, work in progress suggests that the presence of headed structures underlies certain observable effects involving long-distance dependencies bearing a superficial resemblance to island constraints in other lan-
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guages; see Gil (2000a). So from the availability of both possibilities, it must be concluded that application of the Headedness Assignment Rule is optional.6 In this section, we have provided an overview of RI syntax and semantics, focussing on three elements: syntactic structures involving a single open syntactic category S, polyadic association, and headedness. As we shall now see, these three elements are all that is needed in order to provide an account of word order constraints in RI.
. How Riau Indonesian manages to look like a verb-initial language In this section we shall account for the word order of RI in terms of three linearization principles. These three principles pertain to very different domains of grammar and cognition. The predictions that they make coincide in some cases but conflict in others. These principles must accordingly be construed as preferences rather than inviolable rules. Differential resolutions of the conflicting principles are what underlie the observed flexibility and variability with respect to word order in RI. The most important linearization principle, one that accounts for a large majority of the facts, pertains to the domain of headedness: (21) Head-initial order: Heads precede modifiers. Since headedness is optional, this principle applies only in those cases where headedness is assigned. Nevertheless, head-initial order alone accounts for the “wordorder typology” of the language, and for its appearance as “verb-initial”. Thus, head-initial order, as formulated in (21) above, creates the appearance of a “verbinitial” language. Similarly, the most important typological correlate to verb-initial order: “noun-attribute” order within NPs also falls out. And it does so on the basis of the grammatical description presented in Section 3 above, making reference solely to syntactic structures involving a single open syntactic category S, plus polyadic association and headedness. This, then, is how RI manages to look like a “verb-initial” language, without having verbs, or distinctions between open syntactic categories.7 Many semantic structures in RI are unheaded, and for them, of course, the principle of head-initial order is inapplicable. Nevertheless, all such structures end up underlying strings of words that occur one after another. While the order of words in such cases is often very flexible, it is anything but random. Thus, for cases such as these, additional principles of linearization are obviously also needed.
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The following two principles provide an adequate account of the basic wordorder patterns of RI: (22) Iconicity: The linear order of expressions mirrors a conceptualized linear order of their referents. (23) Information Flow: The linear order of expressions reflects the communicative strategies of speakers. Like headedness, the above two principles make reference to semantic and pragmatic features; neither of them makes reference to syntactic categories. The first principle, that of iconicity, has been argued by Haiman (1980, 1983, 1985), Nänny and Fischer (1999), Fischer and Nänny (2001), Müller and Fischer (2003) and others, to account for a wide range of word-order phenomena in various languages. In many cases, the conceptualized linear order is that determined by time. Thus, for example, even though both word orders are perfectly grammatical in English, in the absence of contrary motivation, I flew from Jakarta to Tucson would be preferred over I flew to Tucson from Jakarta, since the order of the prepositional phrases in the former sentence mirrors the linear temporal order of source and goal in the real world. However, in many other cases, the conceptualized linear order may be based on other principles. For example, in disjunctive numerical phrases such as the English three or four, the practically obligatory order of the disjuncts follows the linear order of the integers. The second principle, pertaining to information flow, is actually a collection of principles pertaining to the way in which speakers organize their speech in terms of features such as old and new, topic and comment, and the like. These principles form the basis for discourse-oriented theories of syntax such as the Prague School, as represented in Firbas (1966); they have also been studied in detail by linguists of other theoretical persuasions such as Tomlin (1986), Mithun (1987), Givón (1988), Aissen (1992) and Kiss (1994). Thus, for example, many languages have a default word order in which old information comes before new, plus, in addition, various alternative word orders in which new information occurs earlier in the sentence. In conjunction, these two principles account for most or all of the word order facts in RI not already accounted for by headedness. In terms of iconicity, a prototypical bi-participant activity may be viewed as originating with an agent and culminating with a patient; this way of looking at it is even expressed in the term “transitivity”, which comes from the Latin trans ‘across’ and ire ‘go’. Iconicity thus makes the prediction that agents will precede patients, with activities as a gobetween in the middle. In particular, iconicity predicts that in (2), if ayam ‘chicken’ is understood as the agent of makan ‘eat’, it will precede it. With respect to infor-
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mation flow, it has been observed that people tend to talk about agents more often than about activities or patients. This observation is captured in Keenan’s (1976b) definition of grammatical subject, which, in the prototypical case, combines the thematic role of agent with the discourse function of topic. What this definition basically says is that agents are more likely to be sentential topics. Accordingly, the default ordering of topic before comment will place agents before activities and patients. In particular, under a default ordering, information flow will also predict that in (2), if ayam ‘chicken’ is understood as the agent of makan ‘eat’, it will precede it. Thus, each of the above two principles independently predicts the specific violations of head-initial word order.
. From Riau Indonesian to universal grammar What about other languages? As argued in this paper, RI is cross-linguistically exceptional in the extent to which it allows for indeterminacy with respect to a wide range of different categories. This raises the question whether and to what extent the account provided in this paper for RI can be generalized to other languages of different grammatical types. As suggested in the introduction to this paper, and in several of the other papers in this volume, there may be different paths towards verb-initial word order, or the appearance of verb-initial word order. To the extent that this is true, this suggests that the account developed in this paper may not be generalizable to all languages, or even to all languages with apparent verb-initial word order. Nevertheless, there is prima facie reason to believe that the present account may indeed be extendable to a number of other languages of superficially different morphosyntactic types. Interestingly, a number other papers in this volume also deal with the issue of syntactic categories, suggesting, in one way or another, that there may be some kind of connection between “problematical” syntactic category inventories and verb-initial word order. Thus, Massam (this volume) argues that in Niuean there is no noun/verb distinction, and that the apparent verb-initial order is more appropriately viewed as predicate initial. Similarly, Jouitteau (this volume) and Koopman (this volume) argue for Breton and Kisongo Maasai respectively that verbal clauses are associated with various nominal properties, thereby providing motivation for their observed verb-initial order. Languages for which the existence of distinct syntactic categories such as noun and verb has been called into question are distributed in non-random fashion in geographical and genealogical space. Within Austronesian, the underdifferentiation of syntactic categories has been observed for a variety of languages, including Tagalog (Shkarban 1992, 1995; Gil 1993a, b, 1995), Tongan (Tchekoff
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1984; Broschart 1997), and others. What is striking is that such languages span a variety of morphosyntactic types, ranging from isolating RI all the way through to the “Philippine type” with its rich morphology marking thematic roles, definiteness and other categories. This suggests that the property of syntactic-category underdifferentiation may be relatively stable diachronically, impervious to many of the other typological changes that have affected the various Austronesian languages in the course of their diversification. Outside of Austronesian, similar observations concerning the under-differentiation of syntactic categories have been made for the Munda language Mundari (Bhat 1997, 2000), the Chukotian language Alutor (Aleksandr Kibrik, personal communication), Salish languages such as Squamish (Kuipers 1968), Straits Salish (Jelinek & Demers 1994) and various others (Kinkade 1983), and the Wakashan language Nookta (Swadesh 1939). Geographically, these languages paint a single wide albeit interrupted swathe across the northern Pacific, with an additional branch extending west from Southeast Asia into India. This pattern is reminiscent of other large-scale Pacific-rim patterns of linguistic features described by Nichols (1992), who argues that they reflect ancient pre-historical relationships, either vertical, via genealogical inheritance, or horizontal, through processes of contact, borrowing and language shift. If indeed the existence of such a large-scale sprachbund of syntactic-category under-differentiation can be confirmed, then this would provide additional support for the claim that the under-differentiation of syntactic categories is a “deep” property of languages, characterized by a high degree of diachronic stability.8 In contrast, there is an abundance of evidence suggesting that basic word order is a relatively superficial property of languages. In the few cases where we have descriptions of languages in their pre-modern stages, several well-known instances of change in basic word order are directly attested, in families such as Romance, Germanic and Semitic. Many more cases of word-order change can be inferred from the coexistence, within individual families, of languages with contrasting head-initial and head-final word order, for example Finno-Ugric (Hungarian vs. Khanty), Tibeto-Burman (Karen vs. Burmese), Austroasiatic (Khmer vs. Mundari), and so forth; see the papers in Li (1975, 1977) for discussion. In view of the general instability of basic word order, one fact leaps to the eye: within the large-scale linguistic area characterized by the under-differentiation of syntactic categories, a number of language families stand out as containing an unusually high proportion of verb-initial languages. In the world at large, the percentage of verb-initial languages is estimated at roughly 10%. However, as shown in Dryer (to appear), verb-initial word order is widespread in three subareas or subgroups of Austronesian, namely central and northern Sumatra, the Philippines plus surrounding areas, and Polynesia; and it is the rule in Wakashan and in Salish. What these facts would seem to suggest is that the under-differentiation of syntac-
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tic categories somehow functions as a catalyst for verb-initial word order within these particular language families. However, other language families associated with the under-differentiation of syntactic categories, such as Munda and Chukotian, are characterized by headfinal word order. Perhaps, then, the correct generalization is that the underdifferentiation of syntactic categories is positively correlated with verb-terminal word order, and negatively correlated with verb-medial order. The unexpectedly high proportion of verb-initial languages would then be the product of a random distribution of head-initial versus head-final orders coupled with a constraint against verb-medial word order. What might be the nature of such a constraint? Verb-medial word order is special in that subject and object line up on opposite sides of the verb, thereby violating strict serialization based on head-modifier order. One might speculate that in order to override such head-modifier serialization, some other principle must be necessary making reference to the kinds of syntactic categories that are absent from languages belonging to the sprachbund of syntactic-category underdifferentiation. However, given the presence of apparent verb-medial order as a common option in RI, this cannot be the whole story. Just as there are different paths towards verb-initial order, so there may be different ways in which to derive a verb-medial order. But this is just what one would expect to find within an account of word order framed in terms of an interaction of distinct and autonomous principles pertaining to head-modifier structure, iconicity and information flow, that is to say, an approach which characterizes word order as epiphenomenal.
Notes * I am greatly indebted to my colleagues, too many to acknowledge individually, who, over the course of the last several years, took my ideas presented in this paper seriously enough to engage me in substantive discussions, which greatly helped me to develop my thinking concerning the structure of Riau Indonesian. I am equally grateful to the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology for providing the material and spiritual support without which it would have been impossible to pursue these ideas. I am also thankful to Andrew Carnie and three anonymous referees for their copious and critical comments on an earlier draft of this paper. Finally, I am deeply indebted to the many speakers of RI who shared their language with me, and in particular, to Ahmadsayuti, Arip Kamil, Jumbro, Pai, Per and Rudy Candra, whose spontaneous utterances are cited in this paper. . RI is the variety of Indonesian spoken in informal situations by the inhabitants of Riau province in east-central Sumatra. . The sentences in (2) are artificially constructed, for the sake of expository simplicity. However, all the factual claims made about these sentences, in (3) and throughout this paper,
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are substantiated by numerous examples, similar to those in (2), from naturalistic corpora of actual utterances produced by native speakers in real live situations. All of the remaining data cited in this paper comes from such naturalistic corpora. . If so desired, a small number of devices are available for the optional discrimination of thematic roles. For example, the form sama can be used to mark non-absolutives, thereby discriminating them from absolutives; see Gil (forthcoming b) for detailed analysis. However, the character of these devices is more lexical than grammatical. Thus, for example, the marker sama is itself a full-fledged word and member of the syntactic category S, with a range of other functions including the expression of conjunction, togetherness, reciprocity and sameness. . In order to obtain such agent-patient indeterminacy, both NPs have to be of the same number and gender, so that subject-verb agreement will not differentiate, and both NPs have to be indefinite, so that the definite direct-object marker will not be used. . The PAR is probably present in all languages as a default mechanism for semantic compositionality. However, languages differ considerably in the extent to which the structures that it produces undergo further elaboration and enrichment. In fact, the PAR is most likely not specific to human language (Gil 2002a). . It should be noted, however, that in real life, that is to say when analyzing naturalistic data, it is often the case that although two different interpretations are available, one is more prominent, and the other more difficult to obtain. In order to represent such states of affairs, it is necessary to introduce an element of fuzziness into the description. This is easily achieved by attributing to each potentially available assignment of headedness a scalar figure representing the degree to which it is conceptually salient. . There are, of course, problems. One class of such problems involves the principles by which headedness is assigned. For example, whereas the notion ‘tasty chicken’, has the preferred order expressed by ayam enak, in which the head chicken is in initial position, the notion ‘three chickens’ has the preferred order expressed by tiga ayam, in which the presumed head ‘chicken’ is in dispreferred final position. One way of overcoming this problem is by reanalyzing the construction in such a way that the numeral tiga, or rather its denotation ‘three’, is the head, thereby recasting the preferred order as head-initial. Some independent arguments supporting the characterization of numerals as the heads of numeral-noun constructions in various languages are provided by Dryer (1992: 119–120) within a typological framework, and by Ritter (1991, 1992) within generative theory. However, other apparent counterexamples to the head-initial order principle are not amenable to such reanalysis. . At present, the force of this conclusion is mitigated by the following two factors. First, the assorted claims concerning the under-differentiation of syntactic categories are couched within a variety of descriptive and theoretical frameworks, which makes it difficult to obtain a clear comparative picture of the cross-linguistic facts. Secondly, many of the actual claims are controversial; see Massam (this volume) for some further discussion. Nevertheless, the observed genealogical and geographical patterns are too striking to be attributed to mere chance.
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Nominal properties of vPs in Breton A hypothesis for the typology of VSO languages* Mélanie Jouitteau Université Naoned/Nantes
This article reduces the nominal properties of Breton verbs to the interpretability of the [D]-feature on the v heading a Larsonian vP structure. The interpretability of the [D]-feature on v correctly derives the genitive case assignment system on internal arguments, the distribution of preverbal prepositions together with the fact that verbs appear to show Case-filter effects. Furthermore, the vP structure bears interpretable underspecified φ-features and thus counts as an intervening goal for agreement in a probe-goal system. The competition for agreement between vP and the subject triggers the complementarity effects in the Breton agreement system and their exceptions.
.
Introduction
The Celtic languages show the following clustering of typological properties: (i) complementary distribution between overt subjects and agreement in the verbal morphological system; (ii) the licensing of a genitive dependent by a construct state; and (iii) a verbal construction whose object bears genitive case marking. I show that in Breton the three properties mentioned above follow straightforwardly from one parameter: the interpretability of the [D] feature on v as represented in (1a), where v is a functional projection similar to D in a DP structure in (1b). (1) a. [vP Subject v[D-φ 3.sg] [VP . . . ]] b. [DP . . . D [NP . . . ]] The fact that infinitival Celtic verbs show extensive nominal properties has long been discussed in the literature. A range of analyses (Anderson 1982; Stephens 1982; Timm 1990) even proposes that there are no verbs in Breton. My analysis is less radical: infinitives or tensed verbs are formed of a vP structure that resembles DPs only in having an interpretable [D] feature on v.1 Notice that the parame-
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ter is anchored into the verbal structure and thus predicts nominal properties not only of infinitives but also of tensed verbs. Notice also that the internal argument of v is a VP as opposed to a nominal category. As such, it enters into Move or Agree relations with Infl (see Massam this volume). In contrast with other VSO languages in which the differentiation between categories is called into question (see Gil, Koopman, Massam this volume), all nominal properties of Breton verbs are reduced to the parameterization of v. This proposal makes a strong prediction: all properties traditionally related to the features of the D element in the DP structure should be found in a vP system as well. This entails that v triggers construct state configurations (providing genitive Case to its internal arguments), that v needs Case itself, and that, bearing interpretable 3.sg φ-features, it can enter an agreement relation with T, in competition with the subject in its specifier. I demonstrate how this predicts the complementary distribution in the agreement system, as well as the fact that the verb have in Breton is exceptional with respect to this complementarity. The article is organized in three sections: each of them explores a distinct prediction of the ‘interpretable [D] feature on v’ hypothesis. Section 2 will be devoted to the most striking prediction my proposal makes: the instantiation of the construct state in a verbal system. N-to-D movement is responsible for gen case assignment to the internal argument of a DP. Like D, the functional projection v fails to assign acc Case and is a position responsible for gen assignment to internal arguments. V-to-v movement will be shown to provide gen to the DP object. In Section 3, I explore the prediction that like D, v shows Case-filter effects. vPs like DPs have to be Case licensed. Section 4 briefly sketches the results of the v entering into an agreement relation with the probe in T. Like D, v can enter an agreement relation (bearing interpretable φ-features). vPs should then be able to compete with a DP subject for agreement feature checking. We will see how this account predicts the exact pattern of the verbal agreement system of Breton.
. Internal arguments of DP and vP The claim that the internal arguments of DPs and verbal nouns are Case licensed in the same way has been made for Irish by Guilfoyle (1988), and Duffield (1995, 1996). I demonstrate in this section that the widely assumed acc hypothesis for the Case licensing of objects in Breton cannot be maintained and a gen hypothesis is to be preferred. (2) and (3) below illustrate construct state configurations in the DP system. Both the DP theme in (2) and the DP possessor in (3) occur in posthead positions. (4) and (5) show an infinitival and an inflected verb respectively. Here we see the same ordering with respect to the internal DP argument as within
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construct states. Internal DP arguments are uniformly in a post-head position in both the DP system and vP system. (2) distruj an avaloù destruction the apples “(the) destruction (of) the apples” (3) kroc’hen an avaloù skin the apples “(the) skin (of) the apples” (4) debriñ an avaloù to-eat the apples “to eat the apples” (5) Buan e tebr an avaloù. rapidly r2 he.eat the apples “He eats rapidly the apples.”
Noun head and its DP theme
Noun head and its DP possessor
Infinitive
Tensed verb
The morphology of the internal arguments is identical in all cases because Breton does not show overt Case morphology on non-pronominals. One standard account of such data is that there are simply two null cases, an accusative, which is assigned in verbal contexts, and the other, a genitive, assigned within DPs. However, when we look at pronominal objects, we find that freestanding object pronouns are illicit in a post-verbal position. In (4) and (5), the post-verbal lexical DP appears with abstract direct case3 whereas its pronominal counterpart in (6) is ungrammatical. (6) Herve a zebr *int. Herve r eat *3.pl “Herve eats them.” This is unsurprising if we consider the typical properties of full pronouns vs. clitics in VSO languages (see Roberts & Shlonsky 1996 for discussion). Freestanding pronouns in Breton occur only in focus positions: (7) Int (an hini eo) a zebr Herve. 3.pl (the one it is) r eats Herve “(It is) them (that) Herve eats.” The post-verbal position in (6) is simply not associated with focus. The paradigm in (8)–(10) confirms that no post-head allows freestanding pronouns. (8) (an) distruj *int destruction 3.pl “their destruction”
Noun head and its DP theme
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(9) (ar) groc’henn *int (the) skin 3.pl “their color” (10) debriñ *int to-eat 3.pl “to eat them”
Noun head and its DP possessor
Infinitive
Consider now how non-focused object pronouns surface. The object pronoun appears either pre-verbally as a proclitic (11) or is incorporated into a preposition4 as in (12). (11) Herve o debr. Herve 3.pl eat “Herve eats them.” (12) Herve a zebr anez-ho. Herve r eat P-3.pl “Herve eats them.” There are two things to note about the prepositional alternative. First neither partitive reading nor aspectual difference are found with the preposition. The inflected preposition in (12) is available for the entire paradigm and is completely semantically equivalent to the proclitic. Because of this, I assume that the preposition is present exclusively for Case assignment purposes. As shown in (13), when there is an obligatory focus position for an object (topicalization or clefting), the prepositional alternative is illicit, pointing again toward the P as a last resort Case assignment strategy. (13) *Anezho (an hini eo) a zebr Herve. *P-3.pl (the one it is) r eats Herve “(It is) them (that) Herve eats.” In the DP system where no acc is present anyway, the pronominal internal argument of a noun needs the same Case assigner to be inserted, as illustrated in (14)–(16). (14) an distruj anez-hi the destruction P-3.sg.fem “its/her destruction” (15) an tal anez-hi the forehead P-3.sg.fem “her forehead”
Noun head and its DP theme
Noun head and its DP possessor
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(16) debriñ anez-hi to.eat P-3.sg.fem “to eat it (*of it)”
Infinitive
The only way to maintain the acc hypothesis would be to assume that the inflected preposition is reanalyzed in Modern Breton as the morpho-phonological realization of accusative Case in a split-accusative system as has been proposed for Hebrew or Turkish (Falk 1997). This hypothesis would face two major problems. First, it would not be easy to derive the ban against an accusative object from appearing in the preverbal position, as shown in (13). Second, the distribution of accusative in split accusative systems is grounded on semantic differences such as [±definite] for Hebrew or [±specific] for Turkish. (17) ra’iti yeled. saw.1.sg child “I saw a child.” (18) ra’iti et Gabi. saw.1.sg acc Gabi “I saw Gabi.” (19) Hasan öküz-ü aldi. Hasan ox-acc bought “Hasan bought the ox.”
Hebrew
(Falk 1997) Turkish
(20) Hasan bir öküz aldi. Hasan a ox bought “Hasan bought an ox.” (non-specific) In Breton, all semantic types of post-verbal object pronouns appear with the preposition.5 All these arguments suggest that the acc hypothesis should be abandoned. As in the closely related language of Welsh (Rouveret 1994), object pronouns show the same morphology as possessive pronouns.6 In Breton, whenever case is morphologically realized on the object in a verbal system, this case is identical to the case of possessive pronouns as illustrated in (21)–(24). (21) o distruj “their destruction” (22) o dal “their forehead” (23) o debriñ their to.eat “to eat them”
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(24) Alies o debr Yann. often their eat Yann “Yann eats them often.” This holds true for the entire paradigm. The different mutations triggered by the possessive pronouns on their nouns are all identical to those triggered by the object proclitics on their verbs. I generalize the genitive hypothesis to object lexical DPs and assume that the case distributed to lexical object DPs is genitive too. When the pronoun incorporates into the functional head; it surfaces with genitive as in (25). (25) a.
Nouns
DP D’ NP
[D] proi.
N’
ti N
b.
Verbs
vP v’ v [D] proi.
VP V’
ti V
In the alternative prepositional construction, a P is inserted to license the pronoun. (26) a.
Nouns
DP D’ D [D]
NP N’ N
PP
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b.
vP v’ VP
v [D]
V’ V
PP
. Case assignment to object DPs by construct state The construct state is typically analyzed as the result of N to D head movement (Guilfoyle 1988; Ritter 1988; Mohammad 1988; Duffield 1995, 1996; Longobardi 1996; Roberts forthcoming; Borer 1999). The interpretable [D] feature on v is responsible for case assignment of the object, just as a D is in a nominal system. In the same fashion N moves to its functional D head, Case licensing its internal argument, V moves to its functional head v with an interpretable [D] feature, Case licensing its internal argument as in (27). (27) a.
DP D’ NP
Ni DPposs
N’ ti
b.
vP v’ vVi
VP DPtheme
V’ ti
In the classic account, raising of N to D yields [N DPposs ] order. Case assignment to the DPposs appears under government from the moved nominal head into the D
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projection. In my extension of the classic account, raising to v yields [V DPtheme ] order and Case assignment to the theme happens under government from the vV complex verb. This has one important theoretical implication: it undermines a phonological approach of the construct state as proposed by Siloni (2000). The [N DPposs ] adjacency in the construct state becomes a purely accidental fact. Nothing attracts the nominal head out of the DP, and by contrast, the vV head is attracted into T in tensed clauses. The nominal head is simply never attracted out of the DP domain and remains adjacent to its internal argument. In the verbal system, however, the V head in v in (27b) will raise further into T. As seen in (28), intervening material like the subject appears linearly between the verbal head and the object it checks case with. (28) Bemdez e tourevV Anngaelle [vP tvV ma louzoù] everyday r water.3.sg Anngaelle my plants “Anngaelle watered my plants everyday.” The construct state is a Case assignment strategy for both N and V in the course of the derivation as long as the relevant functional projection has interpretable [D] features. Linear adjacency in a construct state configuration arises only when the elements remain in the construct state configuration and are not further derived.
. vPs like DPs show Case filter effects The second implication of the interpretability of the [D] feature on v in Breton is that if the D head of a DP is taken to be responsible for the case filter effects of DPs, then the [D] feature on v means that vPs should also receive case. In this section, I demonstrate that this predicts the distribution of preverbal prepositions. The preposition da is a case assigner. This preposition is always illicit when vPs already have their case feature checked. In the examples in (29) and (30) below, the vP occurs in subject position, where DPs canonically receive case. The examples in (31) and (32) show a construct state whose head is respectively nominal and verbal. As expected, the insertion of the preposition is consequently illicit in all cases. (29) (*da) [vP lipat skorn buan] ‘vez start. (*P) to.leak ice rapidly is hard “It is hard to leak ice rapidly.” (30) Fellout a ra din (*da) [vP kanañ gant Kristen]. please r does to-me (*P) to-sing with Kristen litt: “singing with Kristen pleases to me.”, “I feel like singing with Kristen.”
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(31) ur c’hlask (*da) [vP kompren] a research (*P) to-understand “a research of understanding.” (32) Gwelloc’h ‘vez klask (*da) [vP kompren]. better r is search (*P) to-understand “It is better to try to understand.” A prepositional Case-assigning projection appears only as a last resort as in (33): (33) Start ‘vez ar skorn *(da) lipat buan. hard is the ice *(P) to-leak rapidly The fact that non-finite verbs in Breton show Case filter effects is not terribly surprising given the traditional “verbal noun” characterization of non-finite forms in Celtic. In order to account for tensed verbs, which are not typically analyzed as “verbal nouns”, I claim that in finite clauses, the Case Filter requirement of v is met by incorporation into T. If for some reason, the v fails to incorporate into T, only the insertion of a preposition can rescue the derivation. The facts are particularly clear in the case of ECM structures. In (34), case has been assigned by the past participle lakaet to its vP object in a construct state configuration before moving further into the pre-verbal position. The last resort preposition is illicit. But if the Case provided by construct state is absorbed by either Yann in (35) or un ti in (36), then da is required. (34) Lakaeti em eus ti (*da) [vP sevel un ti]. put I have (*P) to-build a house “I had a house built.” (35) Lakaeti em eus ti Yann *(da) [vP sevel un ti]. put I have Yann *(P) to-build a house “I had Yann build a house.” (lit. “I have put Yann to build a house.”) (36) Lakaeti em eus ti un ti *(da) [vP sevel]. put I have a house *(P) to-build “I had a house built.” Contrast the examples in (32) to (36) with the behavior of English or French ECM infinitives, which do not need to receive case and therefore do not show such variation. I take this as evidence that vPs need case in Breton just as DPs do.
. Raising structures, Clitic Left Dislocation and related problems One apparent problem, pointed out to me by an anonymous reviewer, seems to hold with infinitives embedded under raising verbs as in (37).
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(37) Monai a hañval Yann [vP komz anezhii ]. Mona r seems Yann to.talk P.3.sg.f “Yann seems to be talking about Mona.” No Case-assigning preposition is licensed and the three nominal elements boldfaced here seem to be in the direct case. In an analysis where ‘Mona’ has raised from the object position of the preposition and consequently absorbs the nominative, only one Case should remain available to the two post-verbal nominal elements, shedding doubt on the need of the vP structure to get Case. Notice first that, under typical assumptions of the Binding Theory, the licit pronoun in (37) is likely to be bound by ‘Mona’ from an A-bar position. Contrast this with (38) where the preverbal element is in an A position and consequently cannot corefer with the IP internal pronoun. (38) Monai a hañval *(da) Yann [vP komz anezhij/*i ]. Mona r seems to Yann to-talk P-3.sg.fem “Mona seems to Yann to be talking about her.” The example in (38) is thus more representative of a canonical raising construction into an A position. Notice that the insertion of a preposition is obligatory. I argue that (38) is an instantiation of real raising, in contrast to (37) which is an example of binding from an A-bar position as in (39). (39) Monai a zebr hei c’hoar kaviar bemdez. Mona r eat her sister caviar everyday “(As for) Mona, her sister eats caviar everyday.”
. vPs bear interpretable underspecified φ-features7 Consistent with the idea that vPs have interpretable [D] features, I claim they bear interpretable φ-features. Like other nominal elements (e.g. expletives, nominalizations, and clauses), vPs lack semantic φ-features, and like them, their inherent φ default value is 3.sg. Consequently, they can enter into an agreement relation with the probe in T, exactly as a DP subject would. As mentioned above, Breton is subject to the typical Celtic restriction, whereby there is complementary distribution of overt DPs and agreement morphology on Infl (see McCloskey & Hale 1984; Doron 1988 for discussion of the related phenomenon in Irish). Either we get a null DP subject and rich morphology on the verb as in (40), or we get the DP subject and poor morphology on the verb as in (41).8
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(40) Gant o mamm e karf-ent/*e bezañ. with their mother r would.love-3.pl/*3.sg be “They would like to be with their mother.” (41) Gant o mamm e karf-e/*ent Azenor ha Iona bezañ. with their mother r would.love-3.sg/*3.pl Azenor and Iona be “Azenor and Iona would like to be with their mother.” This holds true with preverbal subjects also (with both A or A-bar readings).9 (42) Azenor ha Iona a garfe/*ent bezañ gant o mamm. Azenor and Iona r would-love-3.sg/*3.pl be with their mother “(it is) Azenor and Iona (who) would like to be with their mother.” Notice that (41) and (42) take default 3.sg morphology. The agreement pattern illustrated here is absolutely regular in the language, with one major exception: The verb have stands out amidst such complete regularity. In (43) we see that no matter where the subject is located, have shows up with the features of the lexical DP possessor. We return to this exception below. (43) Bremañ (Azenor ha Iona) o deus (Azenor ha Iona) un ti. now (Azenor ha Iona) 3.pl have (Azenor ha Iona) a house “Azenor and Iona have a house now.” Two main lines of analysis have been explored so far for agreement patterns in Breton, those two lines being organized around a traditional opposition between incorporation and agreement. Anderson (1982) claims that the rich morphology is the spell-out of incorporated pronominal subjects. In this view, the complementarity is predicted by the θ-criterion; that is, we never see rich morphology together with a full lexical DP just because we cannot have two agent NPs in a sentence. This elegantly reduces the differences in agreement patterns between pronominal and lexical subjects to the fact that lexical DPs, in contrast to pronouns, cannot incorporate. In minimalist terms, we can recast this as the lack of a probe in T. The 3.sg marking of in (41) and (42) is accidental. Needless to say, the exceptional pattern of have is a problem for this kind of account. The other usual approach to complementarity is the kind found in Stump (1984, 1989); see also McCloskey and Hale (1984) for Irish. On this view, the rich morphology of inflection is always the result of an agreement relation with pro. Complementarity occurs because agreement has to govern an empty position. In Minimalist terms, Breton has a probe in T like other null-subject languages. The difference for Breton is that this probe needs to govern an empty category. I set aside the theoretical implications this would have for our understanding of probes,
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turning to the predictions it makes: again neither the facts of have nor the fact that the default morphology is 3.sg are accounted for. The idea that there is always a probe in T looking for φ-features to agree with, as found in a Stump-style analysis, is retained. From the incorporation analysis, I keep the idea that the parameter distinguishing lexical DPs from pronouns is the ability of the latter to incorporate. Pronominal subjects incorporate and agree with the φ-probe in T. Lexical subjects on the other hand never incorporate and are blocked from agreeing with the probe in T by the intervening φ-features of v. This reduces agreement complementarity to a Relativized Minimality effect (Rizzi 1990, 2004). The selection of the φ-features that the probe will agree with is entirely predicted by locality. This is illustrated in (44) below where the φ-probe in T tracks the closest set of φ-features. (44)
TP T’ [T –ö] X
[vP +ö] Y Z
The [–φ] probe in T looks first at the internal position X in case something has incorporated into it, then at its sister in position Y, and finally at the specifier of vP (Z). Apart from the assumption that v bears interpretable φ-features (3.sg), we need only to assume that the φ-features of v percolate to the maximal projection. Recall that freestanding pronouns are only licit under focus. When the subject is pro as in (45), it needs to pass the Case filter and incorporates under T. An incorporated pro in the position X in the locality diagram in (44) will always be the closest [+φ] set for the probe –φ in T.
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(45)
TP T’ vP+ö [Tpro] –ö+ö (pro) v’ vV[+D] +ö
VP V’ V
The rich morphology in (41) results from both the incorporation of a pronominal subject and the agreement with it. By contrast, lexical DP subjects cannot incorporate and will never reach position X in (44); they remain in Z. The maximal projection of vP, bearing interpretable φ-features dominates it, and consequently counts as closer to T. As illustrated in (46), the φ-features in T agree with the projected φ-features of v (found on vP). (46)
TP T’ [T] –ö
vP +ö[3.]
DP +ö[3.]
v’
vV +ö[3.]
VP V’ V
The so-called poor morphology spells out an agreement relation with the φfeatures of vP. This pattern thus also reduces to a Relativized Minimality effect, whereby the maximal projection of v intervenes between T and the specifier of vP in languages where v is nominal and has φ-features. Agreement is allowed with pro, because pro-incorporation into T brings pro close enough to the φ-probe of T such that vP does not intervene.
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Our analysis predicts that a lexical DP subject and agreement rich morphology can be found together only in cases where the subject is merged or moved higher than the vP. Turning now to the exceptional behavior of have: Recall that have always agrees with its subject, and shows no complementarity. The example in (42) is repeated here as (47). (47) Bremañ (Azenor ha Iona) o deus (Azenor ha Iona) un ti. now (Azenor ha Iona) 3.pl have (Azenor ha Iona) un ti “Azenor and Iona have a house now.” Under a prepositional analysis of have (Freeze 1992; Kayne 1993; Schafer 1994 for Breton), the argument DP in the specifier of PP is interpreted as the possessor for lexical have, and as a lexical argument for auxiliary have. This is illustrated in (48) for the auxiliary form of have: (48)
TP T’ PP [P+T] –ö closest probe-goal relation DPSubject P’ +ö P
VP +ö VP
Both auxiliary and lexical have differ from other verbs in that the closest set of φ-features the probe in T will encounter are those of the DP in the specifier of the preposition in (48). The maximal projection PP does not trigger any Relativized Minimality effects because (in contrast to v) prepositions do not bear interpretable φ-features (see Jouitteau & Rezac forthcoming for detailed discussion). v and its features are buried within the prepositional structure and thus never intervene for agreement between T and the specifier of PP. Therefore, we predict that have, as headed by a preposition, does not induce any Relativized Minimality effects; deriving the fact that have in Breton is the only verb that does not express complementarity in agreement.
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. Conclusion The clustering of three typological properties that are instantiated in Celtic languages has been shown to follow from the same parameter at least in Breton: (i) complementarity in the verbal agreement system; (ii) licensing of a genitive dependent by construct state; (iii) a verbal construction whose object bears genitive (iii). These properties were made to follow from the interpretable status of [D] features on v. We looked at internal parallels between the DP and vP systems: Infinitives and tensed verbs case license their internal arguments in the same way nouns do, that is by construct state.10 The presence of φ-features on vPs in combination with the particular requirement of pro-drop in Breton predicts the complementarity in the verbal agreement system. There are of course some problems in extending this analysis to other languages that exhibit complementarity and nominal properties of non-finite verbs. For example, in Irish and Scots Gaelic, tensed verbs and infinitives can assign direct Case to their objects (Adger 1996; Carnie 1995: 79–109; Doyle 2002: 89.) However, these cases all involve a VO ∼ OV word order alternation, which is not available in Breton. Further research needs to be done to check whether the proposal sketched here could be followed or adapted for a deeper understanding of typological regularities among other verb-initial languages.
Notes * This article benefited from questions and comments of the audiences of the Syntax Seminar in Naoned/Nantes, the Workshop On Verb-Initial Languages, Tucson, Arizona and the Syntax Project at the U. of Toronto. I had the great chance to discuss different stages of this work with Alain Rouveret, Klaus Abels, Hagit Borer, Gennaro Chierchia, Alain Kihm, Diane Massam, Ad Neeleman, Javier Ormazabal, Gillian Ramchand and Koldo Sainz. I thank Milan Rezac, Eric Mathieu and Tom Leu. Above all, I thank my supervisor Hamida Demirdache for her patience and joy in teaching me how to play syntax. Finally, I thank the editorial group of this volume and two anonymous reviewers. Of course, all errors are mine. . Unaccusatives and passives need a similar account. Either the v head is projected in unaccusatives and passives, as proposed by Harley (1995) or Bowers (2002), or no v is projected but these structures are contained small clauses that have an interpretable [D] feature as well. Significantly, in Breton, unaccusatives and passives fail to assign genitive by Construct state. Notice that in the small clause hypothesis, the argument is generated in the specifier of the small clause – that is, higher than the [D] feature. No movement into the head of the small clause can thus license genitive on the argument (see Jouitteau & Rezac forthcoming for discussion). . Preverbal particles are noted r for rannig-verb, the traditional Brythonic terminology meaning literally ‘little piece of a verb’. Preverbal particles form a constituent with the in-
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flected verb (they can be dropped in modern Breton and only remain interpretable by the consonant mutation they trigger on the following verb). They have to be distinguished from matrix particles (Prt) that trigger V1 orders (Jouitteau in preparation). . The term ‘direct case’ refers to nominative and accusative in contrast to the various ‘oblique cases’. . The prepositional alternative in (12) is a recent innovation in the language. Kervella (1947: §428) refers to the inflected preposition as “very long, heavy and ugly” in comparison with the cliticization option. However, the prepositional alternative is now the most common form. . As pointed out to me by Thomas Leu and an anonymous reviewer, Swiss German, English or French show overt case morphology on pronouns, but not on lexical DPs. It is also possible that pronouns receive case in a manner different from lexical DPs. If so, the last argument is vacuous. . There are similar alternations in both Scottish Gaelic and Irish (Adger 1996; Doyle 2002). . This section is based on collaborative work with Milan Rezac (Jouitteau & Rezac forthcoming). . I am setting aside pre-negation subjects, which co-occur with full agreement. See Schafer (1995) or Jouitteau (forthcoming) for an explanation of agreement with pre-negation subjects. . See Jouitteau (forthcoming), Rezac (2003) for analyses of movement in Breton to the pre-verbal position. . Notice, however, that this analysis does not mean that the Breton verb is a noun or verbal noun, as it is traditionally described. The structure proposed is not that of a DP; all the nominal behaviors of the verbal structure have been reduced to the interpretability of a [D] feature the vP structure. The fact that the [D] feature on the v head is interpretable in this language does not change the ability of v to select an external argument, nor does it imply that its internal argument should be an NP as opposed to a VP. In this, I follow Stephens (1982), McCloskey (1983) and Sproat (1985) observing among other things that external arguments are obligatory with the verbs but not within real nominals, and that the possessive of real derived nominals can be either logical subject or object.
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On the parallelism of DPs and clauses Evidence from Kisongo Maasai* Hilda Koopman UCLA
Maasai is a VSO order language with strong parallels between DPs and CPs. Starting from the idea that Maasai DPs are relative clause structures [D CP] (Koopman 2000), this paper evaluates the claim that the parallelism is due to the shared CP structure and derivations. This paper maps out several areas of the syntax of Maasai, and compares these in nominal and clausal environments. Differences between clauses and DPs will be shown to follow from other independently motivated causes.
.
Introduction
There are well-known typological word order correlations between clauses and DPs, with clausal VS(O) order correlating with nominal NS(O) order (and – less strongly – with NA order).1 These correlations can be illustrated for Kisongo Maasai, an Eastern Nilotic language with strict VSO and Dem N Num A word order: (1) 7GtíakGtá ilpáyaní alayénì m7kw¢7ta. 3.tell.appl.pl.past pl.masc.men.nom masc.sg.boy.acc 3subj.run “The men told the boy to run.” (2) oldíá láàlayôk dog.masc.sg.nom pl.masc.boy.acc “The boys’ dog”, “a dog of the boys”, “a dog of some boys.” (3) kùndâ m¢7sai àré sìdân pl.fem.that table.fem.pl.acc fem.pl.two.acc nice.pl.acc “those two nice tables” Within the standard view of verb initial languages, these correlations are supposed to be captured by the fact that head movement of V and N targets landing sites higher than the subject or the possessor within the appropriate CP or DP projec-
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tions (Valois 1991, among others). However, the correlations do not in fact follow from the theory. For example, there is no theory internal reason as to why the presence of an EPP feature on C should correlate with the presence of an EPP feature on D. This view therefore leads to the conclusion either that the correlations must be accidental, or if they are not, that they must follow from some theoretical principle that at this point remains to be understood. In this paper, I pursue the idea that these strong correlations can indeed find some principled theoretical explanation, given a proper understanding of the structure and derivations of DPs. More specifically, I claim that DPs and CPs share identical substructure. In Koopman (forthcoming a, 2003), I argued that DPs in Maasai (and universally) are relative clauses.2 This proposal generalizes Kayne’s (1994) proposal for relative clauses and post nominal possessor constructions to all DPs. Koopman (forthcoming a, 2003) further provides a unified account of linear order, agreement patterns, surface constituencies of various kinds of DPs. This analysis puts the DP/CP parallelism in a quite different light. Indeed, since every DP contains a CP structure, the parallelism may be due simply to the shared CP structure. Where the parallelism breaks down, those parts of the structure must vary independently. This paper takes a first step towards the evaluation of this hypothesis for Kisongo Maasai, which will lead to an investigation of a number of properties of the clausal syntax of Kisongo Maasai.
. Maasai DPs headed by a common noun are relative clauses In Koopman (forthcoming a, 2003), I propose that DPs headed by a common noun in Maasai are never [D NP] structures but instead are always relative clauses, i.e. [D CP] structures, containing a small clause nominal predicate. This analysis was initially inspired by the morphosyntax of the Maasai noun, and the complex asymmetric agreement patterns found within the Maasai DP. In a nutshell, it appears that the Maasai “noun” spells out both the nominal predicate and the subject of the small clause (i.e. the external argument of the nominal predicate – which in English corresponds to a silent category). The nominal predicate and the subject of the small clause distribute as two independent syntactic constituents, thus providing particular insight into the structural make-up of DPs and DP internal derivations. The remainder of this section provides some relevant background information, spelling out the basic structure of DPs and discussing the DP internal derivations for DPs headed by common nouns. Maasai common nouns, alayéni ‘boy’, ilayóok ‘boys’, oldíà ‘dog’, or ¢7nk7rái ‘child’, contain four “overt” segments, as well as a tonal melody that spells out Case (nominative versus non-nominative). What superficially looks like a mor-
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phological complex noun consists of at least two separate syntactic constituents. The leftmost part, which I will refer to as ol,3 shows a complex agreement pattern with the structural part that carries the number suffix and the case morphology. (4)
o l num.gen gen
ayé ni [Case N num]
The two parts are separated by demonstrative roots, a set of adverbs that occur both in clauses and DPs and the quantifier ‘other’.4 (5) ol (Dem) (Adv) (other) [ayé-ni] The set of adverbs is listed (6): (6) náají òwí dúó ]ólé naári ápá
‘mentioned a few hours ago’ ‘usual’ ‘mentioned this morning’ ‘yesterday’ ‘sometime ago’ ‘long time ago, then’
(Tucker & Mpaayei 1955: 18)
These adverbs play an important role throughout this paper, since they occur in similar positions in both CPs and DPs. All other dependents of the N must follow the nominal predicate ayeni. In Koopman (forthcoming a, 2003), I argue that ol originates deep inside the noun phrase and raises into the CP and DP region. More specifically, the form in (4) derives from a relative clause structure which contains a nominal predicate ayeni ‘boy’ and its external argument ol,5 embedded under a (silent) copula, be. For the purpose of this paper, it is sufficient to think of ol as some kind of A-bar pronoun that agrees with the nominal predicate (“which a boy is / who is a boy”): (7) [DP D [CP C [IP I [beP be [ol [ ayeni]] Since ol spells-out a basic part of every nominal small clause, we can understand a curious fact about the distribution of ol: It must occur in a wide variety of DPs headed by common nouns (citation forms, predicative forms, generics, indefinites, definites, synthetic compounds). As (7) illustrates, be projects beP, a projection that has the characteristics of be, except it lacks the category feature V, and a phonological matrix.6 BeP itself is embedded in an IP and a CP, which is the complement of D, and which attracts ol and the beP. The surface constituency in (5) is derived as follows: Predicate inversion (Moro 1997) moves the nominal predicate into specifier of be (8a). The predicate NP will be attracted by Case or the EPP and raise to the specifier of IP (8b), raising through the specifier positions of Numeral phrases and AdjPs if they are present.
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As a consequence of this derivation, these line up in the merged hierarchical order Num>AdjP (Cinque 2000). Since the NP has passed through the relevant specifiers, it triggers agreement on these Num and Adj elements. Next, the remnant beP fronts into the CP region (8c).7 Depending on the type of D, the constituent containing ol possibly moves from CP to the specifier of DP (8d). Adverbs occur between the landing site for the fronted predicate and the IP internal subject (8d). (8)
(9) PF: /olayeni/ → alayeni LF: ∼ which is a boy, the x such that x is a boy Note that these derivations do not involve any head movement; head movement simply has no role to play at any point in these particular derivations. As we can see in this derivation, both the beP containing ol and the NP ayeni end up in separate positions high within the DP. This is empirically supported by the fact that beP is separated from the NP ayeni the adverbial material listed in (6). Differences between types of DPs follow from the type of predicate the IP contains. DPs headed by common nouns contain a nominal small clause, possessor constructions a possessive small clause, relative clauses a full verbal projection. For reasons of space, I will not be able to show this in the present article and refer the reader to Koopman (2003) where a unified analysis of ‘simple’ DPs, possessive DPs and relative clauses is presented, and where I show the empirical inadequacy of a more traditional head movement account for Maasai.8
. On the expected parallelism of DPs and clauses Given the analysis of DPs outlined in the previous section, we might expect to find parallels with clauses where we have the same type of predicate and internal CP structure. That is, we expect predicate fronting to the CP region to take place in clauses, yielding basic predicate initial order, with the predicate preceding adverbs. We expect to find general parallelism with respect to NP movement: if NP movement is obligatory in nominal IPs for case theoretical reasons, it should hold true
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for clauses as well. Furthermore, predicate inversion is expected to apply in the presence of be. Finally, the strongest parallelism should obtain with cases that are structurally the closest, i.e. clauses that contain predicate nominals. First we introduce some general properties of Maasai clauses; then we go on to consider those parallels.
. Maasai clauses Let us first examine some broad properties of the clausal structure of Maasai. Maasai is a rigid VSO word order language: résóI alayéni m7kwétà. (10) medj ókì neg.3sg.say.appl Resoi.nom ol-boy.acc subj-3sg-run “Resoi will not tell the boy to run.” (11) aadj ókì (résóI) (nan~) makwétà. 3sg.1obj.tell.appl Resoi.nom me subj.1sg.run “Resoi tells/will tell me to run.” What is referred to as ‘V’ in the VSO order turns out to be a highly complex structure. It consists minimally of a subject clitic (or fused subject/object clitic), a verbal root, augmented with the appropriate prefixes and suffixes which are dependent on verb class, tense and aspect, argument structure, voice, and features of the subject. The complex is preceded by negation, and forms a phonological domain for the purposes of ATR vowel harmony.9 See Tucker and Mpaayei (1955) and Rasmussen (2002) for a recent description of the template for the verbal morphology. Lexical and pronominal DPs may double subject or object clitics, and may be dropped. DPs are marked for Case. Case shows up on the constituent in the specifier of IP and is expressed as tonal morphemes (Tucker & Mpaayei 1955).10 The subject of a tensed clause carries nominative case, as do objects of the only preposition in Maasai (t-). The latter is immediately followed by an agreement morpheme that agrees with the prepositional object in number and gender (12a & b). (12) a.
t7ndìtó t- 77ndito for- agr.sg- sg.fem.girl.nom “for the girl” b. tòóndóyè tooindoye for- agr.pl.nom- pl.fem.girl.nom “for the girls”
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Accusative case appears on citation forms, predicate nominals, indefinite objects, definite objects and possessors. The unmarked word order is VSO+CP/PP. OS order is possible as well, depending on the information structure (Payne, Hamaya & Jacobs 1994). Non-verbal predicates are also initial: ¡7nâ. sìdâi nice.acc this.nom “This is nice.” b. armálímúí n¢Gn¯ ¡7. sg.masc.teacher.acc he.nom “He is a teacher”
(13) a.
Clauses with non-verbal predication cannot contain pronominal clitics, perfective marking, future marking, passive marking, subject agreement, reflexive, middle or directional marking; these elements belong to the verbal spine, so they cannot occur in clauses with non-verbal predicates. This immediately accounts for one major difference between clauses and DPs.11 Based on DP internal derivations, the subject is expected to raise at least to the specifier of IP, and the finite verb is expected to raise high into the C domain, to a position where it precedes the high adverbs (6). Nominative subjects in Maasai follow the finite predicate but precede other selected predicates: (14) áa-Gtíaka aláyeni m7-á-rány 3sg.1obj-tell.appl.past sg.masc.boy.nom subj-1sg-sing “The boy told me to sing.” It is not easy to determine where exactly the nominative subject DP is at spell-out. Phonologically, there often seems to be some kind of a phrasal boundary after the predicate. Maasai is a pro-drop language, so pronominal DPs are typically silent although they may be overt with an emphatic reading. In that case, they follow the predicate and carry nominative case. The linear string is compatible with either an analysis where the nominative DP remains in its merged position (i.e. vP/VP internally), or where it would have raised into the TP region. These options are represented below (TP below is used as a shorthand for a much richer TP region): (15) a. [TP T . . . [vP DPnom . . . b. [TP DPnom T . . . [vP . . . (15a) is often the structure that is claimed for VSO languages (Koopman & Sportiche 1991).12 Which of these options is correct has further consequences for the surface position of the verbal predicate. In particular, if (15b) turns out to be correct, the landing site for the predicate must be higher than TP. Many standard diagnostics for the position of subjects are inconclusive for Maasai. Negation precedes the verbal predicate, and therefore yields no information about the relative
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height with respect to the position of the subject. Indefinite and definite subjects have the same form, and finer diagnostics that could reveal further distinctions have not been explored at this point. Quantifiers follow the head noun in the DP but it is unclear if quantifiers can float in Maasai. There are very few genuine adverbs in Maasai, and a subset of these must appear between the fronted predicate and the nominative subject; others have a wider distribution. Certain adverbs may intervene between the nominative subject and the complement clause. This is consistent with the fact that the nominative subject can topicalize but by itself not informative about the nominative case position.13 Fortunately, if we consider raising predicates, we can construct an argument that shows that subjects must raise from their merged positions, that is, nominative subjects are not vP or VP internal. Many of the heads corresponding to adverbs or bound morphemes in Cinque (1999) show up as verbs in Maasai. Furthermore, they are restructuring predicates, as can be concluded from the fact that clitics ‘climb’ onto the finite verb (ki- in the following example expresses 2nd person singular subject and the first person object of the infinitival verb.) (16) kisióki (iyé) aanáp. kisioki iye aanap 2sg.1obj soon you.nom inf.sg carry “You will carry me soon.” (17) k¢Gta]asá áàpwò. ki-ta-]asa aa-pwo we-past-first inf.pl-go “We first went there (and then we . . . ).” (18) áidim tórét aatanápa iyé. aaidim Toret aa-ta-nap-a iye 3sg.2obj be.able toret.nom infl.sg-subj.carry.subj you.acc “Toret will be able to carry you soon.” Since some of these predicates are clearly raising predicates, we can test if the subject raises from its initial merge position or not by further embedding these structures. As the following examples show,14 nominative subjects must obligatorily follow the tensed predicate and therefore do not appear to remain in-situ: (19) 7¢Gdìm Gláyok á¡Ggíla áàtarany. 3.be.able. pl.masc.boys.nom infl.pl.repeat inf.pl.sing “The boys will be able to sing again.” (20) k¢Gnd¡Gm tórét aatasíokí aatanáp. 3sg.2obj.be.able Toret infl.sg.soon inf.sg.carry “Toret will be able to carry you soon.”
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While the examples above could be taken to be control structures, the following example clearly involves raising of the subject (replacing the name with an indefinite like oltugani “person, someone” does not change the form of the sentence): (21) áasióki tórét aGgila aataranika 3sg.2obj.soon Toret inf.sg.repeat inf.sg.subj.sing.appl “Toret will soon sing for you again.” Cinque (2001) argues that predicates that induce overt restructuring have been directly merged in the corresponding functional head, and lack argument structure. If this is correct, all restructuring predicates that trigger clitic climbing can be used to show that the nominative subject must raise into the tensed clause, regardless of whether the predicates are raising or control. The data so far show that nominative DPs must raise from their merged positions in Maasai. We still need to determine where exactly the nominative DP occurs. It seems to me that the null hypothesis in the current theory really is that if nominatives are forced to move high into the tensed clause, they must do so because there is a position that has an EPP feature forcing the movement. Otherwise, they should remain lower and satisfy Case through Agree, with intermediate heads showing agreement, as often assumed for Icelandic. Although I have not demonstrated unambiguously that the nominative DP must be outside the highest infinitival complement, I conclude that nominative subjects in Maasai are forced to raise to the specifier of TP for case checking. This analysis is furthermore consistent with the existence of expletive clitics and agreement patterns, clitic doubling and topic drop, as discussed in the next section. In sum then, NP movement to a position higher than adjectives or the functional projections hosting restructuring predicate occurs both in clauses and in DPs. This is consistent with the relative clause analysis of DPs. The following section examines the same problem from a slightly different angle, and reaches the same conclusion: Maasai nominative subjects must raise out of the vP/VP.
. The complex verb, agreement and the nominative subject In this section, we consider the problem of the distribution of the subject from the following angle: What, if anything, can we learn from the internal structure of the fronted verbal predicate about the distribution of subjects. Recall that the verbal predicate shows both an obligatory subject clitic (or a fused subject/object clitic) and subject agreement, and forms a phonological constituent with them: (22) [(neg) Subj-cl Obj-cl [[.. V..] AgrS]]] . . . DPNOM
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If agreement is strictly triggered in a specifier-head configuration, and Agree is not available (Koopman forthcoming a, 2003), the nominative subject must have raised through a local specifier position triggering Agr on V, and then to a higher clitic position. This leaves the problem how the complex-verb ends up preceding the nominative subject. If right adjunction is disallowed (Kayne 1994), the verbal complex cannot have been formed by head movement, and thus should not show head-like behavior. The verbal complex must therefore have moved as a remnant phrase, which in turn means that the nominative subject must be outside of this phrase. Thus, the DP subject must have raised higher than AgrS and the projection that contains the subject clitic, Subj-cl, presumably to some low Topic position, and the italicized sequence must have moved higher than Topic into the left periphery:15 (23)
(Definite) objects will be forced to move through the object clitic position into the left periphery as well. Movement to the Topic position obeys the order of the hierarchical merger: the linear order must be SO if the “informational” content of both subject and object is the same (the order may differ if they have different informational status). Since the complex verbal predicate precedes the nominative DP, it must have raised beyond it to some position higher than Topics, raising questions about the fine structure of the left periphery, which will be addressed in below. As repeatedly stated, Maasai subjects and objects can be freely dropped, a characteristic property of pronominal argument languages (Jelinek 1984). If nominative and accusative DPs are indeed in a Topic position, probably Rizzi’s (1997) low Topic position, subject and object pro-drop in Maasai might be closer to Topic-drop than previously thought. As is well known from the Germanic literature, Topic drop is only possible if the verb raises into the left periphery, which it obviously does in Maasai. Maasai differs from Germanic, however, in that it allows multiple topics and multiple topic drop, regardless of whether the DP is realized as a clitic or not. In sum, raising of the nominative DP and fronting of the verbal predicate into the left periphery are forced under the theory of agreement adopted here, and can be deduced from a simple examination of the structure of the complex verb. Distributional criteria converge: nominative DPs raise at least to a case checking position in tensed clauses, and can further raise to a low Topic position in the left periphery. High adverbs occur higher than the low Topic position, between the site that hosts the predicate and the topic. The double agreement on the complex verb can be straightforwardly accounted for by the fact that subjects raise to such high positions. All agreement in Maasai is a reflection of an overt specifier-head relation at some point in the derivation.
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. The position of the verbal predicate in the left periphery We have yet to determined the final landing position of verbal predicates. In a series of papers on the fine structure of the left periphery, Rizzi arrives at the following fine structure of the left periphery structure (Mod stands for Modifier, basically a position for fronted adverbs) (Rizzi 1997, 1999, 2004). (24) Force Top* Int Top* Focus Mod* Top* Fin IP
(Rizzi 2004: 60)
We take (24) to approximate the structure UG makes available for the left periphery, and use it to guide our exploration of the left periphery in Maasai. If nominatives DPs are in Top, as we argued in the previous section, the verbal predicate cannot be in Fin at spell-out since all potential Topic positions occur to the left of Fin. This is supported by the fact that preposing of the predicate is necessarily independent from finiteness, since it also happens within DPs. There are two potential landing sites for the predicate, assuming neither Top nor Focus are suitable hosts: Force or a slightly lower position that Rizzi (1999) labels as Int (for Interrogative), boldfaced in the example below: (25) Force Top* Int Top* Focus Mod* Top* Fin IP This presupposes that Int is a particular instance of a more general position for clause type (declarative, imperative, interrogative), as argued in Koopman (forthcoming b). Let us call this position Force2 . So far then, the verbal predicate in Maasai could be either in Force1 or Force2 .16 (26) Force1 Top* Force2 Top* Focus Mod* Top* Fin IP Our immediate task is to see if there is empirical evidence that bears on this issue. For concreteness, we assume, with Massam (2000a) that the relevant head that attracts the predicate has an EPP feature that does so, though we differ from Massam in locating this head in the left periphery.17 If the verbal predicate is in Force2 , and nominative subjects are in the low Topic position, some elements should be able to intervene between Force2 and the nominative subject in a particular linear order. Furthermore, some elements are predicted to occur to the left of the predicate, namely Force1 and high Topics. (27) [Force1P [TopP [Force2P [Pred] [Top [FocusP [ModP [TopP DPNOM [FinP [IP . . . The Maasai left periphery turns out to be remarkably consistent with this left periphery. Among the elements intervening between the verbal predicates and the nominative subject, there are prime candidates for Mod, Foc. The restricted set of adverbs that occur between the predicate and the subject in clauses and DPs alike are good candidates for Rizzi’s Mod.
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(28) 7tánápá ápá e]k¡7raí. 3sg.past.carry long.ago sg.fem.child.nom “The child carried him/her a long time ago.” The focus particle n¡Gn¯ ¢7 ‘even’ appears only to the right of a fronted predicate. This is also a position where akG ‘only’ and sii ‘also’ appear. (29) ndìm n¡Gn¯ ¢7 ye àtàásà. 2sg.can even you inf.sg.agr.do “Even you are able to do it”. All examples in my data either have the focus particle immediately to the right of the fronted predicate, or else they are preceded by an adverb that can be analyzed as occupying the higher Topic position. While in languages like English, wh-phrases are often analyzed as occurring in the Focus position: in Maasai, wh-phrases cannot occur in the post-predicate focus position: rather they must be clefted (cf. Oda’s analysis of Irish wh-questions in this volume). As we have stated several times, the unmarked order in Maasai is SO. However, OS order is possible as well, but only if the object is interpreted as focused, or, as Payne et al. (1994) show, if the object is more prominent in the discourse than the subject. For the latter interpretation, an English passive translation is often volunteered, even though the syntax of the Maasai sentence is clearly active. ¡7]g¢7rái (30) ¡7tánápá ]w ¡ft¡fn¯ ¢7 3sg.past.carry sg.fem.child.acc mother.nom “The mother carried the child.”/ “The child was carried by the mother.” This suggests that the object can cross over the subject only if it reaches a different interpretative region: otherwise minimality will ensure that the subject remains higher than the object. The data available at this point are entirely consistent with the verbal predicate being at least in Force2 , i.e. the verbal predicate is attracted to a very high position in the left periphery. An examination of the elements that can or cannot appear to the left of the predicate should further determine if the verbal predicate is even higher than Force2 , such as Force1 . In this section, we briefly examine potential candidates for Force1 : complementizers, the particle k-, subjunctive and infinitival markers, non-argumental PP and CP topics, and clefted wh-questions. Maasai has no overt Cs, except for the verbal complementizer adjo ‘to say’, which seems to selects for Force (see Koopman 1984; and Koopman & Sportiche 1989 for general discussion). A force-like particle k- can precede the predicate. k- often occurs in yes-no questions and wh-questions, but it does not do so exclusively. In particular, it can also occur in affirmative contexts, and appears to be in complementary distribution with Neg. This suggests k- spells out Neg/Aff, and pied-pipes
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with the verbal predicate to Force. Question interpretation arises if Force is [+Q], affirmative interpretation if Force is declarative. Maasai has a subjunctive marker m-, which precedes the [Subj-cl V] string. It harmonizes with the verb, and governs the subjunctive form of the verb. This suggests it merges somewhere lower in the structure, and pied-pipes with the verbal predicate. A final potential candidate for a Force1 head is the infinitival marker a(sg)/aa(pl). It precedes the ‘tenseless form’, and agrees with the subject in number. This again makes it an unlikely candidate for an element merged in Force1 . So far then, potential C candidates do not seem to be merged in Force1 , and therefore do not bear on the question whether the predicate is in Force1 or Force2 . If the verbal predicate raises to Force2 , Topics should be able to precede the verb. (31) Force1 Top* Force2 Top* Focus Mod* Top* Fin IP It is clear that DPs may never occur as the highest topic position. It may be the case that temporal adverbials, PP adjuncts, and CP adjuncts can precede the verb as Topics, but it in fact seems that these elements receive a cleft interpretation when preverbal. Subjects and object DPs can precede the verbal predicate, but again they must appear in a cleft-like construction, carry accusative case, and must be interpreted as focused. (32) i]gíwú etalépo láarpàpGt ˚ cows 3sg.past.milk ol.nom.pl.hairs.nom *“The cows, the long haired one he milked (them)” “It is the cows the long haired one milked.” ¡ (33) Glàyok áànáp èndítò. ol.boys.pl rel.num.pl.carry ol.girl “It is the boys who will carry the girl.” Wh-phrases also precede the verbal predicate, but must be obligatorily embedded in the (poorly understood) cleft construction: ¢7náp¢Gta (34) ka]ái tóret? ka.who.acc 3sg.carry.prog Toret.nom “Who is Toret carrying?” Informally speaking, clefting seems to provide extra structure to enable the DP to raise out of the CP.18 As such, then, the data are entirely consistent with attraction of the verbal predicate to the higher Force1 , and this is what we will adopt. Let us return now to the left periphery of the CP within the DP. In Section 2 we saw the left periphery also contains a position that attracts the nominal predicate, which ends up in a very similar position with respect to the subject. As such I simply label the position that attracts the predicate as “Force”, though the exact
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label of this position probably needs to be further elucidated and I leave the further question of possible Topic and Focus projections open at this time. (35) [DP D [ForceP [beP ol] [ModP Adv [IP NP . . .
. Non verbal predication Thus far, the discussion has concentrated on the situations where the CP contains a verb. Like many other VSO languages, Maasai has clauses with non-verbal predication, a subject that has engendered much recent work on VSO languages (among others, Carnie 1995; Massam 2000a; Adger & Ramchand 2003a; Otsuka this volume; McCloskey this volume). The schematic distribution of clauses with non-verbal predicates in Maasai is presented in (36a and b): (36) a. (Neg) AP (Adv) DPNOM b. (Neg) DPindef (Adv) DPNOM c. (Neg) [Subj-cl/Obj-cl T-V-AgrS. . . ] (Adv) DPNOM With third person subjects, APs19 and indefinite predicate nominals are in complementary distribution with the finite verb suggesting all predicates are attracted to the same position in the left periphery.20 The contexts in (36a and b) do not support overt tense marking, subject clitics, nor any of the morphemes that co-occur with Vs. This follows from the fact that these clause types do not contain a category V, and hence none of the elements that co-occur with V can be present (cf. Carnie 1995’s claim that Irish non-verbal predicates are initial because they bear tense features). I concentrate here on nominal non-verbal predicates. The distribution of predicate nominals is complex and their analysis challenging. Several factors play a role in the distribution: the features of the argument (1st and 2nd person, versus 3rd person), the definiteness of the predicate, and interactions with A’ extraction. In forms with 3rd person subjects and indefinite predicates, the single argument bears nominative case (37a) and appears after adverbs (37b). These forms are translated as present tense outside of context; in order to clarify what tense is intended, temporal adverbs must be used (37c): arálímúí n¢Gn¯ ¡7. sg.masc.teacher.acc he.nom “He is a teacher.” b. máàrmálímúí òwí n¢Gn¯ ¡7. neg.sg.masc.teacher.acc usual he.nom “He is not usually a teacher.”
(37) a.
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c.
armálímúí ápá n¢Gn¯ ¡7. sg.masc.teacher.acc long.ago he.nom “He was a teacher a long time ago.”
The fact that clauses with non-verbal predication in Maasai cannot support verbal tense, agreement or aspectual marking accounts for the absence of these elements from DPs as well. The derivation of these forms is straightforward: the subject raises to the specifier of IP and then on to the specifier of TopP (where it can be topic dropped) (38a), and the nominal predicate fronts to Force (38b). (38)
The derivation (38) correctly accounts for the fact that dependents of the predicate pied-pipe (39) (although some dependents, like the possessive, may also be stranded). See Massam (2000a), Lee (2000a), Rackowski and Travis (2000), and Carnie (1995) for discussion of similar pied piping in other verb-initial languages. (39) armálímúí l¡ff indóye n¢Gn¯ ¡7. sg.masc.teacher.acc masc.pl.acc girls.pl.acc he.nom “He is a teacher of girls.” This derivation differs in one important respect from the DP internal ones however: predicate inversion within DPs is obligatory, yet it appears not to have applied in (39). I return to this issue below. With a first or second person argument, a different pattern emerges. First, a subject clitic appears on the verbal base -ra. The tense interpretation is fixed as present tense, and incompatible with past adverbs. ra thus spells out both the category V and (verbal) present tense. Past and future tense each use different verbal bases, and the form of the morpheme fuses both the category V and a specific tense specification. The [subject-clitic verb] sequence distributes as any tensed verbal predicate, and shows up in initial position, stranding any dependents. The nominal predicate shows up after the nominative subject, as expected, and is compatible with both a definite and an indefinite interpretation (40): (40) árá òwiàk¢G nanú armálímúí 1sg.ra always I.nom sg.masc.teacher.acc “I am usually the/a teacher.” In Maasai, as in many other languages, first and second person pronouns consistently behave differently from third person pronouns. A third person pronominal
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object for example can be silent, but first and second (singular) objects cannot, and must show up as portmanteau clitics preceding the finite verb:21 (41)
Subjects 1 2 3 Objects 1 – k¢G áa 2 áá – k¢G 3 á ¢G 7
I adapt Kayne’s (2000: 165) proposal for French pronominal arguments:22 First and second structurally case marked pronominal arguments in Maasai must be doubled by a clitic.23 Maasai clitics in turn require the presence of a verbal base.
. The mystery of predicate inversion The derivation in (38) poses a quite serious problem for the claim that there is a strong parallelism between clauses and DPs. In DPs, as shown in Section 2, be always triggers predicate inversion, bringing the predicate closer to the case position than the argument. Yet, in the clausal context discussed above, predicate inversion either fails to apply, or if it does apply, it does not block the movement of the argument to the nominative case position. In this section, I will try to unravel some of the problems surrounding predicate inversion in clauses in Maasai. The task is to gain insight into the question why predicate inversion cannot occur in certain predicate nominal contexts, why it must apply in others, and why it must always occur in DPs. As in many other VSO languages (see Carnie 1997 for example), indefinite nominal predicates and definite nominal predicates do not have the same distribution. armálímúí n¢Gn¯ ¡7. sg.masc.teacher.acc he.nom “He is a teacher.” b. n¡Gn¯ ¢7 armàlìmuí. he.acc teacher.nom “He is the teacher.”
(42) a.
The definite predicate in (42b) carries nominative case, and shows the distribution of nominative subjects. The fronted argument carries (default) accusative case, and shows up in the left periphery where verbal predicates usually appear. Thus, negation precedes the predicate, and the high adverbs precede the definite nominative predicate.
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(43) m¥7-n¡Gn¢7 òwí armàlìmuí. neg-he.acc usually sg.masc.teacher.nom “He is not usually the teacher.” Predicate inversion and predicate fronting yield the expected structures in (44b), where the predicate is interpreted as definite: (44)
The question remains: why must predicate inversion apply when the predicate nominal is definite? A natural hypothesis is that predicate inversion in Maasai is somehow triggered by the definiteness of the predicate. This hypothesis is not empirically supported, however, since there are environments where predicate inversion does not appear to have occurred, and where the predicate can nevertheless be interpreted as definite. As we saw before, 1st and 2nd person pronominal arguments, for example, must be doubled by a clitic, which in turn require the presence of a verbal base. In these environments, predicate inversion fails to occur: the predicate carries accusative case, the external argument carries nominative case, controls agreement, and importantly, the predicate can be interpreted as either indefinite or definite (see (40) above). This holds for all contexts in which a verbal base must appear. For example, embedding (45) within an infinitival complement neutralizes the indefinite/definite distinction. (45) 7¢7k~ tórét àa armálímúí. 3sg.fut Toret sg.inf.be sg.masc.teacher.acc “Toret will be a/the teacher.” If definiteness triggered predicate inversion, definite interpretations should not be available in examples such as (45). Most importantly, we would have no explanation for predicate inversion within DPs, where the phenomenon is clearly not related to definiteness. If we examine the environments where predicate inversion fails to apply, a clear generalization emerges: definite predicates may not be in Force at spell-out. This explains the patterns: Predicate inversion must apply in (42b), because otherwise the definite predicate would end up in Force. It fails to apply in (42a), because it does not have to. This way of looking at predicate inversion offers an interesting possibility: there could be other contexts in which predicate inversion is forced to apply because otherwise the derivation would not converge. This seems to happen in whmovement environments, where indefinite predicates appear to be able to undergo
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predicate inversion: indefinite predicates, in fact, must invert when the argument is wh-moved in non-verbal clauses. (46) ká]aí armàlìmuí t¡7n¢7? who masc.sg.teacher.nom here “Who is a/the teacher here?” Predicate inversion (47a) satisfies the EPP of IP, and leaves the wh-phrase within the small clause predicate. This allows it to extract both as a remnant predicate satisfying the EPP feature of Force, and as a wh-phrase, which needs to be promoted into the cleft (47b): (47)
Notice now that this reveals a surprising parallel with simple DPs and possessive DPs. The derivation above exactly parallels the derivation of simple DPs. Our initial problem was explaining why predicate inversion is obligatory within DPs, but not in clauses that contain a non-verbal predicate. We now see that predicate inversion must also apply in certain clausal environments, and can understand this as follows: the derivation with predicate inversion must be the only possible derivation if the argument must be A-bar moved in a non-verbal predicate nominal construction. So what rules out the alternative derivation? Suppose that predicate inversion did not apply. This would force the wh-argument to move to the nominative position and the remnant predicate to Force, yielding the following snapshot of the derivation: (48)
The wh-word is in the nominative subject position. Therefore, this derivation might very well be excluded by whatever explains that-t violations. It seems then that Maasai should be added to the list of languages that disallow extraction of nominative subjects. Predicate inversion is one way to save this derivation, enabling extraction from the small clause predicate, both in DPs and in clauses containing a nominal predicate.24 In conclusion, we have established the following distributional generalizations governing the quite opaque distribution of predicate inversion of non-verbal predicates in Maasai: (a) definite predicates may not end up in ForceP at spell-out.
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(b) A-bar extraction of the argument of a non-verbal nominal predicate forces predicate inversion because the alternative derivation yields a that-t violation. It is important that the derivation of A-bar extraction exactly parallels the DP internal derivations, which also involve A’ movement of the external argument. This further strengthens the DP-as-relative-clause hypothesis, and attributes the source of the typological correlations as due to shared structure and hence shared derivations.
. Conclusion In previous work, I have argued that Maasai DPs headed by common nouns are relative clauses, i.e. [D CP] structures, and proposed a structure and derivation that accounts for the asymmetric agreement patterns and the linear order. This proposal predicts strong parallelism between DPs and clauses, and presents a different perspective on typological properties: the typological properties of Maasai should simply follow from a shared CP syntax. In this it addresses the apparent “acategoriality” or “nominality” sometimes attributed to verb-initial languages (see for example, Gil, Jouitteau, Massam this volume), from a different perspective, having to do with the shared CP structure. This paper evaluates this claim, and uses it to map different areas of the syntax of Maasai. The overall results are highly encouraging: it allows not only expressing what DPs and CPs have in common, but it also leads to specific proposals as to how they differ. Future research will have to further determine how this hypothesis fares for other languages, but it seems clear how to proceed.
Notes * Data on Kisongo Maasai (Eastern Nilotic) were collected during the 1999/2000 Field Methods class at UCLA, as well as in fieldwork since then. I would like to thank Saningó Maliary for his help, patience and insights on Kisongo Maasai. The excellent grammars of Hollis (1905) and Tucker and Mpaayei (1955) have been consulted heavily for the purposes of this paper, as have been the papers by Storto (forthcoming), Epstein (2000) and Payne et al. (1994). This paper reflects my current understanding of the syntactic properties of Maasai, and not surprisingly further exploration is often needed. This paper has been presented in various stages of development at MIT 2002, Cornell 2003, UBC 2003, and at the conference on verb-initial languages in Tucson 2003. Thanks to Andrew Carnie, and two anonymous reviewers for extensive comments on a previous, extremely dense version. Support from the COR program of the academic senate at UCLA, and the National Science Foundation is hereby gratefully acknowledged.
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On the parallelism of DPs and clauses . See Hawkins (1983) for a survey. . Following in the footsteps of Bach (1968) and Campbell (1996) among others. . I will often refer to this unit as ol, thus abstracting away from the different spell-out forms /fl, Gl, 7n, Gn/ which further harmonize in ATR, and are subject to vowel deletion and lowering (f → a) (McCrary 2001). . It is unclear at this point how exactly this quantifier should be analyzed. It shows an overt morphological distinction between indefinite and definite DPs, where other Maasai DPs do not show any such morphological distinctions. . For the purposes of this paper I treat ol as the external argument of the noun. See Koopman (forthcoming a, 2003a) for possible further decomposition. . BeP might be a particular instantiation of the more general projection PredP (cf. Bowers 1993, 2002). . In fact, the predicate containing ol first undergoes A’ movement (relativization), followed by movement to the position where predicates are occurring, followed by further A’ movement (see Koopman 2003b). I will ignore these finer movements at this point. . I will briefly address one issue though. According to the structure in (9), the NP predicate has the distribution of a structural subject. Usually, we think of the subject of the DP as the possessor, and the question arise if and how these two are compatible. The basic analysis for possessive constructions is sketched below: it will become clear that the possessor indeed ends up in the structural subject position of the DP as well, in accordance with the traditional insight. In a nutshell, possessive constructions have a D CP structure, but differ from DPs headed by a common noun, in that they contain a different type of nominal small clause predicate where the appropriate thematic relations are encoded (Kayne 1994; den Dikken 1998; Storto forthcoming). The possessive example in (i) has the underlying structure in (ii), with Cs boldfaced: (i)
oldíà laá (G)layôk sg.masc.dog.acc masc.sg.acc pl.acc pl.masc.boy.acc “The/some dog of the/some boys.”
(ii) [DP [. . . . . . ] [D [l] [CP C [IP [ [Infl [beP oo . . . [SC [D/CP oldià] to [D/CP ilayôk] ]]] As we can see from the boldfaced distribution of o/il both the external argument and the small clause predicate are at least D/CPs, with ol/il in their left periphery). l is the D of the DPs, and aa the agreement form of be with a plural DP subject. The derivation proceeds in essence as before Predicate inversion raises the predicate to the specifier of be, effectively turning it into a structural subject, whence it raises on to the specifier of IP as subjects always do. The raised DP triggers number and gender agreement though specifier/head agreement on be which is spelled out as ε or f in the singular, or as ff (aa) in the plural. The argument of the small clause predicate (oldià) raises first to the specifier of CP, and then on to the specifier of DP, triggering agreement in gender, number and Case of the D: the remnant predicate (beP), containing the agreeing forms also raises into the left periphery, into some as yet unspecified position to the left of the one for the predicate. We will consider the nature of this position in Section 4. . The following descriptive template illustrates the richness of the complex verb.
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(i)
√ neg- Sub-cl/(Obj-cl)(perf)- V towards “do” -fut/incept -inst-AgrS-pass (i(n)) away middle caus (caus) dat/ben refl perf
. See Koopman (2001) for a list and a general description. . It is unclear at this point why negation is excluded from DPs, while it is possible in cases of non-verbal predication. . To be precise, in Koopman and Sportiche (1991), we actually argued that subjects in VSO languages must be immediately c-commanded by T to be assigned Case: this forces raising when there are projections between T and V, as in Welsh. . Maasai may also have some kind of ellipsis, but the topic needs to be further explored. . At this point, we should point out that stacking of infinitives is quite restricted. The temporal restructuring verbs seem to only combine with activities and certain sequences resist recursion in a manner that recalls “doubl-ing” (Ross 1972) or Dutch preverbal infinitives (Koopman & Szabolcsi 2000; Koopman 2002). . Quantified subjects might very well raise to the respective quantifier positions Stowell and Beghelli (1997). I will ignore these positions here, as I have no understanding of the distribution of different types of quantifiers in Maasai. . For relevant discussion see Poletto and Pollock (2003). . The main argument in Massam (2000a) for fixing the landing site of the remnant VP within IP is the fact that negation intervenes between C and the finite verb. This shows indeed that the verbal predicate must be lower than negation. However the verbal predicate itself could have pied-piped negation to a high landing site in the CP region, as I have shown for Maasai. Under this view, Massam’s claims about complementary distribution between predicate fronting languages and DP raising to TP languages no longer follow. . This raises the further question why the expected wh-position to the right of ForceP is not (and maybe is never) available for wh-question formation if the landing site of the predicate is above it. . Maasai has two classes of adjectives: ‘verbal’ adjectives that carry relative clause morphology within DPs and nominal adjectives that carry nominal case and number morphology. . McCloskey (this volume) shows that within Irish further categorial distinctions between fronted predicates are necessary. . Payne et al. (1994) argue that ki and aa are inverse morphemes. . “Pronominal arguments that are structurally case-marked in French must be doubled by a clitic” (Kayne 2000: 14). . That first and second pronominal argument must be doubled by a clitic seems to raise a problem for the following type of structures (Tucker & Mpaayei 1955: 91): (i)
nanu armalimui. me.acc ol.teacher.nom “It is me.acc (who is) a/the teacher.”
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Here a first pronominal argument does not have to be doubled, as the absence of a verbal base shows. We might assume that the pronoun is merged as the predicate. This will weaken my general assumption that it is always clear what the predicate and what the argument is. I will assume instead that the first person is generated in TOP-cleft position and the third person raises, as suggested by ‘it is me who is/*am a teacher’. This is consistent with the general pattern of wh-movement of the argument in this construction. . Adding a specialized nominative relative clitic which in turn needs a verbal base is another way to insure convergence: (i)
ká]aí à-ra armálímuí t¡7n7? clft.who.acc rel.sg.nom-be sg.masc.teacher.acc here “Who is a/the teacher here?”
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Ordering clitics and postverbal R-expressions in Tagalog A unified analysis?* Loren A. Billings National Chi Nan University
This paper examines the question of how clitic pronouns and sequences of full nominal expressions are ordered in Tagalog verb-initial clauses. I observe that in one configuration (Actor voice), both VSO and VOS orderings are possible. In order to account for this, I propose that one of these orders results from a proper name standing in what is normally a position reserved for pronouns. This in turn provides evidence that the notion of subjecthood is relevant to Tagalog syntax, and is determined by morphological rather than semantic properties.
.
Introduction
This study proposes a solution to the longstanding debate about whether Tagalog has VSO or VOS ordering. One relatively common structure, the Actor voice (in which the a nominal identified as an Actor is the subject), allows both orders, whereas the order of postverbal elements is far more restricted in other voices. This paper draws a link between how clusters of clitic pronouns and sequences of normal nominal expressions are ordered. I propose that one of the two Actorvoice orders results from a proper name occurring where a pronoun is normally used. This finding, in turn, leads me to conclude that subjecthood is a formal property of Tagalog morphosyntax, one that crucially relies on morphological properties rather than semantic roles. With this so defined, I propose that Tagalog is a subject-final language. Section 2 of this paper gives the necessary background about Tagalog morphosyntax and shows how the elements of a clause are ordered. Section 3 examines the ordering of pronominal clitics, both within the clause and relative to each other. Within the cluster, clitics are ordered primarily according to their respec-
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tive number of syllables. However, ordering based on syntactically relevant features is evident once prosodic factors are controlled for (McFarland 2001; Schachter 1973). I show that clusters of clitic pronouns exhibit ordering tendencies similar to those of other nominals. In Section 4, I look at exceptions to the ordering facts discussed in the preceding sections. I show here that in one of the orders (with Actor-voice clauses), the nonpronoun subject is in clitic position. Shifting away from formal properties, Section 5 explores the meaning associated with clitic positions. The term R-expression (where R stands for ‘referential’) is often used to mean nominals that are neither anaphors (i.e., reflexives and reciprocals) nor personal pronouns (Lyons 1999: 242–243). Anaphors (not discussed in this paper) and personal pronouns enter into an “expression-to-expression relation” called antecedence, whereas R-expressions take an “expression-to-world relation” called reference (Freidin 1992: 340 n. 1, citing Neale 1990). In Tagalog (and perhaps universally), the relations of antecedence and reference coincide for the most part with the morpholexical distinction between two types of nominals: headed by either functional heads (pronouns) or lexical heads (nouns). The last section explores a unified analysis of the ordering of clusters of clitics and sequences of nonclitic nominals. Once the choice of ordering (in Actor-voice clauses) is reduced to having either an antecedent or a referent, the optionality disappears. In the various voices, this order cannot be explained in terms of semantic roles; Actor-voice clauses take verb-Theme-Actor order, whereas Theme-voice clauses are ordered as verb-Actor-Theme. However, if morphology is taken into account, a single, subject-final ordering unifies the various voice structures.
. Nonpronominal morphosyntax . An overview of Tagalog morphology This subsection summarizes those parts of the voice system in Tagalog necessary for the remainder of this paper.1 The following set of sentences shows many of the properties of typical Tagalog clauses. As the following subsection shows more clearly, although the verb is in its unmarked position, the nominals in (1) do not necessarily appear in the most natural orders. For strictly expository purposes, I repeat these sentences with uniform verb-Actor-Theme-Direction ordering.2 (1) Voice morphology (using common nouns) a. Mag-bi-bigay ang=babae ng=bigas sa=bata. AV-irr-give subj=female dflt=milled.rice obl=child “The woman will give some rice to a/the child.”
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b. I-bi-bigay ng=babae ang=bigas sa=bata. TV-irr-give dflt=female subj=milled.rice obl=child “A/The woman will give the rice to a/the child.” c. Bi-bigy-an ng=babae ng=bigas ang=bata. irr-give-DV dflt=female dflt=milled.rice subj=child “A/The woman will give some rice to the child.” (Schachter 1977: 280–281; glosses modified) Guilfoyle, Hung, and Travis (1992: 395), Kroeger (1993: 13–14), Schachter (1976: 494–495), and many other studies present similar examples with additional verbal forms. Tagalog verbs, through their own morphology, are linked to a particular nominal, which itself bears distinctive morphology.3 Because only common nouns are used in (1), =ang is used to mark this nominal; see (2) below for examples with proper names. Although the question is highly debated, for the purposes of this paper I call the nominal morphologically linked to the verb the subject; for the time being, this is a pre-theoretic term.4 I use Actor voice, Theme voice, and Direction voice to identify verbal morphology that co-occurs with an Actor, Theme, or Direction as the clause’s subject in (1a–c), respectively. I concentrate on the Actor and Theme voices, but see (12b) and (19b) for more Direction-voice examples.5 (Semantic-role labels used in this paper are discussed further in the next subsection.) In addition, Actor and Theme nominals not marked as the subject show the same ng= morphology.6 (Nonsubject Instruments, not exemplified here, are also marked with ng=.) I label this morphology theory-neutrally, in the spirit of Rackowski (2002: 6, 30), as default. As the somewhat stilted translations in (1) show, the choice of voice bears on which of the English determiners is used. This general idea has been discussed extensively in the literature on Tagalog (as the main thrust of Adams & ManasterRamer 1988; Maclachlan & Nakamura 1997; McFarland 1978; and Rackowski 2002) and is addressed further below. Therefore, I merely sketch the issue here. I follow Lyons (1999: 172), who defines specific as being identified by the speaker but not necessarily assumed by the speaker to be identifiable by the addressee. I use the more stringent term definite if assumptions about both participants apply. Tagalog nominals are restricted as follows. Subjects are interpreted as specific.7 Theme nominals are nonspecific unless they become the subject (or there is extraction, not discussed here). Proper names require different morphology. This is exemplified in (2a–c). Because of the aforementioned specificity restrictions, proper names cannot be used in some configurations.
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(2) Voice morphology (using mostly proper names) [cf. (1a–c) above] a. Mag-bi-bigay si=Juan ng=bigas kay=Kaye. AV-irr-give subj=Juan dflt=milled.rice obl=Kaye “Juan will give some rice to Kaye.” b. I-bi-bigay ni=Juan ang=bigas kay=Kaye. TV-irr-give dflt=Juan subj=milled.rice obl=Kaye “Juan will give the rice to Kaye.” c. Bi-bigy-an ni=Juan ng=bigas si=Kaye. irr-give-DV dflt=Juan dflt=milled.rice subj=Kaye “Juan will give some rice to Kaye.” Proper names with subject, default, and oblique morphology are marked with si=, ni=, and kay=, respectively. Due to the same specificity restrictions, a proper name – always specific (and definite) – can be the Theme in Tagalog only if it is the subject; this is exemplified below in (22a).
. Purported optional ordering Unless a particular constituent appears before the verb in a clause with two nominals, the verb is initial – with the nominal expressions appearing in either order. The order is relatively free with some predicates and more fixed with others. The choice, according to Kroeger (1993: 111), depends on three descriptive tendencies. I use these tendencies as the descriptive starting point for the paper.8 First, the nominal with the highest semantic (= thematic, = theta) role tends to appear immediately following the verb. For ease of exposition, in this paper I use the label of Actor to describe this nominal and Theme to describe the other nominal of a bivalent predicate.9 This Early-Actor tendency is based on a nominal’s semantic role, not its morphology. In addition, the subject nominal tends to appear last (albeit not in the preceding subsection’s examples, which show somewhat unrepresentative orders of nominals). Here semantic roles are irrelevant; only morphology is pertinent. I dub this second tendency as Late-subject.10 A third tendency, similar to Heavy-NP Shift (e.g., in Wasow 2002) in English, also affects the ordering of postverbal elements in Tagalog. Although I control for this variable in the examples below for the most part, this issue occasionally arises. I dub this tendency Heavy-shift (because it is not clear whether the shifted heavy element needs to be a nominal as such). I use these three tendencies as heuristic and expository devices. They are due to Kroeger (1993: 111), apparently based in turn on Schachter and Otanes (1972: 83–85). In order to keep the discussion manageable, however, I generally control for Heavy-shift, using examples in which the two nominals have roughly the same weight and grammatical complexity.
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Although not categorical, Early-Actor and Late-subject are quite robust. They act either in concert (in Theme-voice clauses) or in competition with each other (in Actor-voice clauses), depending on whether the Actor and subject are the same nominal or separate, respectively. Both tendencies apply to an Actor-voice subject, as in (3a–b), making two orders possible. (3) Actor-voice clause a. Sulat ng=liham si=Juan. write dflt=letter subj=Juan “Juan wrote a letter.” b. Sulat si=Juan ng=liham. (modified from S&O 1972: 436) The optionality in (3) stems from the impossibility of satisfying both Early-Actor and Late-subject simultaneously in a clause with Actor voice: Late-subject favors the order in (3a), in which the Actor is at the end of the clause; Early-Actor, on the other hand, favors (3b), with the same nominal, because it is the subject, right after the verb. This optionality occurs only when the verb’s morphology marks the Actor as the subject. Thus, either order in (3) is acceptable.11 Ordering is more restricted if a Theme-voice verb is used. In (4a–b) the Actor (with default marking) and the subject (with the Theme semantic role) constitute different nominals.12 (4) Theme-voice clause a. Sulat ni=Juan ang=liham. write dflt=Juan subj=letter “Juan wrote the letter.” ? b. Sulat ang=liham ni=Juan.
(Kroeger 1993: 111)
Here Early-Actor and Late-subject are both satisfied by the same order: (4a). The order in (4b) is not unacceptable, just very marked. (It can be used, for example, to contrastively focus ni=Juan.) A limited list of desiderative predicates (also discussed by S&O 1972: 261–263), without the voice or aspectual morphology normally found on verbs, clarify the nature of Late-subject. Like verbs, such psych predicates precede their two nominals, which can both have default morphology if the Theme is nonspecific. This is exemplified in (5): (5) Nonverbal psych predicate with a nonspecific Theme a. Gusto ni=Dan ng=halu-halo. like dflt=Dan dflt=milkshake “Dan would like a halu-halo.” (Ramos & Cena 1990: 34; glosses/translation added)
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b. *Gusto ng=halu-halo ni=Dan. Neither of the nominals in (5) has subject morphology. Thus, only the Early-Actor tendency is applicable; Late-subject is irrelevant. However, the unacceptability of (5b) is sharper than in (4b) above. This may be because of processing demands associated with multiple default phrases.13 If the Theme nominal is specific (perhaps even definite, because a serving of halu-halo is within sight), then there is still a strong preference for the Actor to be ordered right after gusto. The order in (6b) is extremely marked, marginal even if used to express contrastive focus on the Actor. The distinction in (6a–b) can be explained by either Early-Actor or Late-subject. (6) Nonverbal psych predicate with specific Theme a. Gusto ni=Dan ang=halu-halo. like dflt=Dan subj=milkshake “Dan would like the halu-halo.” (R&C 1990: 34; glosses/trans. added) b. ??Gusto ang=halu-halo ni=Dan. c. Gusto ni=Dan kaagad ang=halu-halo. like dflt=Dan right.away subj=milkshake “Dan would like the halu-halo right away.” Both tendencies are required to ensure that the Actor and subject appear, respectively, right after the verb and at the end of the clause. Adding an adverb, as in (6c), demonstrates this.14 To summarize, in a postverbal domain of at least three nonpronominal elements, as long as no element is heavier than any other, the Actor immediately follows the verb and the subject is clause-final. If the Actor is also the subject, then it can be either immediately postverbal or final.
. How clitic pronouns are ordered Having laid out what might be called the normal morphosyntax of Tagalog, I now turn to the special syntax of personal pronouns. The ordering of postverbal R-expressions shows striking parallels to the way that clitic pronouns are ordered relative to each other. This section synthesizes Billings and Konopasky (2002a, 2002b, 2003); cf. Billings (2000). I begin by showing where the clitic cluster appears relative to other constituents in the clause. Next, I show how pronouns are ordered relative to each other within a cluster. The pronominal analogue of the Heavy-shift tendency among R-expressions is categorical; there is also a very strong EarlyActor tendency (but only if prosodic factors are controlled for), but no apparent Late-subject tendency.
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. The cluster’s position within the clause Personal pronouns must appear in a fixed position within the clause, depending on the verb’s position. This is also relevant to Section 4 below, where nonpronominal Actor-subject nominals in immediate postverbal position – as in (3b) above – are reassessed. If the verb is clause-initial, then the clitic cluster appears right after it. (In the rest of the paper, the clitic cluster is shown using curly braces. For just this subsection, in order to contrast the two nominals’ positions, the cluster paradoxically consists of just a single clitic.) (7) Simple clauses with a pronominal Actor a. Sulat {siya} (kaagad) ng=liham. write 3.sg.subj right.away dflt=letter “She/He wrote a letter (right away).” [modified from (3)] b. Sulat {niya} (kaagad) ang=liham. write 3.sg.dflt right.away subj=letter “She/He wrote the letter (right away).” [modified from (4)] The relative order of the adjunct and Theme nominal, especially in (7a), is somewhat flexible. If the clause begins with a nonverbal, prosodically accented element (as discussed, e.g., by S&O 1972: 187–193 and Sityar 1989: 14–21), then any clitics precede the verb, as in (8) and (9): (8) Actor-voice clauses with a preverbal pronoun a. Hindi {siya} sulat ng=liham. not 3.sg.subj write dflt=letter “She/He didn’t write a letter.” b. Kaagad {siya} sulat ng=liham. right.away 3.sg.subj write dflt=letter “It’s right away that she/he wrote a letter.” [modified from (7a)] (9) Theme-voice clauses with a preverbal pronoun a. Hindi {niya} sulat ang=liham. not 3.sg.dflt write subj=letter “She/He didn’t write the letter.” b. Kaagad {niya} sulat ang=liham. right.away 3.sg.dflt write subj=letter “It’s right away that she/he wrote the letter.” [modified from (7b)]
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Thus, clausal negation or a preverbal adjunct is a reliable way of determining where the clitic cluster ends and the R-expressions begin. The verb separates the two domains in these structures.
. Pronominal clusters with heterogeneous syllabic count Two clitic pronouns are ordered in Tagalog based on the number of syllables in each: monosyllabic pronouns appear before disyllabic. This ordering requirement is categorical. The two clitic-pronoun inventories are listed in (10a–g). The three obligatorily monosyllabic (and unstressed) pronouns are underlined; otherwise, stress is indicated.15 (10) Inventory of clitic pronouns Traditional [± pl] [± me] label a. 1.sg – + b. ex.1.pl + + c. in.1.pl + + d. 2.sg – – e. 2.pl + – f. 3.sg – – g. 3.pl + –
[± you] Default
Subject
– – + + + – –
akó kamí táyo ka kayó siyá (∼ s’ya) silá
ko námin nátin mo ninyó (∼ n’yo) niyá (∼ n’ya) nilá
The unbracketed data in (10) follow Schachter (1973: 217) and S&O (1972: 88– 91), but with obsolescent inclusive-dual forms omitted.16 Bloomfield (1917: 143) reports the alternative forms in (10f), which he spells without the apostrophe. McFarland (2001: 7) reports a corpus study in which ninyo (2.pl.dflt) has an “abbreviated form” spelled as n’yo that is “more often treated as monosyllabic”; similarly, he adds, siya/niya (3.sg.subj/dflt), “are pronounced as monosyllabic” but still written as disyllabic.17 Bloomfield (1917: 143–144) adds that niya and siya are treated as disyllabic even in their contracted forms. To my knowledge, only McFarland (2001) mentions n’yo as an option; perhaps this is a recent innovation. These three innovative monosyllabic forms nonetheless are ordered based on their number of syllables. Thus, the language now attests several monosyllabic forms, with the other forms in (10) being disyllabic. There is no absolute correspondence between the number of syllables and any combination of person/number features. The clitic cluster consists not just of personal pronouns. So-called particles, adverbial forms that mostly consist of one or two syllables, also inhabit the cluster. McFarland (2001: 7–9), Schachter (1973: 218–219), and S&O (1972: 411–429) give details. The Tagalog examples in the remainder of Section 3 include a particle
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as well. This is because particles are positioned after monosyllabic and before disyllabic personal pronouns. The choice of particle depends on pragmatic factors. For example, the yes/no-interrogative particle ba works mostly with [– me] Actor pronouns. If ba is not viable, nga ‘really’ is used. In certain moods, as in (12b), nga adds a hortative meaning. The Tagalog examples in the rest of this subsection show all possible combinations of personal pronouns on both sides of a particle. Clusters with subjectparticle-default order are shown in (11) and (12); those with default-particlesubject order are listed in (13). Because of the rarity of monosyllabic subject-marked pronouns and the requirement that pronoun clusters differ in the features [± me] and [± you], only a few examples appear in (11). (11) A monosyllabic subject pronoun must precede a disyllabic default pronoun a. Na-kita {ka nga namin}. perf.abil-see 2.sg.subj really ex.1.pl.dflt “We really saw you.” ba niya}? b. Na-kita {ka perf.abil-see 2.sg.subj yes/no 3.sg.dflt “Did she/he see you?” c. Na-kita {ka ba nila}? perf.abil-see 2.sg.subj yes/no 3.pl.dflt “Did they see you?” According to McFarland’s corpus, the other seemingly monosyllabic subjectmarked pronoun, 3.sg s’ya, does not precede any particles (2001: 8); nor does it precede default-marked pronouns. One more combination is possible, albeit on a more limited basis. The cluster ka + natin (2.sg.subj + in.1.pl.dflt) is anomalous in its compositional meaning.18 However, it is attested occasionally as a socially marked way to express a 1.sg Actor, in (12). The preceding clause, (12a), clearly shows that there are two singular participants; in (12a) muna ‘first’ is a particle clitic. Regardless, the next clause, (12b), uses inclusive-plural natin to express the singular.19 (12) Singular uses of inclusive default pronouns a. [. . . ] sama {ka muna} sa=akin sa=bahay, join 2.sg.subj first obl=1.sg obl=house b. at ma-linis-an {ka nga natin} . . . so.that abil-clean-DV 2.sg.subj hort in.1.pl.dflt “Come with me into the house first so that we can clean you up.” (http://www.deviantart.com/view/3889004/)
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(Note the use of we even in the English translation, very frequent in such hortative contexts.) Regardless of the noncanonical semantics of (12b), the clitic ordering is as in (11a–c). For the forms in (13), in order to tabulate all the forms together, the clauseinitial verb Na-kita ‘perf.abil-see’, is not listed. The features of the initial pronominal clitic in each cluster appear along the top, while those of the final pronoun appear along the right-hand side. Gaps, shown with dashes, occur if the two pronouns would share settings for either of the [± me] or [± you] features. For example, the example in (13c) is shorthand for ??Na-kita n’ya ba tayo? ‘Did she/he see you?’ I hasten to add that clusters in which one of the optionally monosyllabic forms in (10e–f) appears – i.e., the last two columns of (13) – sound strange; these default-marked pronouns (especially n’ya) preferably appear after the particle. However, to the extent that such default-marked pronouns can precede a particle, only the orders shown are acceptable. (13) Monosyllabic default pronoun with disyllabic subject pronoun 1.sg.dflt 2.sg.dflt 2.pl.dflt 3.sg.dflt a. – mo ba ako ?n’yo ba ako ??n’ya ba ako 1.sg.subj mo ba kami ?n’yo ba kami ??n’ya ba kami ex.1.pl.subj b. – c. – – ?– ??n’ya ba tayo in.1.pl.subj d. ko nga kayo – ?– ??n’ya ba kayo 2.pl.subj e. ko nga siya mo ba siya ?n’yo ba siya ??n’ya ba siya 3.sg.subj f. ko nga sila mo ba sila ?n’yo ba sila ??n’ya ba sila 3.pl.subj Thus, a monosyllabic pronoun precedes a disyllabic one (with a particle appearing in between). This ordering is reminiscent of Hebrew, which likewise attests clitics of differing syllabic counts ordered solely by prosody (without any analogue of the intervening particle, however). (14) Hebrew pronominal clusters with one, two, and three syllables a. Hu her’a li oto. he showed to.me it.acc b. Hu lakax oto mimenu. he took it.acc from.him c. Hu lakax mimxa otanu. he took from.you us.acc [Hetzron 1972: 254] Like Tagalog, a monosyllable precedes a disyllable, as (14a) shows. Unlike Tagalog, but along the same principles, a cluster with two- and three-syllable pronouns appears in that order, (14b–c) showing that morphosyntactic factors such as case do not determine the pronouns’ order.20
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To summarize, monosyllabic pronouns must precede particles and disyllabic pronouns. The next subsection shows how two clitics with the same numbers of syllables are ordered.
. Pronominal clusters with the same number of syllables Clusters can also be homogeneous in terms of syllabic count. I begin with hypothetical clusters of two monosyllabic pronouns and then move to actual clusters of two disyllabic pronouns. The inventories of subject- and default-marked pronouns above in (10) include three canonically monosyllabic forms and three more forms that alternate between one and two syllables in size. Unfortunately for the current purposes, two monosyllabic clitics do not co-occur. This is because of several factors that I enumerate briefly here. Consider (15a–f): (15) Clusters involving two monosyllabic pronouns ka a. *Na-kita {ko perf.abil-see 1.sg.dflt 2.sg.subj “I really saw you.” ka b. *Na-kita {n’ya perf.abil-see 3.sg.dflt 2.sg.subj “Did she/he see you?” c. *Na-kita {ko s’ya perf.abil-see 1.sg.dflt 3.sg.subj “I really saw her/him.” d. *Na-kita {mo s’ya perf.abil-see 2.sg.dflt 3.sg.subj “Did you see her/him?” e. *Na-kita {n’yo s’ya perf.abil-see 2.pl.dflt 3.sg.subj “Did you see her/him?” {n’ya s’ya f. *Na-kita perf.abil-see 3.sg.dflt 3.sg.subj “Did she/he see her/him?”
nga}. really
(also *Na-kita {ka ko nga}.)
ba}? (also *Na-kita {ka n’ya ba}?) yes/no [cf. (11b)] nga}. (also *Na-kita {s’ya ko nga}.) really [cf. (13e)] ba}? (also *Na-kita {s’ya mo ba}?) yes/no [cf. (13e)] ba}? (also *Na-kita {s’ya n’yo ba}?) yes/no [cf. (13e)] (also *Na-kita {s’ya n’ya ba}?) ba}? yes/no [cf. (13e)]
As (15a) shows, ka (2.sg.subj) and ko (1.sg.dflt) cannot co-occur. Instead, the portmanteau form kitá is used (which differs in stress from the verb stem here: kíta): Na-kíta {nga kitá}. ‘I really saw you.’ This is part of a widespread phenomenon in Austronesian in which certain inclusive forms replace the 1.sg form, as in (12b) above. For Proto-Austronesian all the way down to Proto-CentralPhilippine *kitá is the reconstructed in.1.pl.subj form; see B&K (2002b: 16) for
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discussion of the historical facts. Tagalog has replaced this form with tayo, shown in (10c) above. In the contemporary language, kitá is used only as a portmanteau 1.sg.dflt+2.sg.subj form. Because of this morphological quirk, examples such as (15a) do not occur, and we therefore cannot determine the order of ka and ko. The other combinations of monosyllabic pronouns, in which the features [± me] and [± you] differ, are shown in (15b–f); each of these involves at least one optionally monosyllabic clitic. All of these are unacceptable. The only acceptable form of (15b) is (11b), and for (15c–f) only forms such as (13e) can be used. Disyllabic clitics apparently do not have the option of becoming monosyllabic if a cluster of monosyllabic clitics would result. To summarize, there are no true pairs of monosyllabic pronouns. The only potential cluster of canonically monosyllabic pronouns results in a portmanteau form, shown in (15a). However, clusters of disyllabic clitic pronouns are possible. They show an ordering similar to that of two nonpronominals – as discussed in Section 2 and exemplified in (3) through (6) above. In order to see a clitic counterpart of (3), in which the Actor is the subject, an Actor-voice clause is needed. However, it is impossible for two pronouns to co-occur in such a clause: (16) Actor-voice clause with two clitics a. *Patay {ba nila sila}? kill yes/no 3.pl.dflt 3.pl.subj b. *Patay {ba sila nila}? (Intended meaning: “Did theyi kill themj ?”)
[cf. (3a–b) above]
Recall that in Actor-voice clauses the Theme must be non-specific. However, pronouns are specific (and even definite). Consequently, the Theme in an Actor-voice clause cannot be expressed using a pronoun. As a result, an Actor-voice clause cannot contain two clitic pronouns. Actor voice thus cannot be used for studying pronoun-cluster ordering (Lee 1957: 4). Moving next to Theme-voice clause the judgments in (17) correspond to those in (4) above. In both pairs of examples, the default-marked Actor precedes the subject-marked Theme. (17) Theme-voice clause with two clitics a. Na-kita {ba nila ako}? perf.abil-see yes/no 3.pl.dflt 1.sg.subj “Did they see me?” ? b. Nakita {ba ako nila}?
[cf. (4a–b) above]
Both Early-Actor and Late-subject could account for the degraded acceptability of (17b).
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Recall as well that the psych predicate above in (5) and (6) allows a specific Theme (with subject morphology), as illustrated in (6); a personal pronoun is thus possible, as in (18): (18) Nonverbal psych predicate with two clitics a. Gusto {ba ninyo sila}? like yes/no 2.pl.dflt 3.pl.subj “Do you want them?” ? b. Gusto {ba sila ninyo}?
[cf. (6a–b) above]
These judgments match those of the theme-voice clause in (17a–b): Actor before subject.21 When ordering R-expressions, Early-Actor and Late-subject can be distinguished, since more than two elements can be present. The Actor tends to precede all other postverbal elements, whereas the subject tends to follow all other nominals and adjuncts. Fortunately for the current purposes, McFarland (2001: 8) lists four particle clitics that can follow rather than precede disyllabic pronouns. One of these is agad ‘right away’, which is the clitic counterpart of non-clitic kaagad, exemplified in (6c), (7), (8b), and (9b) above. McFarland gives examples similar to (19a), with a clause-initial verb, and asks whether agad is within the cluster; the cluster may well end right after ako in (19a). Examples with clausal negation, such as (19b), answer McFarland’s question in the affirmative, because the verb defines the end-point of the clitic cluster. Therefore, we have evidence that the subject pronoun need not be final in the cluster.22 (19) Cluster-final adverbial clitics [cf. (6c) above] a. Pa-pasok-pasok {nila ako agad}. caus-hort-enter 3.pl.dflt 1.sg.subj right.away “They let me go on in (to the office) right away.” (http://forum.zambales.org/viewthread.php?tid=57&page=3) b. Hindi {nila ako agad} bigy-an not 3.pl.dflt 1.sg.subj right.away give-DV ng=pelikula. dflt=movie “They didn’t give me a film (to act in) right away.” (http://www.rufamaequinto.com/faqs.htm) The fact that the Actor is the first element in the clitic cluster, while the subject is not in final position suggests that Early-Actor, rather than Late-subject, is the tendency most pertinent to ordering clitics. Incidentally, Kroeger (1993: 119), discussing examples like (17), invokes only an Early-Actor tendency within the cluster.
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To summarize, personal pronouns generally have a distinct position in the clause. Once prosodic and morphological factors are accounted for, the order of two (disyllabic) clitic pronouns resembles that of postverbal R-expressions. Unfortunately, it is impossible for two clitic pronouns to co-occur in an Actor-voice clause, making it difficult to see a complete parallel between the two ordering domains. However, certain postpronominal adverbial clitics suggest that the tendency appropriate to ordering clitic pronouns is Early-Actor.
. Optional clisis This section offers a structural explanation for the apparently optional order of R-expressions in Actor-voice clauses: Early-Actor is essentially associated with clisis. That is, some nonpronominal subjects can be nonfinal in the postverbal domain because they are in clitic position. This idea goes back at least to Bloomfield (1917: 153). Clitichood is thus a structural rather than a lexical property. My exposition begins with the clearest examples of this phenomenon, with the clitic position wedged between negation (or a fronted adjunct) and the verb. In addition, immediate-postverbal subject order is illicit if there is either negation or a fronted adjunct. This suggests that the subject position right after an initial verb is also part of the clitic cluster. I also briefly consider data in which certain subject-marked personal pronouns can optionally appear in nonclitic position, further supporting my structural definition of clitichood. It will soon become apparent that clitichood is necessarily a pretheoretic notion, having to do with the marked positioning of certain elements. This section sidesteps the meaning associated with optional clisis for the most part; that issue is addressed separately in Section 5.
. Preverbal clusters Adjunct-fronting and clausal-negation environments, as in (8) and (9) above, allow a nominal expression to precede rather than follow the verb, as clitics do. This subsection surveys the data of this sort. This kind of example is extremely rare in the literature and quite difficult to search for (in an untagged electronic corpus). Still, such examples exist. This subsection lists examples I have uncovered and examines the extent to which various types of nominals can be used in this construction, with an eye to semantic-role restrictions, subject- vs. default-marked nouns, proper names vs. common nouns, animacy, and how much material is allowed in a clitic nonpronoun.
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To illustrate the optionality of this constituent order, S&O (1972: 184) provide the following minimal pair; si=Juan is in clitic position only in (20b). Both orders are acceptable. (20) A minimal pair with canonical positioning and optional clisis a. Hindi da-rating bukas si=Juan. not irr-arrive tomorrow subj=Juan b. Hindi {si=Juan} da-rating bukas. not subj=Juan irr-arrive tomorrow “Juan won’t be coming tomorrow.” (S&O 1972: 184) S&O do not gloss (20a) separately. I return to the difference in meaning below in Section 5. For the remainder of this subsection, I attempt to isolate the formal restrictions on optional clisis. S&O (1972: 184) list a few additional examples. However, all of these involve a linker (and either existential or copular predicates, which are not considered here). Another example with optional clisis is given in (21a). Mercado (forthcoming) briefly discusses a number of examples like (21b), with a fronted adjunct. As examples (8) and (9) have already shown, clausal negation and fronted adjuncts behave alike with regard to the position of the clitic cluster. (21) Typical examples of optional clitics a. Hindi {naman si=Kaye} mag-pa-plano nun no! not switch subj=Kaye AV-irr-plan that.dflt tag “Kaye wouldn’t plan that, would she!” (jansavenue.blogspot.com) b. Sa=Boracay {si=Juan} punta. obl=Boracay subj=Juan go “It was to Boracay that Juan went.” (Mercado forthcoming) Especially interesting is (21a) because the optional clitic follows naman (a particle clitic that must follow monosyllabic and precede disyllabic personal pronouns). However, I have not found an example with both an optional clitic and an optionally cluster-final particle such as agad ‘right away’ in (19) above. Therefore, it is not possible to identify the optional clitic’s position relative to all cluster members. I assume for now that optional clitics follow all obligatory clitics. Below, in (26b), I list an example with the optional clitic following a disyllabic personal pronoun. So far, each of the optional clitics in (20b) and (21a–b) is (i) an Actor, (ii) preceded by the subject marker si=, (iii) which precedes a proper name, (iv) standing for a human being, (v) with no other material in the nominal expression. The following examples explore which of these five properties are actually required for optional clisis. The answer is not satisfactory in every case because some factors seem to be coextensive. For example, proper names are mostly human. However,
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several distinctions have appeared in the literature. In two cases, I give acceptability judgments different from my published sources; these appear within square brackets. I hasten to emphasize that, rather than quibbling over acceptability, the more profitable tack is to determine why some examples are less than acceptable and what the preferable alternative form is. To begin, all the sentences that I have come across use Actor R-expressions as the clitic. The examples in (22) suggest that (subject-marked) Themes cannot be used in clitic position. (22) Themes as optional clitics a. Hindi {ko} sampal si=Juan. not 1.sg.dflt slap subj=Juan “I didn’t slap Juan.” ? b. Hindi {ko si=Juan} sampal. (Daniel Kaufman (p.c.); glosses/translation added) These examples are analogous to (4a–b). The only essential difference is that in (4) there are no pronouns. Nothing is gained from fronting the subject-marked Theme because there is no improvement with regard to either of the two main tendencies: Early-Actor or Late-subject. Next, the pair of examples in (23) show that the optionally cliticized proper name need not bear subject morphology. The optional clitic in (23b) is defaultmarked. (23) Optional clitics with default morphology a. Hindi lu-lutu-in ni=Juan ang=adobo. not irr-cook-TV dflt=Juan subj=spicy.meat.dish “Juan will not cook the adobo.” b. Hindi {ni=Juan} lu-lutu-in ang=adobo. (Rackowski 2002: 22 fn. 4) There is no apparent problem with a default-marked Actor as an optional clitic. Yet according to S&O (1972: 184), only subject-marked nominals (including demonstrative pronouns) can be optional clitics. Additional counterexamples refuting S&O’s account include those in (24a–b): (24) Attested examples of optional clitics with default morphology a. [. . . ] hindi {ni=GMA} tu-tupar-in ang=pangako niya [. . . ] not dflt=GMA irr-fulfill-TV subj=promise 3.sg.dflt “. . . G[loria] M[acapagal] A[rroyo] won’t fulfill her promise(s) . . . ” (www.network54.com/Hide/Forum/viewall?forumid=5345&it=4)
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b. [. . . ] hindi {ni=ana} sabe eh! not dflt=Ana say because “. . . because Ana didn’t say!” (www.praning.com/forum/showthread/t-6572-p-656.html) Thus, optional clisis is not restricted categorically to subject-marked nominals. Moving to the distinction between proper names and common nouns, Rackowski observes that such preverbal ordering of a nonpronominal nominal is avoided for common nouns.23 (25) Optional clitics with a common noun a. Hindi lu-lutu-in ng=lalaki ang=adobo. not irr-cook-TV dflt=male subj=spicy.meat.dish “The man will not cook the adobo.” b. ??Hindi {ng=lalaki} lu-lutu-in ang=adobo. (Rackowski 2002: 22 fn. 4) The contrast in (25a–b) is consistent with many languages, which select a threshold along what is often called an animacy hierarchy (e.g., Lyons 1999: 214) to limit membership in certain structures: first- or second-person pronouns > other pronouns > proper names > [+ human] common nouns > animate nouns > other nouns. Tagalog appears to draw the line just below proper names. From this, animacy follows as well. While evoking such a hierarchy is not a solution as such, at least this phenomenon is consistent with numerous other phenomena of this type. I return to this general issue in Section 5 with an analysis of the meaning of clitichood. Regarding (23b) and (25b), Rackowski adds that heavy nominals are also dispreferred in what I am calling optional-clitic position. This is consistent with the general idea of clitics. In a way, a lone proper name (with si=) is almost a pronoun. I return to this issue below, assessing whether weight is syntactic (i.e., just a head vs. a whole phrase) or prosodic. To summarize, I have used clausal negation (and fronted adjuncts) to distinguish the clitic cluster from the position occupied by nonclitic, postverbal elements. Rarely, nonpronouns can be clitics. Such nominals must be Actors and unmodified proper names but need not be subjects.
. Postverbal clusters If a proper name can appear in preverbal clitic position, as demonstrated in the preceding subsection, then it stands to reason that if the clitic cluster follows the clause-initial verb (without clausal negation or a fronted adjunct), a proper name can be part of an immediately postverbal clitic cluster (Bloomfield 1917: 153). I demonstrate this point in this subsection.
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Before discussing the optional clisis in (26a–b), the causative morphosyntax of (26) bears clarification. The Causee (i.e., the original Actor) is marked with subject morphology, whereas both the pronominal Causer (or external Actor) and (original) Theme noun are default-marked. (26) Immediately postverbal nonpronominal subjects as clitics a. Pa-putol {nila} ng=kahoy si=Juan. caus-cut 3.pl.dflt dflt=wood subj=Juan “They ordered Juan to cut wood.” b. Pa-putol {nila si=Juan} ng=kahoy. (Bloomfield 1917: 153) Bloomfield argues that in (26b) the nonfinal subject si=Juan is in clitic position. Although no difference in translations is given, the order in (26a) is listed as “more usual”; this notion squares with the idea (also according to S&O 1972: 184) that optional clisis is the marked order.24 Returning to noncausative examples, a clause-final subject is acceptable in the data with two nonpronominals; this is exemplified in (3a), (4a), and (6a) above. The only environment in which the subject-marked noun can appear early in the postverbal domain is in an Actor-voice clause, as demonstrated by (3b). As Section 4 has shown so far, nonpronominal Actors may undergo optional clisis. The examples in (3) are repeated in (27), but with the curly braces added in (27b). (27) Reanalysis of the optional order of two Actor-voice nominals a. Sulat ng=liham si=Juan. write dflt=letter subj=Juan “Juan wrote a letter.” b. Sulat {si=Juan} ng=liham.
[cf. (3a–b)]
The purported optionality in (3a–b) thus boils down to the optionality of clisis. It’s just that the position of the clitic cluster is more distinct in adjunct-fronting or clausal-negation examples. If an Actor-subject R-expression can only be either a clitic or clause-final, then with clausal negation (or fronted adjuncts) a nonclitic Actor subject must not precede any postverbal element: (28) No postverbal clitic cluster in a negated clause a. Hindi da-rating bukas si=Juan. not irr-arrive tomorrow subj=Juan “Juan won’t be coming tomorrow.” b. Hindi {si=Juan} da-rating bukas. c. ??Hindi da-rating si=Juan bukas.
[cf. (20)]
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For (28c) to be acceptable, contrastive focus must be placed on the clause-final adjunct.25 By the same reasoning, with a fronted adjunct, only two orders are acceptable for a subject-marked Actor: either the end of the clause, shown in (29a), or preverbal clitic position, in (29b). The initial wh phrase here is an adjunct; (29a–c) behave as other adjunct-fronted structures do (Mercado forthcoming). (29) No postverbal clitic cluster in an adjunct-fronted clause a. Saan bili ng=damit si=Juan? where buy dflt=clothing subj=Juan “Where did Juan buy clothing?” b. Saan {si=Juan} bili ng=damit? (Nakamura 1996: 292, 305) c. [??]Saan bili si=Juan ng=damit? I emphasize that forms like (28c) and (29c), while not bad enough to draw the attention of the cooperative Tagalog-speaking interlocutor, are nonetheless not as acceptable as their counterparts in either preverbal or clause-final position. Judgments of this kind are thus extremely subtle. In addition, (28c) is acceptable if the clause-final, default-marked Theme is being contrasted. So far, Section 4 has shown that there are two positions for a subject-marked Actor: clause-final and clitic. In negated or adjunct-fronted structures, the clitic position is preverbal; otherwise, it is immediately postverbal. The possible combinations are listed in (30), where the clitic position is shown in curly braces and Neg stands for either negation or a fronted adjunct: (30) Constituent-ordering possibilities for nonpronouns in an Actor-voice clause a. b. c. Neg {. . . } d. Neg {subject Actor }
V {. . . } V {subject Actor } V V
defaultTheme subject Actor defaultTheme defaultTheme subject Actor defaultTheme
[cf. (27a)] [cf. (27b)] [cf. (29a)] [cf. (21a), (29b)]
As long as there are two nominals, the four orders are distinct from each other. The same cannot be said of the corresponding Theme-voice orders. The analogs of (30) are shown in (31), where (31a–b) are indistinguishable from each other (probably even in terms of prosodic cues). (31) Constituent-ordering possibilities for nonpronouns in a Theme-voice clause a. b. c. Neg {. . . } d. Neg {defaultActor }
V {. . . } defaultActor V {defaultActor } V defaultActor V
subject Theme subject Theme subject Theme subject Theme
[cf. (4a)] [cf. (4a)] [cf. (23a), (25a)] [cf. (23b), (24a)]
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Setting aside extremely marked structures, such as contrastive focus or extraposition of particularly heavy nominals (discussed briefly in Section 5 below), only the orders in (30) and (31) are acceptable. The meanings associated with these orders are explored in Section 5. Before ending this discussion, however, I briefly consider the pronominal converse of the foregoing data.
. Optional nonclisis of pronouns Not only are nonpronouns allowed to appear in clitic position, but according to Sityar (1989: 16–17, 53), some personal pronouns can appear in nonclitic positions. I briefly sketch Sityar’s claims here and add an observation that elucidates the nature of the Early-Actor tendency. The constituent order in (32a) is entirely normal, with both pronouns preceding the verb if there is clausal negation. The unusual order is (32b), with only one pronoun in clitic position. (32) Optional nonclisis with a subject [cf. (13e)] a. Hindi {ko siya} na-kita kahapon. 1.sg.dflt 3.sg.subj perf.abil-see yesterday not “I didn’t see her/him yesterday.” b. [??]Hindi {ko} na-kita siya kahapon. (Sityar 1989: 16, also cited in Kroeger 1993: 122) I have not found any speaker who fully accepts the order in (32b), and many simply reject it, but some do not disallow it completely.26 Sityar adds that monosyllabic pronouns do not have the option of nonclisis; ko must appear as shown. However, because of the dearth of Tagalog speakers who accept (32b), it is hard to say more about the nonclitic use of siya. What Sityar (1989) fails to mention is that it is possible for the monosyllabic personal pronoun in clusters like the one in (32) to be the Theme rather than the Actor, as shown in (33): (33) Nonclisis not allowed with a disyllabic default-marked pronoun [cf. (32a–b)] a. Hindi {ka nila} na-kita kahapon. not 2.sg.subj 3.pl.dflt perf.abil-see yesterday “They didn’t see you yesterday.” b. *Hindi {ka} na-kita nila kahapon. To the extent that (32b) is at all acceptable, (33b) is unacceptable. Replacing ka in (33b) with a disyllabic, subject-marked pronoun like 3.sg siya is also bad. This suggests to me that Early-Actor (or, that is, the formal principle that underlies this tendency) is what forces a (default-marked) Actor pronoun to appear in clitic po-
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sition. This adds to the preponderance of evidence that Early-Actor (as opposed to Late-subject) is the tendency relevant for clitic position. Because personal pronouns in nonclitic position are generally not accepted, I reiterate that no part of my analysis below in the study hinges on the data cited here. However, for those who accept data like (32b), it bears mentioning that only non-Actor pronouns can be nonclitics. To sum up, there are several exceptions to the usual placement of nominals. Nonpronominal Actors can appear in clitic position (and subject-marked pronominal Themes can be nonclitics, at least for some speakers). It appears therefore that there is a strong tendency for Actors to be in clitic position. The following section sorts out the motivation for Early-Actor.
. Conditions on clitichood in Tagalog The reason why Actors are often clitics is their topichood, especially givenness. Clitics take linguistic expressions as antecedents and R-expressions take nonlinguistic entities as their referents. However, two other factors are also relevant: prosodic weight and syntactic complexity. On the other hand, morphology seems not to be crucial in and of itself. I consider these factors in increasing order of pertinence: morphology, weight, and meaning.
. Morphological factors Two types of oppositions fall under the general rubric of morphology: part of speech (or lexical category) and the distinction between default and subject marking. I discuss each in turn briefly. As the preceding discussion has shown, whether a nominal consists of a pronoun or a determiner-noun combination is not crucial in determining whether it appears in clitic position. Aside from the degraded examples of optional nonclisis, personal pronouns have other uses that place them outside the clitic cluster. Foremost among these is a paradigm of pronouns nearly identical to the subject forms above in (10); only the 2.sg form differs (with ikáw instead of ka). These are used in positions including the front of the clause (S&O 1972: 485–495). It is also possible for the plural personal pronouns, including default-marked ones, to be conjoined with a default-marked nominal, including pronouns, to render group-inclusive interpretations, as in (34):
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(34) Personal pronouns as parts of larger nominal expressions [translations modified] a. Na-kita {ko} [sila ni=Juan]. perf.abil-see 1.sg.dflt 3.pl.subj dflt=Juan “I saw [them including Juan].” (S&O 1972: 116) b. Gawa [nila ni=Juan] ang=trabaho. make 3.pl.dflt dflt=Juan subj=work “[They including Juan] did the work.” (S&O 1972: 116) c. [kami niya] ex.1.pl.subj 3.pl.dflt “[we including him/her]” (i.e., as the subject nominal of the clause) (Blake 1925: 115; archaic/L.A.B.) Thus, there are several uses of the personal-pronoun paradigm. Only one is related to clitichood. Another morphological opposition is also apparently irrelevant to clitichood; whether a nominal bears default or subject morphology. Certain combinations of clitic personal pronouns – i.e., disyllabic ones, exemplified in (17) through (19) above – may appear to depend on morphological marking for their ordering. However, as I argue there, it is the semantic role of the two pronouns that appears to be crucial, not the morphological marking as such. As such, the Late-subject tendency is completely unnecessary for ordering clitics. It is rather striking that morphology appears not to have a crucial bearing on clisis, a phenomenon that is often discussed in connection with the diachronic shift from word- to affixhood. In most clitic systems the form appears to be crucial: a pronoun as opposed to a determiner plus a noun. However, the crucial factor in Tagalog appears to be pragmatic; pronouns and proper names are distinguished from common nouns in terms of their discourse properties.
. Lightness and clitichood Only relatively light elements, such as particles or light nominals, can appear in clitic position. What role does lightness play in clisis? Clearly, Heavy-shift is relevant to nonclitic nominals. Is weight crucial to clitichood? In fact, weight is relevant to movement into the clitic cluster and the order of clitics within the cluster. As mentioned above, Rackowski points out (2002: 22 fn. 4) – although not in connection with a clitichood analysis – that the sheer size of a nonpronominal expression appears to be relevant to whether it can appear in what I have been calling optional-clitic position. Every optional clitic I have encountered in Tagalog consists of a determiner and a lone proper name. It would appear, therefore, that a singleword restriction is involved. I see no reason not to assume that this follows from
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optional clisis being the movement of a syntactic head rather than a phrase (with the further assumption that the proper name and determiner constitute a complex head, perhaps the result of N-to-D incorporation). However, this restriction might also be stated in terms of the optional clitic being no larger than one prosodic word in size. I leave the issue open, aside from the necessary condition that all monosyllabic nominals (i.e., pronouns) must be clitics. This seems to be consistent with a minimal-word restriction; see B&K (2003) for discussion. As for the order of two or more clitics within the cluster, prosody is the primary factor. The ordering of two pronouns according to number of syllables is not a gradient matter. Optional clitics appear after a disyllabic personal pronoun within the cluster, as (26b) above shows. Proper names including si=/ni= are at least two syllables long, so some sort of prosodic model would probably be able to handle the cluster-internal ordering of nonpronouns. In addition, as McFarland (2001) and Schachter (1973) both show, the relative order of so-called particle clitics is not entirely based on the number of syllables. Because optional clisis is so rare, I have found only one example of both a particle and a nonpronoun in the same cluster, shown in (21a) above. However, this is not a problem for my prior analysis (especially in B&K 2003); nominal clitics are ordered and grouped into prosodic words and only later are particles inserted. I should emphasize that lightness is not a sufficient condition on clitic-cluster membership. The primary requirement has to do with pragmatics; this is discussed in the next subsection.27
. What does it mean to be a clitic? The semantics of clitichood in Tagalog has not been discussed at all, to my knowledge. The scant discussions of what I call optional clisis – e.g., in Bloomfield (1917: 153), Maclachlan and Nakamura (1997: 320), Mercado (forthcoming), Rackowski (2002: 22 fn. 4), and S&O (1972: 184) – say nothing about the semantics or pragmatics of this construction aside from its markedness (though there is also Rackowski’s observation that common nouns and heavy expressions are avoided). For this reason, the following discussion is a first attempt to understand this phenomenon. I begin by sorting through a larger but almost as sketchy body of literature on the related restrictions connected to various combinations of morphological marking and semantic roles in Tagalog. I then conclude that subjecthood entails specificity and clisis denotes givenness. Finally, I consider why nouns are used instead of pronouns as clitics; for this I merely mention a possible approach. Setting aside optional clitics, Tagalog has a sizable (though terminologically problematic) literature dealing with various combinations of morphological marking with semantic roles and the interpretations associated with each. As I mention
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above, there are plenty of terms used to describe what I am calling default- and subject-marking; not surprisingly, numerous semantic and discourse terms are used too. I therefore pick one term, define it, and discuss other authors’ ideas as I understand them, without becoming stuck in their terminology. As I write above, a specific nominal is identified by the speaker, but not necessarily assumed to be known to the addressee, whereas a definite nominal is assumed to be known to the addressee. Definiteness clearly applies to pronouns and proper names (Lyons 1999: 21–22, 30–31). A common noun’s interpretation depends on how it surfaces: as subject, nonsubject Theme, or nonsubject Actor.28 Subjects are interpreted as specific. Several early discussions assume that Tagalog subjects are definite (Schachter 1976: 496–497, 514–515; 1977: 282; S&O 1972: 96), later works start to converge on the less stringent definition of specificity. McFarland (1978: 151–155) is the only one to distinguish between definiteness, specificity, and several other notions; alas, his discussion of actual sentences in Tagalog does not address specificity as such (1978: 156). Adams and ManasterRamer (1988: 83–92) were apparently the first to challenge the idea that Tagalog subjects are definite and seem to conclude – though lacking the terminology that McFarland displays – that specificity is the relevant criterion (A&M-R 1988: 95– 96, 99 n. 25). Even later studies use definiteness in their discussions but conclude that specificity is the precise interpretation (Kroeger 1993: 14–15, 69; Schachter 1994: 52–53). The latest works assume specificity without defining the term in their own work (M&N 1997: 309–312, citing Enç 1991; Rackowski 2002: 83, citing Diesing 1992). Next, nonsubject Themes are nonspecific. Again, much of the literature incorrectly reports that such nominals are merely indefinite (Schachter 1976: 516 fn. 3–4; S&O 1972: 96). A&M-R (1988: 92–97) and McFarland (1978: 157) disagree, listing sentences with nonsubject Themes that include either isa ‘one’ or a possessor (both of which force a specific interpretation). In this respect, I follow M&N (1997: 310), whose informants rejected such sentences; see also Rackowski (2002: 76), who reports that nonsubject Themes are nonspecific. Finally, Actors have been described, with somewhat less consensus, in terms of this overall issue (putting aside the obligatory specificity of subject-marked Actors). S&O (1972: 96) observe that default-marked Actor nominals in a Themevoice clause may be either definite or indefinite; see also A&M-R (1988: 91). However, Schachter’s discussion of the meaning of Actorhood is not limited to specificity or definiteness. He writes (1976: 498), “I find that the following characterization [from Benton 1971: 167] will, if interpreted charitably enough, cover most cases: ‘the entity to which the action of the verb is attributed.’ (The requisite charitable interpretation allows ‘action’ to serve as a cover term for actions, happenings, and conditions in general.)” Schachter later extends the theatrical metaphor of Actorhood to that of a protagonist: “the individual who is viewed as being at the
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center of events” (1977: 283). These definitions look strikingly like pragmatic topichood: “what the sentence is about” (Lyons 1999: 227). Alas, Schachter (1976, 1977) uses the term “topic” to refer to what I am calling the subject; perhaps for this reason, topichood in the traditional sense is overlooked there. I agree with McFarland (1978: 156), who reports that a default-marked Actor “tends to have a definite reading” but may also be indefinite (e.g., if quantified by isa ‘one’). I agree with Rackowski (2002: 82), although not using the same data, that an Actor can be nonspecific, as exemplified by either of (35a–b). (35) Nonspecific Actors a. May lalaki-ng mag-lu-luto ng=adobo. exist male-lnk AV-irr-cook dflt=spicy.meat.dish “There is a man that will cook (the) adobo.” (based on Rackowski 2002: 95) b. Hindi {siya kailanman} na-bihag ng=alinman-ng not 3.sg.subj ever perf.abil-capture dflt=any-lnk [hukbo]. troops “No troops ever held him captive.” (www.hagonoy.com/habayani.html) Existential (35a) shows how an entity can be introduced with no notion of topichood. In the by now more familiar configuration of (35b), however, although the Actor is clearly nonspecific, it appears that this nominal is a topic. The preceding text in this example’s source consists of a story of Kapitan Tuwi, an insurgent fighting American military rule in the early 1900s. Thus, ‘troops’ are one thing that the discourse is about. However, clause-final nominal in (35b) is nonspecific. The contrast in (36a–b) is also consistent with my topichood analysis of optional clisis.29 (36) Optional clitics cannot be contrasted a. Hindi da-rating bukas si=Juan, kundi si=Maria. not irr-arrive tomorrow subj=Juan instead subj=Maria “Juan won’t be coming tomorrow; Maria will.” b. ??Hindi {si=Juan} da-rating bukas, kundi si=Maria. (Daniel Kaufman (p.c.); glosses/translation added) While (36a–b) do not prove topichood, they do eliminate a contrastive reading as a possibility. So far, this subsection has shown that two separate categories in Tagalog are associated with very similar interpretations; subjects are specific but (non-may) Actors are topics, and topichood entails specificity. Why would two distinct lin-
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guistic classes share such properties? This is the general thrust of a series of papers by Schachter (1976, 1977, 1994), who claims that the various features usually associated with subjecthood in other languages are teased apart in Philippine-type languages. Without subscribing to all of Schachter’s claims (especially his label of “reference-related properties” applying to subjects), I agree that there is a systematic distinction. I consider definiteness and specificity to be tied to identifiability, a logicalsemantic notion, whereas topichood is a form of discourse prominence maintained by the participants. Topics, of course, can either remain salient from previous clauses or be introduced in a clause. I will therefore distinguish between given and new topics, respectively (Lyons 1999: 228). New topics are probably indefinite, but still specific; given topics, fully definite. Given-topic nominals are also distinguished from others in having an “expression-to-expression relation” called antecedence, whereas R-expressions take an “expression-to-world relation” called reference (Freidin 1992: 340 n. 1, citing Neale 1990). In the literature this distinction is also sometimes called independent vs. dependent reference, respectively. This is a binary distinction quite separate from specificity, which is associated with the morphosyntactic status of subjecthood. This leads me to a proposed meaning of clisis. Recall that the canonical clitic nominal is a pronoun. Proper names are only occasionally found in clitic position. Recall from above that Early-Actor is one of the motivations (along with prosody) for moving clitics forward in the clause. As such, what differentiates pronouns from other topics? Pronouns are given topics. On occasion, a nonpronominal giventopic Actor can appear in clitic position. The feature of topichood is thus associated with a certain semantic role as a nominal is merged, whereas givenness is a feature checked by moving to clitic position. B&K (2002a: 40 fn. 8), while not considering optional clitics, argue that an aboutness feature motivates the movement of the verb and pronouns in Tagalog; this feature can now be refined to givenness in order to exclude new topics from the clitic cluster while also allowing both pronouns and proper names.30 To exclude common nouns, perhaps a [– given] setting could be associated with ang= and ng= lexically. Pronouns would obligatorily be [+ given]. Only proper names would retain any choice. (For the speakers that allow optional nonclisis, [– me, – you] pronouns may also have this option.) The givenness feature proposed here is similar to the referentiality notion used by Diesing (1992), Diesing and Jelinek (1995), and – specifically for Lummi (Straits Salish) – by Jelinek (2000: 214) to front similar elements, and loosely related to the animacy-based ordering in Mam (Mayan) reported by Minkoff (2000). Lummi and Mam are both verb-initial languages. The Early-Actor tendency can then be reduced to the requirement that [+ given] expressions be moved toward the front of the clause. (I conjecture below about what the exact syntactic position is.) In a sense, Early-Actor is a misnomer,
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because some Actors are [– given] (i.e., new topics in the discourse); it should be given-first. If a new topic is subject-marked, then it will be clause-final, as in (30a, c); if default-marked, it will precede the clause-final (Theme) subject, as in (31a, c). The subject-final and Heavy-shift tendencies are reassessed in Section 6. One bit of unfinished business has to do with why proper names are used in place of pronouns in Tagalog, albeit rarely. Under extreme circumstances, in which two people – say, Juan and Kaye – already exist as given topics in the discourse, it may be necessary to use si=Juan or si=Kaye because using the (genderless) 3.sg.subj pronoun siya would not convey which topic is intended.31 Because the clitic cluster can include nouns, the option of clisis can be exercised. I might add, however, that this phenomenon seems to be just an option. Examples like (23a) exist even if the name is mentioned repeatedly in the foregoing discourse. Still, in all the Internet examples of optional clisis I have found, the name is given: either mentioned previously in the text or a so-called bridge topic (for example, the name of a celebrity or politician). To conclude, the invariant meaning of clisis – including the optional kind – is givenness. While there are possibly syntactic or prosodic limitations on the size of an optional clitic, there does not appear to be a morphological restriction, unlike other languages. Before moving on, it may prove useful to link optional clisis to a phenomenon in the literature on Romance clitics of (primarily) the medieval period, known as interpolation. Barbosa (1996) mentions that philological evidence from central and western Iberian languages shows that it was possible for certain words to appear between a pronominal clitic and the verb. This is still allowed in the modern vernacular of Northwestern Portugal, as the following examples show: (37) Interpolation in a Portuguese dialect a. *Ela só passa se a o professor ajudar. she only passes if her the teacher help b. Ela só passa se a Deus ajudar. she only passes if her God help c. Ela só passa se a eu ajudar. she only passes if her I help
(Barbosa 1996: 30)
(The clitics are in bold type, whereas the interpolated material is in italics.) Barbosa (1996: 30) adds that the relative judgments in (37) show that “syntax alone can’t be the determining factor. Well-formedness appears to depend on the ‘heaviness’ or perhaps metrical structure of the following word.” Whereas Barbosa pursues a prosodic explanation, I observe that the acceptable interpolated material in (37b–c) must be given (and relatively light by some measure). The resemblance to optional clisis in Tagalog suggests a givenness approach for Romance.32 Light
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prosody usually appears to accompany givenness, so the ultimate answer is hard to pin down.
. Speculations about the phrase structure of Tagalog This paper’s title ends with a question mark. Despite the wealth of work on Tagalog and related languages, we are not much closer to understanding the nature of Philippine-type languages’ syntax. Toward this aim, I suggest three research directions. The first is empirical; plenty of material still needs to be considered before sweeping generalizations can be made. The other two have to do with two of Kroeger’s ordering tendencies: Late-subject and Heavy-shift. (The third tendency, Early-Actor, has already been considered above.)
. Empirical gaps Two areas not explored in this paper bear mentioning here: nonverbal (also known as equative or copular) clauses and the growing literature on ergativity. I touch on each these only briefly. In terms of nonverbal data, Kroeger (1993: 131–135, 145) discusses some material that I have not been able to consider and S&O (1972: 62–65) provide a listing of the various constructions. However, I still have not seen a satisfactory, unified account of copular and verbal constructions in Tagalog. For example, Kroeger (1993: 133) proposes separate phrase structures for copular and verbal clauses, as if separate grammars deal with the two clause types. See, however, Massam (2000a), a study of such constructions to elucidate the nature of Niuean, a (mostly) VSO, distantly related Austronesian language. On conceptual grounds, I agree with Massam that a single phrase structure should be able to encompass both types of clauses. The other major area that I have not covered is the ergativity question. There is a sizable body of research, mostly by linguists outside of the generativist tradition, which offers a fresh look at the data and often quite rigorous standards of empirical accuracy. An early study often cited is Payne (1982). Recent, representative work includes Brainard and Behrens (2002); see also Quakenbush (2003: 9) and Schachter (1994: 38) for additional references. Recent dissertations from various theoretical perspectives, none of which I have managed to examine directly yet, include Aldridge (2004), Brainard (1994), Liao (2004), and Maclachlan (1996). A related issue is whether the notion of subject applies to Philippine-type voice systems (an issue highlighted in Schachter 1976, 1977, 1994). Unlike the other terms used in this paper (such as “default”), I have labeled one morphological form as the subject. This may be understood as a pretheoretic term (a potentially prob-
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lematic one, because copular sentences can have two such forms). I am inclined to view subjecthood as a formal grammatical property in Tagalog for two reasons: meaning and word order. First, as I have discussed above, subject-marked nominals require a specific interpretation. This is true regardless of which semantic role is mapped to this morphological form. Such a semantic interpretation would probably depend on a uniform phrase-structure configuration. Perhaps more significantly in terms of the current study’s contributions, is that the subject, if not in clitic position, appears last in the clause; (30) and (31) show this very clearly. If the default-marked nominal were to be considered the object, then we have a VOS ordering in both (30a) and (31a). This is the unmarked arrangement – in the sense of neither nominal representing given information in the discourse: (38) Discourse-neutral order a. Sampal ng=isa-ng babae ang=isa-ng lalaki. slap dflt=one-lnk female subj=one-lnk male “A woman slapped a man.” b. *Sampal {ang=isa-ng lalaki} ng=isa-ng babae. (Note that, despite the use of indefinite articles in the translation, both nominals are specific.) Someone can ask a stranger, perhaps following some loud disturbance, “What happened?” Because of specificity restrictions, the only way for both nominals to be specific, as is the case in (38), is for the verb to take Theme voice. The neutral response would thus be a Theme-voice verb followed by a defaultmarked Actor and subject-marked Theme, in exactly this order. The order in (38b) is ruled out (perhaps because an indefinite albeit specific Actor cannot be ordered as an optional clitic, as my braces suggest). The grammar must generate only (38a). If, on the other hand, ordering is viewed in terms of semantic roles, then (30a) and (31a) would exhibit differing orders: verb-Theme-Actor and verb-ActorTheme, respectively. This is a particularly strong argument for morphosyntactic properties rather than semantic roles being used to order constituents. Subjecthood must, therefore, have a formal role even in Tagalog.
. Formalizing the Late-subject tendency Without offering any concrete proposals, this subsection compares three general approaches to the ordering reported in the paper. The first, represented by GH&T (1992), has proven quite influential because of its built-in optional ordering. The second, by Rackowski (2002), is useful for morphosyntax, but makes no claims about ordering two postverbal nominals. The last approach, by Massam (2000a), appears to be the most appropriate model for Tagalog.
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To begin, GH&T (1992: 379) propose a subject-final ordering if the Theme is the subject and either order of postverbal nominals if the Actor is the subject. Their structure contains two subject positions, labeled in (39), with the nomenclature used above in this paper added: (39)
IP I’ I
subject VP V’
Actor V
Theme
Crucially, the specifiers of IP and VP are final and initial, respectively. In addition, V-to-I movement results in a verb-initial clause. The Actor nominal occupies the specifier of VP, the position reflecting thematic prominence. On the other hand, nominative case – in GH&T’s terms, what I call the subject – is licensed in the specifier of IP, reflecting the Late-subject tendency. In a Theme-voice clause, the Actor nominal remains in the specifier of VP and the Theme moves from within VP to the specifier of IP, as in (4a). This approach therefore correctly rules out (4b). In an Actor-voice clause, the Actor, in the specifier of VP, can also raise to the specifier of IP, as in (3a), but need not do so, resulting in (3b). GH&T (1992: 411) suggest that when there is no SpecVP-to-SpecIP movement, as in (3b), the verb’s voice morphology still Case-marks the specifier of IP, “licensing a pleonastic pro in this position.” It remains unclear, however, why this movement from the specifier of VP to the specifier of IP is optional.33 Similarly, Kroeger (1993: 133) proposes a flat structure that includes the verb and both nominals without specifying how these two nominals are ordered relative to each other. His approach’s strength is its flexible ordering following the verb. As far as I can determine, the only way for the two postverbal nominals to be ordered relative to each other in a Theme-voice clause, as in (4), given Kroeger’s flat phrase structure, is to use the aforementioned EarlyActor and Late-subject tendencies (and perhaps other constraints, which force certain anaphoric sequences) as formal constraints. Thus, GH&T and Kroeger share a degree of built-in optionality in their structures; this type of approach boils down to Tagalog being a mixed VSO/VOS language. The current study shows that Tagalog is unequivocal in this regard; it is clearly a subject-final language. The next type of phrase structure might be dubbed the scramble-if-necessary approach. Rackowski (2002) is a recent exemplar, proposing the related structures in (40a–b):
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(40) a.
[Rackowski 2002: 84]
TP T
VoiceP Actor vP
voice v
VP V
b.
Theme
[Rackowski 2002: 82]
TP T
VoiceP Theme Actor vP
voice v
VP V
tTheme
Rackowski (2002: 23) also apparently espouses V-to-T movement. As such, both of these trees predict that the subject-marked nominal will immediately follow the verb. I argue against this as the unmarked order in above. Rackowski (2002: 25) clarifies that “word order is not the main focus” of her work, adding that “scrambling seems to be a reasonable assumption for how the surface word order of Tagalog is created.” I contend that scrambling – reordering based on informationstructure criteria – should not be necessary in discourse-neutral situations. Also noteworthy in this respect is Massam (2000a) on Niuean, supporting crucially a VP-fronting analysis for that predominantly VSO (namely: [VtO ]SO) language. Massam (2000a: 106) keenly observes that certain determinerless object phrases do not escape VP and must later raise with the verb, resulting in exceptional VOS ordering (respectively: [VO]S). With this exception accounted for, Niuean can be viewed with a single unmarked order. I think that the empirical findings in the current study do the same for Tagalog, accounting for the exceptions of optional clisis and supporting an unmarked subject-final order. Holmer (this volume) follows a similar tack for the rigidly VOS language Seediq (also Austronesian), linking such a predicate-fronting analysis to the typological predications of Kayne (1994). (Cf. Otsuka this volume who argues against such an analysis for Tongan.)
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I will assume, without offering a specific phrase-structure proposal, that the Late-subject tendency is part of the grammar (in the strict sense: the algorithm which merges lexical items and moves them to check features). This effect merely appears to be a squishy tendency because the Early-Actor and Heavy-shift tendencies cloud the picture. The former tendency actually applies only to given Actors and Heavy-shift is discussed in the following subsection.
. The wider problem of Heavy-shift There appears to be a correlation in Tagalog and its closest genetic relatives (the Central Philippine subgroup) between the ordering within the clitic cluster and the ordering of sequences of nonclitic nominals. In Tagalog and Bikol, the order within clitic clusters (B&K 2002b: 18) and among postverbal nonclitics (apparently true of Bikol from the examples in McFarland 1978) is based largely on weight, with light elements preceding heavy ones. In Cebuano, on the other hand, both clitic clusters (B&K 2002b: 18–19) and sequences of nominals following the verb (GH&T 1992: 395 fn. 21) are arranged by more syntactically relevant means; morphological marking (namely, default before subject) is generally the deciding factor but there is some flexibility. An even more extreme example is Tagakaulo Kalagan, which arranges both its clitic pronouns and its postverbal nonclitics using only syntactic criteria such as number and person (Collins 1970: 3–5, 72–73, 103–104); weight appears to have nothing to do with any ordering of monosyllabic and disyllabic pronouns in that language.34 Thus, the correlation between how the clitic and nonclitic domains are ordered seems to be more than just a coincidence. In this sense, it appears worthwhile to investigate such correlations of orderings. One facet of this correlation, just in Tagalog, does not yet make sense. The prosodically based ordering within the clitic cluster is categorical; a monosyllabic pronoun must precede a disyllabic one. However, in the nonclitic domain Heavy-shift is just a tendency. Perhaps the effect of weight on ordering is adjudicated differently on the PF side of the model (B&K 2002a, 2003). Grammatical weight (as Wasow 2002: 15–60 calls it) and information-structure properties can be controlled for. Once this is accomplished, a basic order emerges: (38a). It is noteworthy how little has been done in the mainstream generative literature to solve the problem of Heavy-NP Shift in English, as pervasive as that phenomenon is. The similarities between English and Tagalog in this regard are startling. Although English has a rather strict SVO order and Tagalog is verbinitial, both languages have very strict constituent ordering up to the verb, then considerable freedom of ordering for the rest of the clause. For example, if an English verb allows two objects, these can appear in either order in most situations: give your neighbor a cake and give a cake to your neighbor. Wasow (2002) opts for
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an approach that marries grammar (in the strict sense of merging and moving) with probabilistic psychological-processing factors in order to choose between such orders. I tend to agree with this mixed approach because the psychological part explains squishy tendencies like Heavy-shift, while the grammatical part seems to account for the categorical rules of the grammar (Early-Actor and Late-subject). After a fashion, this paper has formalized two of Kroeger’s three tendencies, Early Actor and Late-subject, but the Heavy-shift tendency remains within the domain of extragrammatical processing. I have explained one aspect of the optionality of constituent orders in Tagalog. As such, certain ordering options are restricted as to form (only pronouns or proper names) and meaning (only given elements). While no syntactician would raise an eyebrow at the mention of pronouns having special syntax, it takes some convincing to show that nonpronominals can also appear in this position, known descriptively as the clitic cluster. It is not surprising that Tagalog would allow proper names in this position, owing to their higher animacy. More importantly, the fact that given proper names are clitics entails that Tagalog clauses are subjectfinal. Does this make Tagalog a VOS language? I remain firmly agnostic about whether default morphology represents objecthood (pending a review of the ergativity issue and consideration of more nonverbal clauses). Carnie and Guilfoyle (2000a: 4–10) devote only one paragraph to VOS, compared to nearly six pages for VSO, implying that VOS languages are far less understood. I would agree. Hopefully, the observations in this paper as well as the insights of the kind found in Massam (2000a) – both empirical and conceptual – will rectify this problem and perhaps explain the rarity of subject-final languages overall.
Notes * I am thankful for help from the following colleagues: Edith Aldridge, Sherri Brainard, Scott Burton, Grace Collins Hargis, T. Florian Jaeger, Daniel Kaufman, Celeste Lee, Raphael Mercado, Matthew Pearson, J. Stephen Quakenbush, Andrea Rackowski, Robert Reynolds, Anjum Saleemi, each of this volume’s three editors, and two anonymous referees, as well as audiences at the workshop on verb-initial syntax (Tucson) and the 10th Austronesian Formal Linguistics Association (Honolulu), both in 2003, and a talk at the Summer Institute of Linguistics (Manila), in 2004. Thanks especially to Florian, Dan, Matt, Robert, and Steve for extensive and insightful comments on previous drafts of this paper. Travel funding to present the talk in Tucson that resulted in this paper came from the National Science Council (Republic of China) and the National Science Foundation (United States); in addition, some of the research leading to this paper was funded by NSC project 90-2416-H-126-015. I gratefully acknowledge these two agencies’ assistance as well. Nonetheless, only I am responsible for any errors herein.
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Loren A. Billings . For further readings on what has been called Philippine-type voice, see Himmelmann (forthcoming), Ross (2002), and other papers in the same volumes. . In the numbered examples, Actors are shown in bold face; subjects, in italics. Note that in (1a) the same nominal is in bold italics, because it is both the Actor and marked as the subject. . Some Austronesian studies call this nominal the topic or the focus. Recent overviews of the confusing terminology include Blust (2002) and Quakenbush (2003: 7–9, 17–18). . It is not clear, however, whether the subject causes the verb to agree with it. There is no gender, meaning that the verb does not reflect any idiosyncratic property of a particular nominal. A few verbal forms do allow agreement with a plural nominal. See Schachter (1994: 11–15) who critiques Kroeger (1993: 24–25) in this regard. In at least one other construction – see (5), (6), and (18) below – subject morphology on one of the nominals does not co-occur with any voice morphology on the predicate. And in copular clauses there can be two phrases with this morphology (e.g., Kroeger 1993: 148). These facts suggest to me that subject-marking is not case inflection on nominals as such. Rackowski (2002: 29) and Reid (2002) reach similar conclusions. . In the examples – e.g., (4) – Theme voice is assumed if there is no affix to the contrary. See Ross (2002: 38) for more on the complementary distribution of in as infix and suffix. . Most discussions treat Actor and Theme nominals marked by ng=/ni= differently. Nonsubject Actors and Themes are sometimes labeled alike as genitive (e.g., Kroeger 1993). Despite their identical marking, other models label them differently: as a sort of oblique case for Actors and as accusative for Themes (e.g., GH&T 1992: 387) or, in Aldridge (2003: 634– 638), as ergative and oblique, respectively. In my view, none of the structural approaches handles ng= and ni= elegantly. For this reason, I have striven here for more theory-neutral terminology. . Tagalog subjects can also be generic. Because the choice between a and the in English is mostly based on definiteness rather than just specificity, it is often difficult to translate nominals introduced by ang= (subject marker, not a proper name). However, in order to keep the translations from being too stilted, I use the unless a is required for separate reasons, as in (38a). . While my discussion makes these tendencies sound like formal constraints interacting as in Optimality Theory (e.g., Costa 2001), this is only an expository device. I argue below that there is no optionality in ordering elements, only different interpretations resulting in distinct orders. . The Actor role has often been called “agent” (suggesting volition) or “experiencer” (implying a feeling or emotional state). I conflate these two roles into Actor, allowing for a consistent account of the psych predicates in (5), (6), and (18). Similarly, the Theme role has often been labeled “patient” or “undergoer”; these terms imply that this entity is affected in some way, a property observed with subjects (Rackowski 2002: 46, citing Ramos 1974). In addition, some of the literature on Philippine languages (e.g., Schachter 1976, 1977) uses “goal” for what I call the Theme, whereas the generative literature often uses “goal” for what I call Direction (following Schachter 1994). As GH&T (1992: 378) note, which word we use to label these semantic roles is not important. Some may therefore wish to interpret
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Actor and Theme as the predicate’s external and internal arguments respectively (although there are different formulations of these terms as well, especially in Grimshaw 1990: 33–37), especially with causative verbs. . The Late-subject tendency does not merely require the subject to follow the other nominal. For instance, in a clause with three nominals and adjuncts, this tendency means that the subject is still in clause-final position (especially if it is not the Actor). . Section 4 reassesses this optionality. For the time being, (3a–b) can be translated alike. . The acceptability judgments in this paper are often not absolute. One or two preceding question marks indicate that the example is either slightly (?) or quite (??) odd, whereas an asterisk indicates that the utterance is completely unacceptable (*). Speakers of Tagalog may quibble over the exact level of unacceptability of the examples shown, but will likely agree that the examples preceded by one or more question marks are not as acceptable as the unmarked examples. I might also add that Tagalog is the language upon which a national language has been engineered. Therefore, those who speak Tagalog as a lingua franca may be more forgiving of some of the forms marked with question marks. On the other hand, Tagalog is the indigenous, native language of millions of Filipinos in cities and provinces in central and southern Luzon and neighboring islands. As such, dialectal variation is possible, although I have not detected any areal or socioeconomic variation with regard to the main phenomena being discussed in this paper. . If two nominals with default morphology are present, “the Actor must precede the other arguments” (Kroeger 1993: 111, his emphasis). This precedence requirement might also be due to a garden-path effect. What I call default morphology is also used to mark genitives at the end of a nominal expression. A sequence like (a)ng=halu-halo ni=Dan in (5b) and (6b) can also mean ‘Dan’s halu-halo’. Humans are likely possessors; hence the garden-path effect. . Similarly, the most neutral (postverbal) position for kaagad in the preceding examples of this subsection is immediately before the Theme in all of (3a–b), (4a), and (5a). . Penultimate stress is accompanied by vowel length. See McFarland (2001: 1 fn. 1). . These pronouns, katá (subj) and nitá (dflt), correspond to [– pl, + me, + you]. (Blake 1925: 17 gives slightly different forms; there appears to have been some variation over time.) With these pronouns, we have all eight permutations of the three features, following McKaughan (1959). See also Corbett (2000: 166–169) for discussion. The relevance of these features, [± pl, ± me, ± you], arises in (11) through (13) below, where possible pronoun combinations are listed. . The pronunciation of these three alternative forms varies. I have listed just one for each. More commonly, s’ya is pronounced with an initial postalveolar fricative instead of the initial [sj] cluster. And n’yo may be written in place of both disyllabic [ni.jo] and monosyllabic [njo]. . I owe this idea to Daniel Kaufman. Similarly, natin can co-occur with kayo (2.pl.subj). . I have taken several examples from the World Wide Web (and translated and glossed them, adding = and - morpheme breaks). I list the full Internet address, but all of these have also been archived on <www.google.com>.
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Loren A. Billings . Hetzron adds that the opposite orders can occur in emphatic contexts; (14a–c) are the neutral pronoun orders. Like Tagalog, as the following subsection shows, Hetzron reports that two disyllabic clitics in a Hebrew cluster (not shown here) can appear in either order. . I henceforth dispense with listing each combination of clitic pronouns. Although Schachter (1973: 218) reports that the orders in (17a) and (18a) are merely preferable, McFarland (2001: 3) did not find a single example of the opposite ordering that could not be attributed to prosody. . McFarland (2001: 8) also lists siguro ‘maybe’, talaga ‘really’, and uli ‘again’ in this class. I have replaced McFarland’s examples with sentences that include pairs of personal pronouns. Regarding the complexities of the causativity in (19a), see also my discussion of (26a–b) below. . M&N (1997: 320) also list (25b), but without any degraded acceptability; their translation also differs inconsequentially. Both M&N and Rackowski attribute (25b) to Maclachlan (1996). . Example (26b) is opportune in that there is also complex, causative morphosyntax. Despite the fact that the Causee is not the most prominent nominal in some sense, it apparently still functions as an Actor for the purposes of appearing in clitic position. This example indirectly supports my analysis of (22b), where a subject-marked non-Actor noun is less acceptable as an optional clitic. This is because optional clisis is motivated by Early-Actor. . Example (28b) does not express constituent negation of the Actor-subject nominal. For that interpretation, a cleft structure – differing in the presence of ang= before the verb – is necessary (Mercado forthcoming). . The reason for these differences in acceptability might be generational. According to Sityar (1989: v, 1 fn. 1), although her primary consultant was 20 years old, two others were 60. . In this paper I sidestep the debate about whether the clitic cluster in Tagalog is peninitial (assumed in most studies and made explicit in Anderson, forthcoming) or verb-adjacent (B&K 2002a, 2002b, 2003). Billings (2002) distinguishes between the two types and observes that clitics with lexical accent, as in many of the forms in (10) above, are found in the latter type. . I do not discuss a third, generic interpretation. Nor do I show how extraction affects the specificity of unextracted elements. See McFarland (1978) for details. . Other ways to contrast si=Juan exist, including constituent-scope negation: [Hindi si=Juan] ang da-rating bukas, kundi si=Maria. ‘JUAN is not the one arriving tomorrow, MARIA is.’ For pronouns to be contrasted, only the constituent-scope option is allowed: [Hindi sila] ang da-rating bukas, kundi si=Maria. ‘THEY are not the ones arriving tomorrow, MARIA is.’ . Anderson (forthcoming) offers a competing view to the model proposed by B&K (2002a, 2003). He proposes that all clitics are phrasal affixes – much as B&K (2003) assume this just for the particle clitics. One reason to assume that personal pronouns are arguments, and therefore not phrasal affixes, is that there is no so-called clitic doubling (B&K 2002a: 37 fn. 4; Sityar 1989: 59). In addition, it would be difficult to widen Anderson’s clitic cluster to
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include the optional-clitic data proposed in this paper. I still agree, however, that particles are phrasal affixes. . Gender is not the only way to disambiguate pronouns. Philippine languages have at their disposal discourse particles such as naman, exemplified above in (21a), which switch the topic of a discourse. As such, even without gender, the intended topic in Tagalog and related languages is understood. Discussions of such mechanisms include Elkins (1973) and Larson (1972). . The resemblances between Tagalog and Portuguese do not end there. In a recent flurry of papers, Costa (2000, 2001, 2002) discusses VOS order and its relevance to broader issues. . GH&T do not discuss the predicates exemplified above in (5) and (6). I assume that such structures in their model would include no IP and therefore correctly predict the two nominals’ orders in their base-generated positions within VP. However, it remains unclear how GH&T’s model would handle the ang= morphology in (6a, c) when there is no voicemarked verb. . Recent data from Scott Burton (p.c.) suggest that the optional ordering of the only trisyllabic personal pronoun in Tagakaulo Kalagan, in.1.pl.subj kitadun, might not be accounted for by morphosyntactic factors alone. Whereas Collins reports that a third-person pronoun follows a first- or second-person pronoun, Burton shows that kitadun can either follow or precede third-person pronouns. My preliminary analysis is that Tagakaulo Kalagan has a weaker variant of the prosodic effect ordering pronouns in Tagalog; only trisyllabic kitadun is considered heavy. In other words, Tagakaulo Kalagan attests the analogue of (14b–c) but not of (14a).
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The syntax of Chalcatongo Mixtec Preverbal and postverbal* Monica Macaulay University of Wisconsin-Madison
This paper provides, first, an overview of the basic facts of Chalcatongo Mixtec (CM) syntax. It next considers some of the correlates of VSO word order which have been argued for in the literature, finding that CM supports some but contradicts others. It then turns to an analysis of the structure of the CM clause, focusing especially on the distribution of pronominal clitics, DPs, and full pronouns. CM allows two kinds of preverbal elements, a focus phrase and a topic. When the focus is subject, no clitic doubling occurs, but when the topic is subject it is always doubled by a pronominal clitic. This is accounted for by treating the focused element as moving to preverbal position, but the topic as base-generated.
.
Introduction
This paper has three goals: the first is to provide the reader with a tour of the basic facts of Chalcatongo Mixtec syntax, the second is to discuss some putative correlates of VSO word order in the light of the data described, and the third is to provide an analysis of the structure of the Chalcatongo Mixtec clause in view of analyses by other authors of the structure of other VSO languages.1 I begin in Section 2 by discussing correlates of VSO word order in Chalcatongo Mixtec (“CM” in what follows), and then turn in Section 3 to CM clausal syntax, where I discuss non-basic word orders; the distribution of pronominal clitics, lexical DPs, and full pronouns; and preverbal and postverbal subjects. In the latter two subsections, I note the importance of distinguishing between topic and focus, and use that to provide an analysis of the CM clause. Section 4 then concludes the paper.
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. Correlates of VSO word order The basic VSO word order of Chalcatongo Mixtec is illustrated in (1) and (2):2 (1) nì-naa inì cˇ áá ndo‘ò. cmpl-lose insides man basket “The man forgot his basket.”
Transitive verb: VSO
(2) ni-na-iˇcì sa‘ma=ró. cmpl-rep-be.dry clothes=2 “Your clothes have dried.”
Intransitive verb: VS
(1) shows a transitive verb, ‘forget’, followed by a subject and then an object; note that in CM ‘forget’ is a complex verb composed of a verb (‘lose’) plus a body part term (‘insides’). In (2) an intransitive verb, ‘to be dry’ is followed by its subject.3
. Greenbergian correlates CM shows most of the expected Greenbergian correlates of VSO order, as shown in (3)–(6). That is, CM has prepositions (3), nouns precede modifying adjectives (4), the genitive follows the head in possessive constructions (5), and interrogatives are initial in wh-questions (6).4 (3) a.
kù kaka=žó PP [ondé San Miguel]. be.able walk=1pl up.to San Miguel “We can walk to San Miguel.” ˜ı˜ı šiò PP [xakúu sesí‘í=ri]. b. ni-sá‘a=rí cmpl-make=1 one skirt for daughter=1 “I made a skirt for my daughter.” lagúna k½a‘n˜u laguna big “big lake” b. s½u‘n˜u t¾uu¾ shirt black “black shirt”
Prepositions
(4) a.
Noun-adjective
(5) a.
Noun-genitive
kaˇcíní peðrú hat Pedro “Pedro’s hat” b. ndùa ndíkandí ray sun “the sun’s rays”
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(6) a.
ndéu ní-ka-žaà táa=ní? where cmpl-pl-live parent=2pol “Where did your parents live?” b. šínaxa‘a xakú=ro? why laugh=2 “Why are you laughing?”
Interrogative initial in wh-questions
In addition, as (7) shows, the alternate order SVO is relatively common, with either a topic or focus reading. (I return to this issue below):5 (7) ñមıu˜ wã½a ni-ka-xá‘a ñ˜uu¾ . people that cmpl-pl-pass.by town “Those people went to the town.”
SVO order
Greenberg also makes various observations about yes/no questions in VSO languages, and this issue is an interesting one when we look across the Mixtec dialects. Chalcatongo Mixtec simply makes no distinction whatsoever between statements and yes/no questions, relying entirely on context to disambiguate. But an entire range of possibilities is found in other dialects, as shown in Table 1.6 As the table shows, questions can be formed with a sentence-initial particle, a sentence-final particle, a second position particle, a change in tone, or with no overt marking at all (as in CM). What is relevant here is first Greenberg’s universal #9: “With well more than chance frequency, when question particles or affixes are specified in position by reference to the sentence as a whole, if initial, such elements are found in prepositional languages, and, if final, in postpositional” (1963: 64), and his universal #10, which states that question particles, “when specified in poTable 1. Yes-no question formation across Mixtec dialects Strategy
Dialect
Form
S-initial particle
Alacatlatzala Ayutla Jamiltepec Ocotepec Silacayoapan
án ñáá/áán atu á á
S-final particle
Diuxi-Tilantongo Yosondúa
á nú
2nd position particle
Coatzospan
ndu
Tone change
Ayutla
–
No overt marking
Chalcatongo San Miguel
– –
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sition by reference to a particular word in the sentence, almost always follow that word,” and further, that “Such particles do not occur in languages with dominant order VSO” (1963: 64). These are clearly contradicted – in a variety of ways – by the data from a number of the Mixtec dialects. First, the Mixtec dialects are prepositional, yet at least two have sentence-final question particles.7 Second, if we can assume that specifying the position of the particle with reference to “a particular word” includes second position, then we have a case (in Coatzospan Mixtec) in which such a particle does occur in a VSO language. This point highlights the potential pitfalls of typological surveys – even a sample which was carefully balanced geographically and otherwise would presumably only include one Mixtec dialect (if it included any), and if it was the wrong one, the wrong generalization could emerge.8
. Other correlates of VSO At this point I turn to additional correlates of VSO order which have been noted by other authors: lack of non-finite verb forms, absence of a copula, and lack of a lexical verb ‘have’.
.. Lack of non-finite verb forms (Myhill 1985) Myhill (1985) notes that VSO languages often lack non-finite verb forms. This is true of CM, as the examples in (8) illustrate: Lack of non-finite verb forms ni-kexá‘á=Ø xíˇci=Ø. cmpl-start=3 bathe.rls=3 “He started to bathe.” b. kuní=rí kée=rí. want=1 eat.pot=1 “I want to eat something.” c. xw ã nì-kunì=Ø xa=nà-šukw½ı˜ı=rí. Juan cmpl-want=3 c=rep-turn=1 “Juan wanted me to go back home.”
(8) a.
In the first two of these examples the verbs in the subordinate clauses are marked as realis (“rls”) and potential (“pot”). Most Mixtec verbs have (at least) these two aspectual stems, which may differ segmentally, by tone, or segmentally and by tone. Potential aspect is used to present events as possible, probable, or potential, while realis is used to describe events that are underway at the time of the speech event, are habitual, or have already been finished at the time of speaking. There are, however, no infinitives or participles in Mixtec. In (8a) we see a realis stem used in
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a control construction, and in (8b) we see a potential stem used. (8c) shows what translates as an ECM construction in English; the Mixtec, though, is closer to ‘Juan wanted that I should go home’ or something along those lines. Thus CM does fit Myhill’s observation up to this point. But Myhill mentions a secondary correlate of this tendency: “Many verb-initial languages freely use nominalizations to represent presuppositional Verbal Concepts where SV languages would use a finite or non-finite verb form” (1985: 182).9 This raises an interesting issue in CM: the primary complementizer in the language is homophonous with its only nominalizing prefix, making subordinate clauses look like they might be nominalized. This complementizer, xa=, appears in (8c); the nominalizer xa- is illustrated in (9) and (10): (9) a.
keè xá-ndáa. speak nmz-true “Speak the truth.” b. sa‘ma-rí kúu xa-kw a‘á. clothes=1 cop nmz-red “My clothes are the red ones.”
(10) a.
xa-b˜ıš½ı nmz-sweet “fruit” b. xa-lúlí nmz-small “child, boy”
In (9) we find examples of productive nominalizations with xa-; in (10) we find examples that have conventionalized (although fairly transparent) meanings. It is clear that these two elements (the complementizer and the nominalizer) are diachronically related, but I have argued elsewhere (Macaulay 1996) that they are synchronically distinct. Briefly, we can note first that they have different distributions: one is a phrasal affix (or clitic), and the other is a derivational affix. Furthermore, Mixtec subordinate clauses show no morphological indication of being nominalized (so for example, person marking appears on the verb within the clause, rather than at the end, as we might expect if the whole clause were a nominal). Thus, they have to be differentiated in a synchronic account of Chalcatongo Mixtec. Nonetheless, the diachronic relationship and Myhill’s generalization are intriguing.
.. Lack of a copula (Carnie & Guilfoyle 2000a; others) Moving on to our next correlate of VSO order, Carnie and Guilfoyle (2000a) (citing Carnie 1995) – and others – have observed that VSO languages tend to lack
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a copula in sentences with non-verbal predicates. CM does have a copula (in fact it has several elements that seem to function as copulas), but adjectival predicates can also be expressed without one. We begin with nominal predicates in CM, which require a copula, kúu. Consider (11): ru‘u kúu-rí ½ı½ı hàsG‘G. I cop=1 one woman “I am a woman.” b. máá kúu žii=ri. emph cop husband=1 “He is my husband.”
(11) a.
These sentences would be ungrammatical without kúu. However, as mentioned above, the copula can be omitted with adjectival predicates. (12) and (13) illustrate: xw ã kaa lúlí. Juan cop small “Juan is small/short.” b. ndežu káa ža‘u. food cop expensive “The food is expensive.”
(12) a.
(13) a.
žii=rí súkú. husband=1 tall “My husband is tall.” b. ñí‘ní nduˇca. hot water “The water is hot.”
As (12) shows, the copula takes the form kaa with adjectives, rather than kúu, as seen with nouns. (13), in contrast provides two examples with bare adjectival predicates.10 What, though, is the difference between the verbless sentences with adjectival predicates and the ones with a copula? Most of the examples with adjectival predicates are predicate-initial, and so a possible explanation for the difference might therefore be that the copula appears only when the subject is focused. However, occasionally subject-initial sentences with adjectival predicates are also verbless, as in (13a) and additionally in (14): (14) nduˇca žá‘a biši šã¾a. water this warm very “This water is very warm.”
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Some other dialects of Mixtec show similar data – that is, adjectival predicates with and without a verb that takes the form kaa (with varying tones depending on dialect). In several of these dialects (for example, Jamiltepec (Johnson 1988), Ocotepec (Alexander 1988), and Diuxi-Tilantongo (Kuiper & Oram 1991)), this verb is translated as ‘appear’ or ‘seem’, which would explain its optional presence. But this distinction did not emerge in my work on CM, and so I leave this an open question for now. The Mixtec dialects, then, only partially conform to the observation that VSO languages tend to lack a copula – adjectival predicates can be expressed without one, but nominal predicates require one.
.. Lack of a verb ‘have’ (Freeze & Georgopoulos 2000) The third correlate of VSO order to be discussed is brought up by Freeze (1992) and Freeze and Georgopoulos (2000), who claim that “. . . in contrast to SVO and SOV languages, there are no ‘have’ lexicalizations in the possessive sentences of verb initial languages” (2000: 167). CM is a direct counterexample to this claim, since it has a very robust verb ‘have’ in possessive constructions. Freeze and Georgopoulos’s claim, more specifically, is that instead of using a verb ‘have’ for possessive sentences, verb-initial languages make use of an existential construction like that illustrated in (15) for Yucatec. In this example, the possessor subject (‘my father’) is a locative argument, the possessed argument (‘a horse’) is a theme, and the predicate is a locative copula. Yucatec (15) yaan huntul ciimin ti‘ in-paapa. cop.loc one horse p my-father “My father has a/one horse.” (Freeze & Georgopoulos 2000: 167) But CM has precisely the verb Freeze and Georgopoulos say it should not have, as shown in (16):11 ñába‘a=Ø kw 㑾a š½u‘˜u. have=3 much money “He’s going to have a lot of money.” b. žubà‘à=rí ½ı½ı dòzená staà. have=1 one dozena tortilla “I have a dozen tortillas.”
(16) a.
Freeze and Georgopoulos actually discuss three locative constructions (predicate locatives, existentials, and possessives), claiming that the data provide evidence for different underlying word orders and derivational histories for the different word order types, contra much current work in syntax. This CM counterexample undermines at least part of their argument.
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. CM clausal syntax At this point I turn to two related issues in the syntax of CM: first, the types of non-basic word orders found in the language, and second, the use of pronominal clitics and their cooccurrence with coreferential DPs and full pronouns. These are both discussed with an eye to the evidence the data provide concerning the most appropriate analysis of the derivation of CM word order.
. Non-basic word orders In example (7), above, we saw that SVO is a common alternative word order in CM. Two more examples of subject-initial order are provided in (17):12 (17) a.
spexó tá‘u. espejo break(vi) “The mirror breaks/is broken.” b. Pedro xínú žáˇcí sã¾a. Pedro run fast very “Pedro runs very fast.”
Initial subject
In addition to subjects, a wide range of arguments and non-arguments can appear before the verb in CM. Consider first (18)–(19): cìì žuù wã½a žáá ½ı½ı kòò. stomach rock that live one snake “Under that rock lives a snake.” b. nù zúkú wã½a žáá ½ı½ı bá‘ù. face mountain that live one coyote “In those mountains lives a coyote.”
(18) a.
Initial oblique
(19) a.
Initial object
tutù wã½a nì-xà‘ža peðrú. paper that cmpl-cut Pedro “Pedro cut that (piece of) paper.” b. statilá nì-sa‘a miguel. bread cmpl-make Miguel “Miguel made the bread.”
(18) provides two examples of oblique-initial sentences (‘under that rock’ and ‘in those mountains’ – both using body part terms in the way mentioned in Note 3), and (19) provides two examples of object-initial sentences. Initial subjects and initial obliques are fairly common; initial objects are fairly rare, but they can and do occur.
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The initial constituent does not have to be an argument of the verb, though. (20) shows initial non-argument DPs, and (21) shows initial adverbials: Initial non-argument DP cˇ àà tú=žóó se‘e. man neg=exist child “That man has no children.” (lit. “As for that man, children do not exist.”) b. maría ni-te‘nde sa‘ma=Ø. María cmpl-rip(vi) dress=3 Elicited: “María ripped her dress.” (lit. “As for María, her dress ripped.”) Initial adverbial (21) a. nù žoò nù žo k˜ı‘˜ı=rí nužá‘u. face month face month go=1 market “Every month I will go to the market.” b. w½aã ni-ka-žée=Ø staà. there cmpl-pl-eat=3 tortilla “There, they ate.” (20) a.
There can also be more than one preverbal constituent, as in (22)–(23): ñáni=rí šã¾a k½a‘ã. brother=1 much talk “My brother talks a lot/too much.” b. iku maría ni-xi‘i. yesterday María cmpl-die “Yesterday María died.”
(22) a.
kaxá w½aã tènana ñ½u‘˜u. caja the tomato contain “The box contains tomatoes.” b. burrú=ró wã½a nužá‘u xíndee. burro=2 that plaza be.in “Your burro is in the plaza.”
(23) a.
Initial DP + adverbial
Initial adverbial + DP
Two preverbal arguments
As (22) shows, a DP and an adverbial can cooccur before the verb in either order (subject–adverb in (a) and adverb–subject in (b)). (23) shows two very unusual examples of SOV word order; I return to these examples at the end of the paper.
. Distribution of pronominal clitics, lexical DPs, and full pronouns CM has an extensive set of pronominal clitics. Table 2 provides the complete list, along with the corresponding free forms.
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Table 2. Chalcatongo Mixtec pronominal clitics pers 1
2 3
gender familiar polite inclusive (pl) familiar polite masculine feminine polite: older animal supernatural younger, deceased, etc. unmarked
clitic =rí =na =žó =ro =ní =ðe =ñá =to =tG =ža =ži =Ø
free form
meaning
rù‘ù na‘a žó‘ó ro‘o ní‘í cˇ àà ñ½a‘ã to‘ò kGtG í‘a, íža (žii
‘man’ ‘woman’ ‘Señor’ ‘animal’ ‘God’ ‘man’)
These clitics appear on DPs to mark possession, they attach to prepositions to mark the object of the preposition, and they appear on predicates to mark subject. As the table shows, the first and second person clitics correspond to full pronouns, while the third person pronominal clitics correspond to nouns with generic reference, rather than to pronouns. In the terminology of Zwicky (1977), these clitics are ‘special clitics’ – that is, they appear in different syntactic environments from those of the full forms. In addition, the distributional restrictions on the full first and second person pronouns are different from those on the full nonpronominal nouns. Tables 3a and 3b provide examples of the positions of subject DPs, subject pronouns, and subject clitics in CM. In Table 3a, (24)–(27) provide examples with postverbal subjects: (24) shows that the subject may be a lexical DP in postverbal position; (25) shows that a lexical DP in postverbal position may not be accompanied by a clitic; (26) shows that the clitic alone may appear as subject; and (27) shows that full pronouns – unlike lexical DPs – may not appear postverbally. We can summarize these facts as follows: – – –
A lexical DP or clitic may follow the verb, A clitic and lexical DP may not cooccur after the verb, A full pronoun may not occur after the verb.
In Table 3b, (28)–(31) provide examples with preverbal subjects: in (28) we have a full DP in preverbal position; in (29) there is a pronoun in preverbal position; (30) shows that a preverbal lexical DP may cooccur with a subject clitic; and (31) shows that a preverbal pronoun may likewise cooccur with a subject clitic.
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Table 3a. Distribution of postverbal subjects in CM Example (24)
(25)
(26)
(27)
x½ın˜u ñ½a‘ã w½a. run woman that “That woman is running.” w½a. *x½ın˜u=ñá ñ½a‘ã run=3fem woman that (“That woman is running.”) x½ın˜u=ñ½a. run=3fem “She’s running.” *nì-žee rù‘ù. cmpl-eat I (“I ate.”)
Pattern V – lexical DP
*V = clitic – lexical DP
V = clitic
*V – pronoun
Table 3b. Distribution of preverbal subjects in CM Example (28)
(29)
(30)
(31)
ñ½a‘ã w½a x½ın˜u. woman that run “That woman is running.” rù‘ù nì-žee. I cmpl-eat “I ate (it).” w½a x½ın˜u=ñá. ñ½a‘ã woman that run=3fem “That woman is running.” rù‘ù ni-žee=rí. I cmpl-eat=1 “As for me, I ate (it).”
Pattern lexical DP – V
pronoun – V
lexical DP – V = clitic
pronoun – V = clitic
This set of facts can be summarized as follows: – –
A lexical DP or full pronoun may precede the verb, with no pronominal clitic, A lexical DP or full pronoun may precede the verb, cooccurring with a pronominal clitic.
Thus there are two facts to account for here: first, full pronouns may only appear preverbally, never postverbally, and second, when DPs or pronouns are preverbal, they may appear alone, or may be doubled by a pronominal enclitic.13
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.. Postverbal subjects We look first at the examples in Table 3a, the postverbal set. (24)–(27) show complementarity between lexical DPs and clitic pronouns, indicating at an intuitive level that the clitics fill the subject argument position just as lexical DPs do. Lee (2000a) provides evidence from adverb stranding that Zapotec clitics are in fact phrasal (as opposed to agreement heads which incorporate into the verb), and similar data are found in CM, as shown in (32): (32) a.
ni-žéé=rí staà. cmpl-eat=1 tortilla “I ate.” b. ni-žéé šã¾a=rí staà. cmpl-eat much=1 tortilla “I ate a lot/I ate excessively.”
In (32a) we see a subject clitic attached to the verb, followed by the object. In (32b), however, an adverb intervenes between the verb and the clitic. I take this as evidence that the verb raises out of VP past the adjoined AdvP – and I return to this topic shortly. However, at this point simply note that because the clitic occupies the subject position, there is no requirement that it raise with the verb (I also return below to the issue of whether the subject has independently undergone raising). Thus the CM clitics are Xmax clitics, in the terminology of Halpern and Fontana (1994) – that is, maximal projections that provide the subject argument for the clause.
.. Preverbal subjects: Focus vs. topic Next consider the preverbal data. In such cases, at least one element is found in a preverbal position. But here (unlike in the postverbal cases), we find both complementarity and clitic doubling. This might appear to lead to a contradiction: the complementarity between clitic pronouns on the one hand, and lexical DPs and full pronouns on the other seems to indicate that the clitics fill the subject argument position. Yet the fact that there is also clitic doubling might be taken to indicate that the clitics are merely agreeing with a lexical DP or pronoun which serves as (preverbal) subject. The question we need to answer is this: which element serves as subject in the doubling construction? The evidence points very clearly towards the clitic serving as subject whether or not there is doubling with a DP or pronoun (in fact some authors would not even want to call this ‘doubling’, but I continue to do so for ease of reference). The first thing to note is that we find that the semantics are different between the undoubled constructions and the doubled ones. Sentences in which there is a single preverbal constituent and no clitic pronoun on the verb have focus semantics.14 Preverbal focus can either be simple new information focus, or can function as contrastive focus.15 (33a–b) illustrate:
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Information focus rù‘ù kú‘u. I sick “I’m sick.” or “It’s me who’s sick.” Contrastive focus b. rù‘ù cˇ í‘i itù te máá=ðe cˇ í‘i I plant corn and emph=3masc plant nduˇci t½uu½ . bean black “I’m planting corn and/but he’s planting black beans.”
(33) a.
One of the difficulties with these data is that since there is a zero third person clitic in CM, with third person examples it can be impossible to tell whether the initial DP or pronoun stands alone, or whether it is doubled by a non-overt clitic. I return to this issue below, but note that both examples in (33) have a first person subject and so the lack of the clitic is obvious. Contrasting with the focus construction, sentences with both an initial DP or pronoun and a clitic on the verb are topic constructions (or what is also known as Left Dislocation).16 Consider the examples in (34): (34) a.
ro‘o tú=kú‘u=ro. you neg=sick=2 “As for you, you’re not sick.” b. ru‘ù žée=ka=rí. I eat=add-1 “As for me, I’m still eating.” c. ñមıu˜ wã½a ni-ka-xá‘a=Ø ñ˜uu¾ . people that cmpl-pl-pass.by=3 town “Those people went to the town.” (“As for those people, they went to the town.”)
Topic
(34c) is repeated from (7), given earlier, but this time I have put the zero clitic in and suggested a more explicitly topic-like translation. This is an example of what was just mentioned: out of context the example would be ambiguous between a focus reading and a topic reading. That is, a sentence like this might contain a focused constituent with no pronominal clitic, or it might contain a topic with a zero clitic. Because the third person subject marker has no phonetic content, the topic might appear to be the unique bearer of the subject role, but in this particular example it is really the zero clitic which functions as the argument. Occasionally the two possibilities (focus vs. topic) can be distinguished by intonation: in some cases there is a pause after a topic, but normally there is no pause after a focused element. (35) provides two such examples:
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xw ã, nì-kii=Ø žá‘a iku. Juan cmpl-come=3 here yesterday “Did Juan come here yesterday?” (“As for Juan, did he come here yesterday?”) b. xw ã, keè=Ø xa=ˇcí‘i=Ø nunì. Juan say=3 c=plant=3 corn “As for Juan, they say he’s planting corn.”
(35) a.
Note that (35b) is an example of a sentence which not only has a pause after the topic but also shows that the topic can be coreferential with an argument of a subordinate clause, separated from it by the main clause. However, most sentences with topics do not include a pause following the topic. Since there is no focus particle or any other element that distinguishes focus from topic, and since CM is a tone language – which generally rules out intonational cues – such utterances are generally just disambiguated by context.17 There is, however, one test for topic, to which we now turn.
.. Negation as a test for focus vs. topic CM has a bound negative marker tu= which corresponds to the full word túu, which means ‘no’. The bound form appears to the left of the verb (or other predicate), and also to the left of any preverbal adverb. Examples (36a–c) illustrate its use: (36) a.
tu=ni-xížaa=ró. neg=cmpl-be.located=2 “You weren’t there.” b. tu=ká-ku siì iní=ro. neg=pl-cop happy insides=2 “You (PL) don’t feel happy.” c. tu=šã¾a sá‘a=Ø b¾ıxì. neg=much make=3 cold “It’s less cold/It’s not so cold.”
Clausal negation
(36a) and (b) provide examples of preverbal negatives, and (36c) provides an example in which the negative marker precedes an adverb, indicating that tu= is a clitic. Clauses with focused arguments, however, are not negated with tu=; instead, there is a special focus negator, as illustrated in (37):
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Focus negation niàsù cˇ u¾ u¾ lGG ká-ku cˇ i ká-ku neg.foc chicken chick pl-cop but pl-cop kóní lúlí. turkey.hen small “They’re not chicken chicks, they’re turkey chicks.” b. niàsù ro‘o kú‘u. neg.foc you sick “It’s not you who is sick.” c. *tu=ro‘o kú‘u. neg=you sick (“It’s not you who is sick.”)
(37) a.
(37a) and (b) illustrate the focus negator niàsù. In (37c) we see that focus negation cannot be accomplished with the clausal negator tu=. Finally, also note that topics appear outside of tu=, as in (38a) and (b): (38) a.
ndežu tú=ža‘u=Ø. food neg=expensive=3 “The food is not expensive.” b. sókó tú=šã¾a k½un½u=Ø. well neg=much deep=3 “The well is not very deep.”
Having now explored a range of word order possibilities in CM, we turn to our last topic, which involves some comments on the structure of the CM clause. The focus negator, niàsù, will be useful in determining the status of preverbal DPs in subordinate clauses.
. Structure of the CM clause Parallel to the arguments that have been made by numerous authors for numerous other VSO languages, there is evidence in CM for the verb and its object comprising a constituent separate from the subject in underlying structure. A first – although admittedly weak – argument can be made from the single example with VOS order that I have found, shown in (39): (39) cˇ ó‘o cˇ i a-sá‘a mísá sutù. go.hort because temp-make misa priest “Let’s go, because the priest is already starting the mass.”
VOS order
Since VOS is normally ruled out in CM, this example seems to show some sort of incorporation of the object into the verb. If we accept that the verb moves in derivation of CM clauses, in this case the verb and the object would have to move
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together, implying that they form a constituent. But since, as mentioned above, I have only found one such example, it has to be acknowledged as a fairly weak argument for the existence of a VP constituent.18 Other arguments for VP, which are parallel to the clefting and VP ellipsis facts in the Celtic languages (for example), seem to be lacking in CM, but various subject-object asymmetries do hold. For example, as shown in (40) and (41), reflexives and reciprocals show the expected distributions: (40) a.
ni-ˇcisa‘í=ri máá=rí nuù=ðe. cmpl-hide=1 self=1 face=3masc “I hid myself from him.” b. cˇ íkú x½atã‘ã máá=Ø. Francisco like self=3 “Francisco likes himself.” ká-kani t½a‘ã xiná‘a. pl-hit companion plural “They are hitting each other.” b. ni-ká-ku-manì nuù t½a‘ã. cmpl-pl-inch-love face companion “They love each other.”
(41) a.
Reflexives
Reciprocals
(40) shows that reflexives are formed with the word máá, ‘self ’, marked with the appropriate pronominal clitic. Reciprocals also pattern as expected, although it should be noted that this is a marked strategy for expressing reciprocity. It is much more common to use a verb with inherent reciprocal meaning (e.g., a verb which means ‘to fight each other’), or to avoid the overt expression of reciprocity by making the subject plural (‘X and Y fight’), or to use a comitative (‘X fights with Y’). However, in the few cases where an overt reciprocal is expressed, the term t½a‘ã is used, which in its non-reciprocal use means ‘companion’. At any rate, in both cases – that is, with reflexives and reciprocals – anaphors appear as expected in object position, where they are c-commanded by the subject, but cannot appear as subjects (as we might expect if the subject and object were sisters in a flat structure approach).19 Thus the evidence from CM indicates that it does have a constituent which contains just the verb and its object (which I will call V’), and that surface VSO word order is therefore derived by verb movement to some point to the left of the subject, as schematized in (42): (42)
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Carnie, Harley, and Pyatt (2000: 41, 42) describe the two well-known verb-raising approaches to VSO word order, which they christen the “Raising to C Hypothesis” (“VSO order is derived via head movement of the verb to C◦ ”) and the “Left Edge of Inflection Hypothesis” (“VSO order is derived via head movement of the verb to the highest inflectional head (AgrS/T/Infl). Arguments appear in surface positions lower than this head. There is no (overt) raising to C◦ ”). CM is clearly of the latter type; that is, as in Modern Irish and many other VSO languages, the CM verb moves to the left edge of the highest inflectional head. Evidence for this comes from the fact that the verb can still appear clause-initially when the complementizer position is filled, as shown in (43a–b), and schematized (preliminarily) in (44): kú‘u=rí. kuní=ri xa=ket½a‘ã=rí x˜ı with sister=1 want=1 c=meet=1 “I want to find/meet up with my sister.” xa=kúu táa=Ø. b. žú‘ú=Ø be.afraid=3 c=die father=3 “He is afraid that his father will die.”
(43) a.
(44)
Having established this, accounting for the different types of preverbal constituent, as well as for the appearance and lack of appearance of the pronominal enclitics, turns out to be quite straightforward. Focused constituents (like the ones in (33)) get to preverbal position by movement. Some authors treat this as movement to a focus projection FP, while others (for example Black 2000) treat it as adjunction to IP. I leave the precise landing site aside for now; rather, my point here is simply that a movement analysis explains the complementary distribution of focused subjects and pronominal enclitics – focused subjects are generated in the same position as pronominal clitic subjects are, ruling out cooccurrence. Recall that one of the things we needed to account for was the fact that full pronouns may only appear preverbally, never postverbally. This can be explained by simply assuming that the full pronouns carry a focus feature, and so have to be fronted. Topics, on the other hand, are base generated, in a left-dislocation construction. I argued earlier that CM clitics are phrasal, or Xmax clitics; thus the clitic that cooccurs with a topic is the subject, and the topic is simply a coreferential doubling of that subject. One piece of evidence in favor of base-generating topics in CM is the fact that topics do not have to be arguments of the clause in which they appear. In
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fact, we have already seen two examples of this – (45a) and (b) repeat the earlier (20a) and (b): Initial non-argument DP cˇ àà tú=žóó se‘e. man neg=exist child “That man has no children.” (lit. “As for that man, children do not exist.”) b. maría ni-te‘nde sa‘ma=Ø. María cmpl-rip(vi) dress Elicited: “María ripped her dress.” (lit. “As for María, her dress ripped.”)
(45) a.
In (45a) the subject of the existential is ‘child’, and ‘man’ simply gives us the relevant domain of (non-)existence. (45b) might look like a transitive clause with SVO word order, but crucially, the verb is intransitive, and its single argument is ‘dress’. If topics were derived by movement, it is difficult to see where non-argument topics would originate, since no position is licensed for them within the clause. Earlier the complementizer–verb word order of subordinate clauses was mentioned as evidence in favor of the left-edge-of-inflection approach to verb movement in CM. However, it is also possible to have one (and only one) preverbal constituent in subordinate clauses, as shown in (46a) and (b) (in which the preverbal DP is bracketed): (46) a.
ni-xìni=rí xa=[úu xa-sG‘G lúlí] ká-nde‘e núú=rí. cmpl-know=1 c=[two nmz-feminine little] pl-look face=1 “I knew that two girls were looking at me.” b. kuní=ri xa=[xw ã] na-kí-no‘o bé‘e. want=1 c=[Juan] mood-come-go.and.return house “I want Juan to go home (and come back).”
The preverbal constituent in such subordinate clauses is a focus, rather than a topic. Evidence in favor of this conclusion comes from the focus negator described earlier. Consider (47): (47) xw ã kéé xa=[niasu maría] tanda‘á x½ı péðrú. Juan say c=[neg.foc María] marry with Pedro “Juan says that it’s not María who’s marrying Pedro.” Recall that niàsù only appears with focused DPs, indicating that María is focused in (47). A second – and conclusive – form of evidence comes from the fact that clitic doubling is never found with embedded preverbal constituents, as shown in (48):
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(48) a.
kandíaa=rí xa=ro‘o ku‘u. believe=1 c=you sick “I believe that you are sick.” b. nú=rú‘ù žúba‘a š˜u‘½u=nú. . . cond=I have money=cfact “If I had a lot of money . . . ”
In (48a) there is no second person clitic doubling the pronoun ro‘o, and in (48b) the first person clitic =rí fails to appear on the verb. If these were topics we would expect to see the clitic in addition to the pronoun in each case, but it is in fact ruled out. It was mentioned above that there seems to be evidence for left-edge-ofinflection verb movement in CM. A second question considered by many in the analysis of VSO languages is whether the subject also raises. Obviously the null hypothesis would be that it stays in place, with verb movement around it accounting for verb–subject word order. Several authors have provided evidence, however, that the subject has to move too. Hendrick (2000), for example (following McCloskey 1997), discusses adverb placement in Celtic languages as evidence of such movement, and CM shows similar data. Consider (49): cˇ aà=rí š¾ıã žá‘a. come=1 tomorrow here “I’ll come here tomorrow.” b. ndukòò=ró žá‘a té nde‘è=ró. sit=2 here and watch=2 “Sit here and watch [over him/her].”
(49) a.
Assuming that AdvPs must adjoin only to non-argumental XPs, the position of the subject to the left of the adverbs in the examples in (49) indicates that it has moved from its initial position within the VP (as schematized in (50)):
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(50)
XP
Vi DPj
VP AdvP
VP tj
V ti
A second type of construction which suggests that the subject raises is a ‘quantifier float-like’ construction involving the plural word. The plural word is an interesting syncategorematic lexical item. First, note that the marking of plurality in CM is always optional – both on the verb and on the noun. While the optional marking on the verb is affixal (as shown in (51)), with nouns plurality is marked by use of a free morpheme xiná‘a, which simply means ‘plural’. This is illustrated in (52). (51) ká-žaà=to. pl-reside=3pol.old “They live (there).” ž˜un˜u žá‘a xína‘a=Ø. s-kit½a‘ã caus-meet wood this plural=3 “Put these (pieces of) wood together.” b. k½ı‘˜ı=ni xiná‘a=ni! go=2pol plural=2pol “(You plural) go!” xína‘a=Ø ni-ka-xaà íkú. c. táa=rí parent=1 plural=3 cmpl-pl-arrive.there yesterday “My parents arrived yesterday.”
(52) a.
In (52a) ‘wood’ is pluralized (in a count sense) with xiná‘a. (52b) shows that a pronominal clitic subject can also be pluralized with xiná‘a. In (52c) the subject, including xiná‘a, has been focused (and in this case cooccurs with the plural prefix ka- on the verb – although as noted above this is entirely optional). Space does not permit detailed discussion of the lexical category and constituency of xiná‘a.20 What is interesting about xiná‘a for present purposes, though, is that it can be stranded. This is the only construction in CM in which discontinuous constituents are allowed. Consider (53):
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(53) xalúlí w½a na-kée xína‘a=Ø. child that opt-eat plural=3 “The children should/must eat.” In (53), the subject DP has been focused without xiná‘a. That is, fronting to focus position has stranded xiná‘a in a position after the verb. But xiná‘a can also be separated from the DP which it pluralizes in other ways, as illustrated in (54): (54) a.
kúžaa=ri núndua xiná‘a=ri. live=1 Oaxaca plural=1 “We will live in Oaxaca.” b. ñ½a‘ã=ní x½ı½ı=ná xíná‘á=ní. come=2pol with=1pol plural=2pol “(You plural) come with me.”
In (54a) the clitic subject is separated from the plural word by a locative adjunct, and in (54b) it is separated from the plural word by an adjunct prepositional phrase. These examples are similar to (49a) and (b) in that they show the raising of the subject around an adjunct, but in these examples the plural word fails to pied-pipe, and remains in a lower position in the clause. Returning to the issue of where the subject lands when it raises, recall that in addition to the word order verb–subject–adverb (as shown in (49)), we also find verb–adverb–subject in CM. We saw this with a pronominal clitic in (32b), and (55) shows that a full DP subject may likewise follow an adverb: (55) kw a-kw a‘nu bá‘a ítu w½a. go-grow well crops that “The crops are growing well.” This might be taken to indicate that the subject has the option of staying in its VPinternal position. Instead, I will adopt the approach of Benmamoun (1999), who argues that the postverbal subject in Arabic VSO clauses is in specifier of IP, meaning that the verb must be located in a position beyond IP. Benmamoun proposes this in order to argue that Case is checked only in a specifier-head configuration, rather than under government (as in earlier approaches). I will adopt his analysis simply as a convenient approach with which we can account for the facts of Mixtec word order, but leave aside the theoretical controversies involved. Benmamoun, then, claims that the position above IP to which the verb raises is a focus projection, as shown in (56). The subject raises to the specifier of IP for VSO order (as in 56a), and to the specifier of FP for SVO order (as in 56b). (Note that I have omitted the object in these trees for simplicity.) (56c) shows the structure for a sentence with a topic, for purposes of comparison.21
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(56) a.
VS order
FP F’
Spec
IP
Vi DPj
I’ I
VP tj
V ti
b.
SV order (focus)
FP F’
DPj
IP
Vi tj
I’ I
VP tj
V ti
c.
SV=CLITIC order (topic)
TopP FP
DPj
IP
Vi DPj
I’ I
VP tj
V ti
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The two post-verbal positions for adverbs are indicated by the arrows in (56a). That is, for verb–adverb–subject order, the AdvP is adjoined to IP; for verb–subject– adverb order, the AdvP is adjoined to VP. As a final point, recall the two rather strange sentences introduced earlier as (23a) and (b); repeated here as (57a) and (b): kaxá w½aã tènana ñ½u‘˜u=Ø. caja the tomato contain=3 “The box contains tomatoes.” b. burrú=ró wã½a nužá‘u xíndee=Ø. burro=2 that plaza be.in=3 “Your burro is in the plaza.”
(57) a.
Two preverbal arguments
In each case the example shows a transitive verb with both of its arguments in preverbal position. Although this is highly marked, both of these sentences were produced spontaneously, and I do not believe that they were performance errors. What they show is that it is possible to have both topic and focus in the same sentence. It is unusual for both positions to be filled, but as these examples show, it can occur.
. Conclusion This paper has provided a general overview of Chalcatongo Mixtec syntax, with a focus on structures involving preverbal elements. I have reviewed a number of the claimed correlates of VSO word order, showing that CM fits into the profile given by Greenberg fairly well (although, as noted, other dialects do have question particles in places that Greenberg would not have predicted). I also considered some of the more recent claims about correlates of VSO word order, and showed that CM splits on the predicted lack of a copula, in that it requires a copula for nominal predicates, but only optionally has one for adjectival predicates. Additionally, I noted that – contra the predictions of Freeze and Georgopoulos (2000) – CM does in fact have a lexical verb ‘have’. The second part of the paper was dedicated to looking at evidence from the distribution of clitic, pronominal, and full lexical subjects, with an eye to what CM can contribute to ongoing discussions of the kinds of structures proposed for the derivation of VSO word order. It was shown that CM allows two kinds of preverbal element, a focus phrase and a topic. When the focus is subject, no clitic doubling occurs, but when the topic is subject it is always doubled by a pronominal clitic. This is accounted for by treating the focused element as moving to preverbal position, but the topic as base-generated. The location of adverbs in CM led me to
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adopt a structure parallel to Benmamoun’s approach to VSO word order in Arabic. This approach involves moving the verb past IP, into focus position; moving postverbal subjects into specifier of IP; and moving focused phrases into specifier of FP. This gives us two maximal projections to which adverb phrases can be adjoined, VP (accounting for adverbs that appear to the right of a postverbal subject), and IP (accounting for adverbs that appear between the verb and the subject).
Notes * Many thanks to Andrew Carnie, Vivian Lin, Marianne Milligan, Rebecca Shields, Joe Salmons, and two anonymous reviewers for their comments and help with this paper. Naturally all errors and infelicities are my responsibility. . Mixtec is one of the three languages of the Mixtecan branch of the Otomanguean family. The dialect discussed here is spoken in the village of Chalcatongo, located in the highlands of the state of Oaxaca. What is known to linguists as ‘Mixtec’ is actually a group of related – but distinct – languages. Nonetheless, Mixtecanists traditionally use the term ‘dialect’ to describe the varieties of Mixtec because the region consists of complex dialect continua rather than discrete languages, and it is almost impossible to say where one ‘language’ stops and the next begins. Suárez (1983: 18) estimates that there are approximately 29 distinct languages within what we call ‘Mixtec’, but acknowledges that any method of testing mutual intelligibility has its shortcomings. The upshot of all this is that we quite frankly do not – and cannot – know how many Mixtec languages there are. Also note that while it is true that all of the ‘dialects’ are VSO, as shown below they do differ to some extent in how they instantiate VSO syntax. Because of this, my remarks here should be taken as illustrative only of the Chalcatongo dialect unless otherwise noted. . I follow Siewierska here, who defines ‘basic word order’ as follows: Within the context of typological studies the term [. . . ] is typically identified with the order that occurs in stylistically neutral, independent, indicative clauses with full noun phrase (NP) participants, where the subject is definite, agentive and human, the object is a definite semantic patient, and the verb represents an action, not a state or an event. (1988: 8) Siewierska distinguishes this from dominant and unmarked orders, but the typical use in typology will suffice for present purposes. . Body part terms are multifunctional in CM (this is actually an areal feature); they not only refer to body parts but also form complex verbs like the one in (1), and additionally serve to express location. Further examples occur below. . Italics in the gloss line indicate Spanish words used in Mixtec (these are usually names but in some cases are loanwords). . Note that the verb in this sentence is transitive, despite its translation into English.
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The syntax of Chalcatongo Mixtec . Data taken from Zylstra (1991), Hills (1990), Johnson (1988), Alexander (1988), Shields (1988), Kuiper and Oram (1991), Farris (1992), Small (1990), and Pike (1944). Ayutla appears twice in the table because it allows for a choice between two strategies. . Cf. Lee, Davis, Holmer (this volume) for discussion of other VSO languages with final particles. . Post-Greenbergian typologists have addressed the question of sampling much more carefully, of course. Space precludes discussion of such works, however. . Cf. Jouitteau, Massam, Gil (this volume). . Adjectives are distinguished from verbs in two ways in CM: first, only adjectives have the option of occurring with the copula kaa, and second, adjectives cannot occur with verbal inflection such as the plural marker or completive aspect. Thus it is clear that these forms are adjectives, not verbs. . The two forms for ‘have’ given here reflect a minor dialect variation among CM speakers. . Carnie (1995: 38, n. 9) points out that the notion of SVO as a ‘common alternative word order’ might need to be defined more carefully (especially for languages like Modern Irish and Arabic), but in CM the structure is quite straightforward, as shown in these examples. . The distribution of free and clitic pronouns appears to vary quite a bit across the Mixtec dialects. For example, Johnson says that in Jamiltepec Mixtec, “both free and clitic forms occur in all syntactic environments, except that clitics do not occur in sentence-initial position” (1988: 115). Although she is not explicit, looking through the text that she supplies I found that full pronouns can indeed appear as postverbal subjects (whereas they cannot in Chalcatongo Mixtec). Alexander describes the free pronouns in Ocotepec Mixtec as “show[ing] no distributional restrictions” (1988: 264), again implying that full pronouns can appear postverbally. Furthermore, while most of the Ocotepec clitics behave like the ones in Chalcatongo Mixtec, she says that “the second person respect form occurs alone as object of verb or in focus position” (Alexander 1988: 264). Since these are normally enclitics, it is unclear what the pronoun would cliticize to in focus position; Alexander does not explain. . Focus (and topic) are notoriously difficult to define. For convenience, I follow Lambrecht’s (1994: 213) definition of ‘focus’: “The semantic component of a pragmatically structured proposition whereby the assertion differs from the presupposition.” This contrasts with his definition of ‘topic’: “A referent is interpreted as the topic of a proposition if in a given situation the proposition is construed as being about this referent, i.e., as expressing information which is relevant to and which increases the addressee’s knowledge of this referent” (Lambrecht 1994: 131). See also Kiss (1995: 6), whose description of the properties of focus and topic accord with the movement vs. base generation properties suggested here for CM focus and topic. . See Kiss (1998) for discussion of the distinction between these two types of focus (and arguments for treating the two differently, which I will leave aside for present purposes). . Alexopoulou, Doron, and Heycock (2004) provide a typology of constructions involving left-peripheral constituents. They distinguish a number of such constructions, among them Left Dislocation (LD) and Clitic Left Dislocation (CLLD). What I have been referring to as the ‘topic’ in CM does not fit perfectly into either category. It has most of the characteristics of LD, except that the ‘resumptive’ pronoun is a clitic rather than a tonic pronoun,
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contrary to their claim about the pronoun in LD constructions. Other authors (for example Lambrecht 1994) do treat constructions with clitic (or otherwise unaccented) pronouns as Left Dislocation, though, and so I will continue to treat the CM topic in those terms. . A few of the other Mixtec dialects (Ayutla for example; Hills 1990: 30) do have a topic marker, and it is described as being accompanied by a post-topic pause. Although most of the descriptions of Mixtec syntax which are available are frustratingly vague on the issues of topic and focus, it appears that the dialects that have a topic marker require a pronominal subject to occur on the verb, while they do not require one for focused subjects, parallel to what is found in CM. . Alternatively the expression ‘make Mass’ might just be lexicalized in CM. With only one example it is difficult to draw any significant conclusions. . There is an interesting comment about reflexives in Mixtec in the introduction to Bradley and Hollenbach’s series on Mixtec syntax: “. . . most [languages in this family] have reflexive marking only optionally, and thus violate the binding conditions” (Bradley & Hollenbach 1988: 6). Certainly, however, in Chalcatongo Mixtec reflexives appear consistently, and in the expected configurations. . See Macaulay (1989, 1996) for details. . In (56c) I have called the projection for the topic simply ‘TopicP’; its precise characterization is not relevant for present purposes. See Kiss (1995: 11) for discussion of the varying location of topic in a range of languages.
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Accounting for verb-initial order in an Australian language* Mary Laughren, Rob Pensalfini, and Tom Mylne The University of Queensland
The default position of the predicate in affirmative declarative finite clauses in the Australian language, Wanyi, is clause initial. We propose that it is the obligatory presence of a [+focus] feature in C which accounts for the obligatory movement of the predicate to specifier of CP in informationally ‘neutral’ clauses, where it is interpreted as bearing informational focus. It follows then that the verb, like non-verbal predicates and other constituents that occupy the specifier of CP, is phrasal. We will also argue that budangku, which marks sentential negation, is also an XP that must occupy the specifier of CP, ‘agreeing’ with a [+negative] feature in C. In addition to the phonologically null features [+focus], [+negative] or [+wh] which may be present in C, there is a closed set of Modal Particles that can occupy the head of CP. These may co-occur with the [+focus] feature, either allowing a focused interpretation to be associated with the XP in the specifier of CP, or in the absence of a phrase in this position, the Modal Particle may ‘absorb’ the [+focus] feature, resulting in focus on the modal value itself. We offer a brief comparison between the left-edge properties of Wanyi and the better-documented Australian language, Warlpiri, in an attempt to further tease out the motivation for the clause-initial predicate behavior of Wanyi.
.
Introduction
We aim to show how the unmarked (or default) verb-initial, or – more generally – predicate-initial feature of Wanyi finite clauses is actually an instance of the obligatory focus-initial property of these clauses in an informationally ‘neutral’ clause.1 We will argue that this clause-initial position corresponds to specifier of CP and that the focused XP is licensed by a syntactic feature [+focus] projected in the head of CP. It follows then that the verb, like non-verbal predicates and other constituents that occupy the specifier position in CP, is phrasal. We will present a range of evidence to support this claim, arguing that what we are referring to as the ‘verb’
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in the Wanyi context is actually a lexical predicative phrase (LPP) which is the complement of a functional head V which projects a VP (necessarily containing the LPP). We will present evidence that nominal predicates are also instances of an LPP, which is the complement of a functional head N. This analysis of the Wanyi data has a number of advantages over alternate analyses, such as head movement or remnant VP movement. Our analysis accounts for the impossibility of having a preverbal XP in the specifier of CP and further explains the identical distribution of verbal and nominal predicates, while movement of our LPP out of the predicative VP or NP does not result in the movement of a trace (tail of a chain) to a position higher than its antecedent (head of a chain). We also argue that budangku, which marks sentential negation, is also an XP, which must be present in the specifier of CP, ‘agreeing’ with a [+negative] feature in C. In addition to the mutually exclusive phonologically null features [+negative] or [+wh] which may be present in C (thereby excluding the assignment of [+focus] to C), Wanyi has a closed set of modal particles, which may occupy the head of CP. These may co-occur with the [+focus] feature, either allowing a focused interpretation to be associated with the XP in the specifier of CP, or in the absence of a phrase in this position, the modal particle may ‘absorb’ the [+focus] feature, resulting in focus on the modal value itself. Although the specifier of CP position is mostly identified by immediately preceding the nominative subject pronoun and/or accusative object pronoun, we will be arguing that these pronouns are also phrasal, unlike the head-like clitic pronouns of Australian languages such as Warlpiri (see Laughren 2002a). We will be arguing, in fact, that although the Wanyi pronouns move out of their initial argument positions inside the predicative VP or NP, they may not occupy head positions such as C. They may, however, occupy the specifier of CP where they, too, may be associated with focus. The remainder of this chapter is organized as follows. We present the Wanyi data and our analysis in Section 2. We make some general remarks about the status of verb-initial clauses in some Australian languages other than Wanyi in Section 3 where we compare the syntax of Warlpiri, a language with pronominal clitics in second position (P2), with the structure underlying the initial phrase and subject/object pronouns of Wanyi. Our conclusions are summarized in Section 4.
. Verb-initial phenomena in Wanyi . Verb initial clauses In Wanyi, the clause-initial verb and following argument pronoun(s) may form a prosodic unit – spoken together in a characteristic intonation phrase – distinct
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from the following constituents such as the associated nominal expressions. This is shown in (1) where the prosodic break is represented by a dash, while the = signals that the material following it forms part of a tight prosodic unit with the preceding material. Of course, in very rapid speech these phrasal partitions of the sentences as shown in (1) may be somewhat blurred, at least to the ear of the non-Wanyi speaking listener. Daba=bula=ngaa=n2 – kirriya-wiya-a. hit=3dual.nom=1sg.acc=n – woman-pair-erg “Two women hit me.” (Lit. “Hit they me – two women.”) b. Ngarijaba=nyului – na-ngangii/j – jukuli. carve=3sg.nom – 3sg-dat – boomerang “He’s carving a boomerang for him(self).” c. Nanganja=nyulu – mama – niya-ngi. get=3sg.nom – food – 1/2-dat “He’s getting food for us.”
(1) a.
In (1a) kirriya-wiya-a ‘woman-pair-erg’ forms a separate prosodic phrase from the preceding one made up of the verb and encliticized pronouns. In (1b, c) NPs associated with non-subject arguments are postposed to the verb-plus-subject pronoun complex in both logically possible orders: dative adjunct followed by direct object (1b) and direct object followed by dative adjunct (1c).3 In the three sentences in (1), the initial prosodic phrase (preceding the first dash) corresponds to a well-formed sentence. The dash marks an intonation pattern that typically signals the addition of extra material – a sort of ’afterthought’ intonation akin to its use in English writing conventions. As we will see, the dash is to be distinguished from the comma, which marks an intonation phrase ending on a high or raised pitch, rather like the pattern on dislocated topic phrases such as on John in John, he’s never on time. Wanyi has a ‘split’ case-marking system found in many Australian languages; pronouns observe a nominative (subject) vs. accusative (object) pattern, while other referential categories associated with the same functions show a marked ergative (transitive subject) and unmarked absolutive (object and intransitive subject) pattern. With the exception of the first person singular nga(a), pronouns have a distinct accusative form marked by the suffix -(CV)nya.4 There is no third person singular accusative pronoun.
. Verb-initial with extraposed XP The phrases preposed to the verb in (2a, b) are interpreted as topic phrases. We analyze these as being external to CP; they constitute their own intonational phrase with the distinctive intonational contour indicated by the comma. They may be
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either pronominal (2a) or nominal (2b) and are coreferential with the encliticized nominative subject pronoun. (NPs with a full range of syntactic functions may be similarly extraposed.) (2) a.
Narri, daba=narri-yangka jukuli-i. 2pl.nom hit=2pl-refl boomerang-erg “You lot, you hit each other with boomerangs.” b. Nang-kujarra-a kirriya-wiya-a, muwajba=bula-ngka. that-two-erg girl-pair-erg be.jealous=3dual-refl “These two girls, they are jealous of each other.” c. *Narri-yangka, daba=narri-yangka. . . 2pl-refl hit=2pl-refl
The extraposed subject or object pronouns have the same form as their postverbal encliticized nominative or accusative counterparts as seen in (2a). Wanyi lacks distinctive sets of free versus bound pronouns typical of many Australian languages such as Warlpiri (Hale 1973) or the Romance languages. We argue that unlike the head-like clitics of such languages, Wanyi pronouns always behave like XPs; they are not lexically specified clitic pronouns of the Warlpiri or Romance type. The presence or absence of clitic pronouns is subject to strict syntactic requirements in Warlpiri or the Romance languages, but Wanyi subject or object pronouns may be ‘dropped’ if the feature values can be pragmatically identified (in the manner of Chinese or Japanese pronouns). The enclitic-like behavior reflected in the prosodic dependence between the postverbal pronouns and their host does not derive from their lexical status as clitics, but reflects the syntactic relation between the pronouns and the preceding verb (or other ‘host’), as we will see below. Wanyi has a set of morphologically irregular ‘reflexive’ pronouns that replace the distinct nominative and accusative forms (Laughren 2002b). These cannot be extraposed, as seen by comparing (2a) with the ungrammatical (2c), showing that they behave syntactically like subject-object pronominal sequences, which cannot be extraposed either – at least not as a single constituent.5 Furthermore, the scope of the reflexive appears to be restricted to the subject-direct object (or nominativeaccusative) relationship while dative NPs remain outside the scope of the subject, as exemplified by the coreferential interpretation of the dative pronoun in (1b). This syntactic behavior of dative phrases correlates with their intonational behavior – they typically form phonological phrases independent of the initial phrase containing the enclitic nominative and/or accusative pronouns (1b, c). We assume that only the subject (nominative) and direct object (accusative) pronouns move out of their respective specifier positions in VP to the specifier of higher functional projections such as AgrSP or AgrOP, but move no further.6
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. Non-verb-initial clauses .. Negative and interrogative clauses In negative or content interrogative clauses, the Wanyi verb cannot occupy the clause initial position. In both types of clause, the Wanyi verb follows subject and object pronouns that are hosted by the negative budangku or the interrogative, as shown in (3a–c). In such sentences the verb is optionally included in the initial intonational phrase in (3a). The non-referential wh-subject winyjika-a is not ‘doubled’ by a subject clitic. In fact, (3c) is ungrammatical with the meaning of (3b); (3c) is only grammatical if interpreted as asking for additional information about the definite subject, e.g., ‘Who is the one who gave you this bread?’ or ‘What sort of person is the one who gave you this bread?’ analogous to (5a). While ‘no one’ is an appropriate reply to (3b), it is not to (3c), which presupposes the existence of a specific ‘giver’. (3) a.
Budangku=yalu=ninya ngurubu nang-kanyi, daba=yalu-ngka. neg=3pl.nom=2sg.acc tell this-dat hit=3pl-refl “They didn’t tell you about this, (that) they had a fight.”7 b. Winyjika-a=ninya windijbi nang-kanyi mama-anyi? who-erg=2sg.acc give this-dat bread-dat “Who gave you [of] this bread?” c. Winyjika-a=nyulu=ninya windijbi nang-kanyi mama-anyi? who-erg=3sg.nom=2sg.acc give this-dat bread-dat “Who is the one who gave you this bread?” “What sort of person is the one who gave you this bread?” (“Who gave you [of] this bread?”)
.. Focused DP The verb may also be ‘blocked’ from occupying the clause-initial position by any focused nominal expression (not just wh-phrases), as shown in (4), the reply to (3b). (4) Nana-ngkani ngandaara-a=nga=n windijbi – nang-kanyi that-erg old.woman-erg=1sg.acc=n give – this-dat mama-anyi. food-dat “That old woman gave me (of) this food.” The existence of a bread-giver is confirmed by (4), which restricts the identity of this specific bread-giver to the particular (deictically specified) member of the (relevant) set of old women. In both (3b) and (4) the third person subject pronoun nyulu is obligatorily omitted, as opposed to (1a) in which the subject pronoun is
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‘doubled’ by the post-pronominal ergative-marked phrase, or (2a, b) in which it is ‘doubled’ by the extraposed phrase at the left edge of the clause. Thus the distinction between clause-initial extraposed topic phrases (2a–c) and clause-initial focused phrases (4) is marked syntactically as well as prosodically.8
.. Nominal predicate in initial position Wanyi finite clauses may have a nominal predicate with no overt lexical verb or any overt auxiliary. The distribution of this nominal predicate mirrors that of the verbal predicates seen so far. It occupies the clause-initial position in the ‘neutral’ declarative clause (5b), but fails to do so in the presence of the wh- phrase winyjika in (5a) or the negative phrase budangku in (5c). (5) a.
Winyjika=ninyji burrurri=n? who=2sg.nom man=n “What (sort of) a man (are) you?” b. [Wanyi burrurri]=ngawu. Wanyi man=1sg.nom “I’m a Wanyi man.” c. Budangku=ngawu Wambaya. neg=1sg.nom Wambaya. “I’m not Wambaya.”
The interrogative winyjika is ‘extracted’ from the (assumed) predicate phrase winyjika burrurri, forming a discontinuous constituent if compared with the complex phrase Wanyi burrurri in the affirmative declarative reply in (5b). Some additional examples of clauses with initial non-verbal predicates (inside [ ]) are shown in (6a–c). A nominal predicate kunyba ‘good’ precedes the subject phrase nayi waliji ‘this meat’ in (6a); a postpositional predicate kinkarra-na ‘desertloc’ precedes the pronominal subject ngamba ‘we’ in the initial clause of (6b). The second clause of (6b) (following the ‘dash’) consists of the nominal predicate kinkarra ‘desert’ with a null subject, also seen in the second clause of (6c). In the third clause of (6c) Kinkarra nayi, the absolutive determiner nayi ‘this’ is associated with the subject function, although the third person singular subject pronominal is dropped – as it is in all three clauses of (6c), and also in (6a). (6) a.
Initial nominal predicate phrase: [Kunyba] nayi waliji=n. good this meat=n “This meat is good.” b. Initial postpositional predicate phrase: [Kinkarra-na]=barri=ngamba – [kinkarra]. desert-loc=now=1/2pl.nom – desert
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c.
“We’re in the desert now – (it’s) desert (country).” Initial negative nominal phrase:9 [Budangku]=barri [warnami-anyi]. [Kinkarra]. [Kinkarra] nayi. negative=now water-dat. desert. desert this “There’s no water (here) now. (It’s) desert country. This (is) desert country.”
The distribution of budangku ‘negative’ is compatible with our claim that it is an XP and also with the further claim that it is nominal.10 In (6c) budangku hosts the deictic enclitic =barri (as does kinkarra-na in (6b)). The enclitic =barri, which signifies that the predicate expressed by its XP host holds true when evaluated against another (typically former) situation in which it does not hold, only encliticizes to an XP. This is more clearly seen in (7). In the second clause of (7) in which there is contrastive focus on Wanyi (contrasted with Wambaya in the preceding clause), the focused nominal Wanyi is fronted, while its associated nominal burrurri (which does not introduce any new information) remains in the post-pronominal position. In the first clause, the speaker negates the contextually most likely assumption of his interlocutor who addressed (5a) to him, which is that the speaker of (7) is a Wambaya man (having come from the west where Wambaya people live). In the second clause, the speaker amplifies with new unexpected information that he is Wanyi, which is expressed by putting this element of the nominal predicate in the clause-initial position preceding the subject pronoun ngawu. The fact that the speaker of (7) is a man (burrurri) is evident to both interlocutors and is not in question – hence not placed in the clause-initial focus position. (7) Budangku=ngawu Wambaya, Wanyi=n=barri=ngawu burrurri. neg=1sg.nom Wambaya, Wanyi=n=now=1sg.nom man “I’m not Wambaya (any more), I’m a Wanyi man now.” The negative budangku is the only member of the negative predicate in (8) and would seem to have the same categorial status as other predicative nominals. In (8) it expresses the absence of the person searched for as a predicate holding of the understood place searched. (8) Kuujbu=yalu ngaki. Budangku=n. search=3pl.nom 1sg.dat neg=n “They searched for me. Nothing.” (i.e., They searched for me but failed to find me (there).) The use of budangku in (6c), repeated as (9a), can also be analyzed as representing the predicate ‘absent, devoid’, which is complemented by the dative casemarked warnami-anyi ‘water-dat’. If the predicate in (9a) is underlyingly budangku
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warnami-anyi, we might expect to find the entire phrase in clause-initial position; however, there are no examples of such in our Wanyi data, although there is one example of non-initial (post-pronominal) budangku followed by a dative case-marked complement in our corpus. Similarly, if the wh-phrase winyjika burrurri underlies the discontinuous structure in (5a), repeated as (9b), in which only the wh-phrase is fronted, then we might expect to find this complex phrase in the pre-pronominal position (which we will argue to be the specifier of CP). (9) a.
[Budangku]=barri [warnami-anyi]. neg=now water-dat. “There’s no water (here) now.” b. [Winyjika]=ninyji [burrurri]=n? who=2sg.nom man=n “What (sort of) a man (are) you?”
Neither a complex negative phrase (e.g., budangku warnami-anyi ‘no water’), nor a complex wh-phrase (e.g., winyjika burrurri ‘which man’) appears in our recorded data in clause-initial pre-pronominal position, but we have not been able to test the grammaticality of such phrases with a Wanyi speaker. Should such phrases turn out to be ungrammatical, this would not necessarily argue against the complex phrases being the source of the negative and interrogative fronted constructions, since in Wanyi the projection of the features [+negative] or [+wh] may preclude the presence of phrases which do not strictly ‘agree’ with those features in the specifier of CP. Hence only the negative predicate budangku or the interrogative expression winyjika could be ‘fronted’.11 The nominal character of budangku is revealed in processes of verbal derivation. Verbs may be derived from budangku as they can from other nominals. In (10) budangku is part of the verbal predicate budangku-j(i), which is headed by the locative postposition -nV.12 (10) Jadba=ngawu nana waliji, budangku-ji-ni. eat=1sg.nom that meat, nothing-vb-loc “I ate that meat (I) not having (anything else).” As expected if budangku occupies specifier of CP in clauses such as (9a), we find examples of extraposed, but not focused, topic phrases preceding clause-initial budangku, as seen in (11).13 (11) a.
Kijibaji-anyi miya-anyi, budangku=n. dangerous-dat snake-dat, nothing=n “Dangerous snakes, (there are) none.” (lit. “Of dangerous snakes, (it is) void.”)
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b. Kijibaji-anyi miya-anyi, budangku nayi kara. dangerous-dat snake-dat, nothing this country “Dangerous snakes, this country (has) none.” (lit. “Of dangerous snakes, this country (is) void.”)
. Pre-pronominal clitic position Summarizing the data presented so far, we find the following elements in the prepronominal clitic position: wh-phrases, negative phrase budangku, focused DPs, and in the absence of one of these, nominal or verbal predicates. We propose then that this typically pre-pronominal clitic position must be filled by an XP that agrees with a feature projected in the head of the phrase. Assuming that agreement of this type is a relation between a feature projected in the head of a phrase and one associated with the XP specifier of the same phrase, we propose that this focus position is the specifier of CP (although we don’t wish to deny the possibility that CP may in fact represent a number of sub-phrases), and that features such as [+focus], [+wh], or [+negation] are immediately dominated by C. If the specifier-head relation in Wanyi requires that there be overt realization of the agreement or licensing relation between the designated feature in the head and the semantic properties of the XP specifier, then we can account for the distribution of focused phrases in the clause-initial position, but not for the seemingly semantically unfocused predicate phrases. We assume that what we referred to as extraposed material, such as the left dislocated topic phrase, is projected in a phrasal position that is outside of the scope of the features in C. These assumptions are graphically presented in (12).14 (12)
?P XP extraposed topic
CP XP [+focus] [+wh] [+weg]
C’ C [+focus] [+wh] [+weg]
IP
What the representation in (12) predicts is that Wanyi cannot combine whmovement with clausal negation, which is indeed the case since negated whquestions are ungrammatical. Similarly, other combinations such as focused XP with negation or wh-question are ruled out, which corresponds to the observed facts. However, our observations about the placement of predicate phrases are not obviously accounted for by (12). How, for example, do we account for the fact that
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in the data seen so far, the specifier of CP must be filled? And how do we account for the fact that in the absence of an initial focused DP, wh-phrase or negative phrase, the apparently unfocused predicate phrase (verbal or nominal) must occupy this position? Two possible answers come to mind. Hypothesis 1: If [+focus] is always associated with C in Wanyi in the absence of the (marked) features [+neg] or [+wh], and if some overt movement of an XP into the specifier of CP is required to agree with that feature, then the predicate may constitute that default XP. While an initial predicate may be associated with contrastive focus (as will be seen in examples such as (15) and (16)), it is more commonly only associated with information focus – a distinction discussed by É Kiss (1998) and Jelinek (2000).15 Default predicate focus would always be a case of information focus – where the predicate represents new information. This in fact results in a seemingly neutral interpretation in which the clause with the fronted predicate is interpreted as a positive assertion of the truth value of the proposition expressed by the clause, assuring that the predicate has scope over its arguments. Hypothesis 2: If [+focus] is not obligatorily associated by default with C, then some other mechanism must be at play which triggers the obligatory movement of the predicate phrase to the otherwise unfilled specifier of CP. This may consist of the obligatory raising to C of features associated with lower functional heads. We will examine this possibility after the examination of clauses with overt categories in C in Section 2.5, although we ultimately reject this second hypothesis.
. Modal particles in initial position The clause-initial pre-clitic position may be occupied by a modal particle that obligatorily hosts the nominative and/or accusative pronouns.
.. Future ja The future particle ja in (13) and (14b)16 is clause-initial and hosts the subject pronoun. In (13) the verb is included within the prosodic phrase headed by ja, whereas in (16b) the verb heads a distinct second prosodic phrase, the initial prosodic phrase consisting only of ja and the encliticized subject pronoun ninyji with stress on ja while ninyji is destressed. The comma following the initial phrase ja=ninyji in (14b) marks a distinctive pause preceded by topic-like intonation. Double quotes before the verb jawikajba ‘ask’ in (14a) indicate a particularly strong stress on the initial syllable of the verb, clearly marking the start of a new stress domain. In the context in which (14a) was uttered, the information conveyed by the verb was old established information.
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(13) Ja=ninyji dabaraba, waliji=n. fut=2sg.nom cook meat=n. “You’ll cook (it) – the meat.” (14) a.
Janyi-i=ngawu=ninya ”jawikajba. mouth-erg=1sg.nom=2sg.acc ask “It’s with my mouth that I’m asking you.” b. Ja=ninyji, mirramba jukuli ngaki. fut=2sg.nom make boomerang 1sg.dat “Will you (like) make a boomerang for me?”
The presence of the verb windijbi ‘give’ preceding ja in (15) shows that the presence of this particle does not prevent the verb from moving into the specifier position of the phrases headed by ja. However, the verb is not ‘forced’ to move into that position given (13) and (14b). What is significant about this contrast between verbinitial (15) and the previous examples of verb-initial clauses we have observed, is that in (15) the verb windijbi receives contrastive focus, whereas it does not in the examples such as those in (1) which lack any overt morpheme in the head of the phrase immediately dominating the verb. (15) Windijbi ja=nyulu=ngaa=n kara-anyi. give fut=3sg.nom=1sg.acc=n money-dat “He will give me (of) money.” We have limited examples in our Wanyi corpus of phrases preposed to ja; there is no example of a wh-phrase or a negative phrase in the pre-ja position. In (16b) the focused verb burra ‘beat time by hands against lap’ (practiced by women) is contrasted with the verbs in (16a), birajba ‘sing’ and dirrimbirri ‘beat a pair of boomerangs against each other’ (both performed by men). While the expression referring to the women kirriya-darra-a is a left-dislocated topic in (16b), the following verb burra clearly carries contrastive focus. (16) a.
Birajba=nurri, junpa=n. Dirrimbirri, jukuli-i. sing=1pl.nom song clap boomerang-erg “We (men) sing the songs (and we) beat time with the boomerangs,” b. Kirriya-darra-a, burra ja=yalu. woman-pl-erg beat fut=3pl.nom “(while) the women, they’ve got to hit their laps (to beat the rhythm).”
Like a verbal predicate in pre-ja position, a nominal phrase in pre-ja position receives a focused interpretation as seen in (17a). In (17b) (uttered immediately after (17a)) the verb nanganyja receives implicit contrastive focus, while the rightdislocated wabinbarra is interpreted as the topic.
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(17) a.
Wabinbarra ja=ngawu nanganyja. turtle fut-1sg.nom get “I’ll get a turtle.” b. Nanganyja=ngawu nganyi – wabinbarra. get=1sg.nom 2sg.dat – turtle “I’ll get (it) for you – (some) turtle.”
What these data indicate is that there is indeed a semantic contrast which ideally we should like to represent syntactically between a clause-initial verbal predicate associated with a contrastive focus interpretation and one lacking this type of focus reading. We also need to account for why, if ja is obligatorily associated with the feature [+focus], the specifier of CP can be filled or not filled when C is occupied by ja. If the presence of ja must be licensed by [+focus] in C, then [+wh] and [+neg] would be excluded, thus preventing the projection of wh or negative phrases in the specifier of CP. This would account for the observed absence of negative or content interrogative clauses with ja. Future ja, which may receive a more deontic than tense-like interpretation, as indicated by the gloss in (16b), would seem to belong to a restricted set of modal particles which also includes ‘potential’ mayi and ‘semblative’ kiya, which also host the nominative and/or accusative pronouns.
.. Potential mayi In (18), the modal particle mayi is clause-initial and, like ja discussed in Section 2.5.1, it must host the nominative and/or accusative encliticized pronouns. Mayi expresses a possible future state of affairs, whether desired or not. (18) (Langan.daba=ngamba bindawarra kaku-yudu dara-muku-nu,) hang=1/2pl.nom bag fish-with dog-many-loc “We hang a bag with the fish (in it) (up in a tree) (when there are) dogs around, mayi =yalu jadba – dara-a. pot =3pl.nom eat – dog-erg (otherwise) the dogs might eat it.” (Lit. “lest they eat (it) – (the) dog(s)”.) In clauses in which the verb is non-initial, it may immediately follow the pronominal clitics but may be included in the initial phonological phrase in a larger prosodic ‘group’ as in the second clause of (18). In (19b), however, mayi=nyulu clearly forms a phonological phrase distinct from the following accusative pronoun ngamba-lanya and the following verb bijbi ‘bite’. This is similar to the English, “He might, well/like, bite us.” with the same sort of distinctive pause after the auxiliary verb, which may be enhanced by well or like immediately before the phrase containing the lexical verb. In (19c), on the other hand, the nominative pronoun is
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dropped and the accusative narri-yanya is encliticized to the particle mayi followed by the same sort of phrase-final pause. The verb murdamurdajibi follows the pause and constitutes a new phonological phrase. (19) a.
Rangkijbi=narri kara-a – kurdanyba – miya. pelt=2pl.nom stone-erg – dead – snake “Pelt [you] the snake with a rock and kill it.” b. Mayi=nyulu, ngamba-lanya bijbi. pot=3sg.nom 12pl-acc bite “(Otherwise) he might bite us.” c. Mayi=narri-yanya! Mayi=narri-yanya – murdamurdajibi. pot=2pl-acc pot=2pl-acc – wind_around “It might be you. It might be you – that it strangles.” (Lit. (It) might you! (It) might you – wrap around. (of python that can wind itself around prey and suffocate it)
Similarly in (20), there is an aborted clause consisting of an initial phonological phrase formed by the verb jungku ‘sit’ and the subject pronoun nurri ‘we’, which is then quickly followed by the second clause headed by the negative budangku which forms a phonological phrase with the subject pronoun nurri. The verb lajijbi ‘understand’ forms another phrase within the second clause followed by the two-word phrase yanyi=n yalu-ngi ‘language (of) theirs’. This sort of phrasing, consisting of the initial phrase, which includes a subject or object pronominal, encliticized to a host, followed by a suite of distinctive phrases, is very common in our Wanyi corpus. (20) [Jungku=nurri,] budangku=nurri, lajijbi – yanyi=n yalu-ngi. sit=1pl.nom, neg=1pl.nom hear – language=n 3pl-dat “We are, (well), we don’t (like), understand (it) – their language.”
.. Semblative kiya In (21) the semblative particle kiya acts as the clause-initial host of the enclitic pronouns.17 However, in our corpus all examples of kiya are preceded by another element: e.g., a nonfactive wayi in (21a),18 a focused NP mama ‘vegetable food’ in (21b), a focused hypothetical ngamuyu ‘supposing’ in (22a), a focused subject pronoun nyulu in (22b, c), and a focused verbal predicate rangkijbi in (23). (21) a.
Wayi=kiya=ninyji ngabaa – nanyalu ngamba-langi. nonfact=sembl=2nom bring – tea 12pl-dat “You SHOULD have brought it – tea for us.” (or “Why DIDn’t you bring tea for us?”)
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b. Mama=n(i)=kiya ngabaa – mama=n, waliji=n. veg.food=n=sembl bring – veg.food=n meat=n “(But) the food (you) DID bring – the vegetable food (and) the meat.” (Budangku=ninyji kurdurrumbu – mama banga waliji=n.) neg=2sg.nom forget – veg.food and meat=n (“You didn’t forget (it) – the vegetable food and meat.”) The contrast in the relative positions of the non-focused verb and the accusative pronoun nga in (22b) and (22c) is syntactically significant.19 In (22b) the verb bijbi ‘bite’ immediately follows the modal particle kiya and precedes the non-focused object pronoun nga. This structure would be compatible with one in which the verb occupies the specifier of IP, while the object pronoun nga occupies the lower specifier of AgrOP. The opposite order of pronoun followed by verb in (22c) would be compatible with a structure in which the verb does not raise to the specifier of IP, but remains in some lower – probably VP-internal – position. In both (22b) and (22c) it is the nominative pronoun nyulu, which is clause-initial, and (as we observed in (4)), this initial subject is not doubled by a nominative enclitic pronoun following kiya. (22) a.
Ngamuyu=kiya=ngawu jilaba nana-ngkurru, supposing=sembl =1sg.nom go that-allat “Supposing if I were to go (over) to that one, b. nyulu=kiya bijbi=nga=n. 3sg.nom=sembl bite=1sg.acc=n it would bite me.” c. nyulu=kiya=nga=n bijbi.20 3sg.nom=sembl=1sg.acc=n bite “It would bite me.”
In (23) the verb is placed in the initial (pre-kiya) position where it is focused – again this hypothetical world contrasts with that of the world of the discourse. In this sentence both subject and object pronouns are encliticized to kiya. Like ja and mayi, the presence of kiya in the head of the clause-initial phrase does not preclude the attribution of focus to the preceding phrase, which is the verb rangkijbi ‘shoot’. (23) Rangkijbi=kiya=nyulu=nga=n. shoot=sembl=3sg.nom=1sg.acc=n “He would have shot me (if he’d found me, but he didn’t find me).” The structures underpinning the variable position of the verb in (22b, c) and (23) are illustrated in (24), which presents a simplified array of functional category projections.
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(24)
CP (XP [+focus])
C’
C [+focus] ja kiya mayi
IP I’ I AgrSP [+finite]
VP V’
(23)
(22b)
V
LPP
The verb in (22a) remains inside the VP while in (22b) it raises to a position following the modal particle in C, but preceding the subject pronoun in the specifier of AgrSP. In (22c) the verb follows the subject pronoun, as it does in (22a), hence we conclude that it remains in its VP-internal position in (22c) also. In (23), on the other hand, the verb must move to specifier of CP to receive contrastive focus, a value assigned to non-verbal phrases in (22a–c). The verbal predicate in (23), which precedes a modal particle (as in (15) and (16b)), receives contrastive focus, which lends itself to an analysis in which movement of the verbal predicate is forced by the need to check a [+focus] feature in C. Without moving to this position, the verb could not receive this interpretation. Where the verb (or any predicate) in the specifier of CP is not associated with contrastive focus, as in the examples in (1), it receives information focus. The requirement that this default feature be checked forces the predicate to move to the specifier of CP, in the absence of any other XP occupying that position. As mentioned in Note 4, we have retained the label IP (Inflectional Phrase) rather than adopt TP (Tense Phrase) for the complement of C as in (24). It is not at all evident that Wanyi has a tense contrast in finite clauses, or that the presence or absence of tense contrasts is what distinguishes finite from non-finite clauses. Instead we assume that Infl is the locus of a feature [+finite] (whatever that may ultimately be shown to derive from).21 We also assume that the categorial feature associated with the head of VP in which the Lexical Predicate Phrase (LPP) is embedded must always raise (via other functional heads) to Infl. This verbal head V is not the predicate, since the predicate is phrasal; rather it dominates
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abstract features that define the phrase containing the LPP as verbal (as opposed to nominal or postpositional) and which consequently license the verbal (rather than nominal) morphology that can be hosted by the predicate. The LPP in (24) is a non-projecting category, hence XP-like, which is only syntactically enabled by association with the projecting functional category V. Nominal predicates are of the same type; instead of being governed by V, they are governed by a head N. In Wanyi, these category-defining features are not associated with any overt phonological form. We are assuming that overt verbalizers such as j briefly discussed in Note 12 (Section 2.3.3) are part of the (verbal) LPP. The position of the verbal LPP bijbi ‘bite’ in (22b) is somewhat puzzling, since there is no motivation for its movement from the VP-internal position in which it is base-generated to the specifier of IP, especially since in (22c) bijbi appears to remain in situ. A possible explanation for the variable position of the predicate in the utterances in (22) is that all predicates must move first to the specifier of IP before raising to check [+focus] in the specifier of CP; at the level of Phonetic Form (PF), however, either the head or tail of the chain – but not both – may be visible unless the predicate does actually raise into the specifier of CP where the head of the chain must be visible. However, the problem of motivating the predicate’s move to the specifier of IP remains. An alternative proposal is that (22b) is underpinned by a structure with an initial non-extraposed topic phrase. This topic phrase resides in the specifier of a functional phrase (FP) that takes the CP as its complementizer (as claimed for Warlpiri by Laughren 2002a). If the modal particle kiya in (22b) moves from its base-generated position in C to the higher head, and if the verb bijbi ‘bite’ moves into the specifier of CP to check focus, then the pronominal phrase nyulu could occupy the specifier of the highest functional phrase (i.e., FP), receiving a topic interpretation compatible with the discourse context of (22). The accusative object pronoun nga remains in the specifier of AgrOP. This representation for (22b) is shown in (25). This proposal is wholly compatible with the data presented thus far, and with the claims we have made about the specifier of CP.22
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(25)
FP DP [+top]
F’ F [+top]
CP
LPP [+focus]
C’
C [+focus] t
IP I’ AgrSP I [+finite] t AgrOP
Nyulu kiya bijbi
nga
=n
LPP
The modal particles ja, mayi, and kiya modify the truth-value of the proposition expressed by IP, but do not require that the specifier of CP be filled (although kiya may be an exception, since our corpus lacks an example of kiya in absolute clauseinitial position). The features [+focus], [+neg] and [+wh] are in complementary distribution. In the absence of a phrase in the specifier of CP, default information focus can be checked by a modal particle in C. In the absence of a modal particle in C, however, the specifier of CP must be filled in Wanyi and it is the LPP which is forced to move into that position as a last resort where it checks information focus.
. Alternative (non-focus) explanation for clause-initial predicates In order to account for the obligatory presence of the predicate in the specifier of CP in the ‘unmarked’ affirmative declarative clause, an alternative analysis which excludes a default [+focus] feature in C could be entertained, as signaled by ‘Hypothesis 2’ in Section 2.4. Where no feature (i.e., [+focus], [+neg], [+wh]) appears in C, then features associated with functional heads such as [+N], [+V], or [+finite] which have raised from lower nodes, incorporating in successively higher ones, would raise to C. If the language required ‘agreement’ between these features in C and an overt category either in C or in the specifier of CP, then the only XP able to
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satisfy that requirement would be the LPP which is selected and governed by the functional head V or N in its base position. This scenario is sketched in (26). (26)
CP C’ C
IP I’ AgrSP I [+finite]
V/NP V/N’ V/N
LPP
The disadvantage of the model in (26) is that with it we lose the unitary explanation for why the predicate, in the absence of other focused phrasal elements, must occupy the initial position, i.e., that ‘default’ [+focus] assigned to C requires the predicate to raise to the specifier of CP to receive information focus. A new, and more serious problem also emerges. Why doesn’t the LPP raise into the successive specifiers of phrases into which the V/N head raises, including the specifier of IP? While (24b) may seem to be a case of the LPP raising to this position, such movement is by no means obligatory, whereas movement to the specifier of CP is. Why would the specifier of CP be the only position in which agreement between features in the head of a phrase and those in its specifier phrase must be overtly marked in this way? Furthermore, the presence of argument pronouns in the specifier of the Agr Phrases would block movement into these positions (we would have to weaken the model to allow some sort of specifier adjunction). Yet another problem would be that in languages such as Warlpiri in which inflectional heads are associated with overt forms which raise into C, the predicate is not forced to move into the specifier of C, as it is in Wanyi, and the presence of these functional elements in C does not block the association of features such as [+focus], [+wh], and [+neg] with C (Laughren 2002a). If C is the locus of features such as [+neg], [+wh], and [+focus] which require the presence of an XP compatible with those features in the specifier of CP, then it
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seems reasonable to assume at least three things about the predicate-initial clauses. Firstly, the predicate is in the specifier of CP because it has to be there. Secondly, it is compatible with a feature in C. Thirdly, like the other XP types found in the specifier of CP, the predicate phrase occurs there as a result of movement.
. More on the syntax of predicates The clause structure which we are assuming is one in which what we have been calling the verb is taken to be a phrasal lexical category that we have labeled LPP governed by an abstract head V which projects a VP. The LPP may have a complex internal structure in which a sub-phrase modifies, or restricts, a general predicate (or hierarchically organized series of predicates which are the defining features of what are generally referred to as verb classes (e.g., Levin 1993) encompassing notions such as ‘state’, ‘change’, ‘do’, ‘cause’ (e.g., Dowty 1991). The LPP is part of what determines the clause’s argument structure in the spirit of Hale and Keyser’s (1993) Lexical Relational Structure (LRS), which they conceptualized as being presyntactic in the sense of being pre-S-structure. Our LPP is in fact syntactically active, but it depends on an association with the appropriate functional categories (N, V, P) to realize its syntactic potential.23 For example, the LPP does not contain argument positions, although it plays a role in conjunction with functional categories such as V and N in determining valency values. Languages may differ with respect to the surface realization of the association between the general predicates and modifying restrictive predicates. They also differ with respect to the degree to which the syntactic class heads interact with the combination of these general predicates and their open class restricting modifiers.24 In line with much current work in the Minimalist Program (e.g., Chomsky 1995: 352), we assume that the VP corresponding with transitive verbs has a complex structure with two specifier positions: the lower object position, and the higher subject position (see also Travis this volume). In Wanyi, only pronominal categories move from those positions to higher functional positions, which for the purposes of this paper we are assuming to be Agreement Phrases.25 A semantic argument of the VP or NP (partly licensed by the LPP) which is not raised into a syntactic argument position, i.e., into the specifier of one of these AgrPs, must be governed by an oblique case, as are nominal and deictic demonstrative phrases which restrict the set to which the referent of a pronominal argument phrase belongs. These assumptions about Wanyi finite clause structure, which are akin to what Pensalfini (2004) has proposed for other Australian languages, are represented in (27).
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(27)
CP XP[+focus] DP[+wh] NP[+neg] C
C’
[+top] [+wh] [+neg]
IP I’ I [+finite]
AgrSP AgrS’ AgrS
AgrOP AgrO’ VP
AgrO
V’
tk V
VP tj
V’ V
LPP
What moves to the specifier of CP, in the case of clause-initial predicates in Wanyi, is the LPP, not the VP (or NP). Notice that this proposal has a very important theoretical advantage over proposals which involve the A-bar movement of a remnant VP (or NP) to the clause-initial position, since the latter must involve the movement of the VP or NP-internal traces of the argument pronouns which have moved out of the predicate phrase to a higher position prior to the fronting of the predicate phrase, such that their traces come to C-command their own DP antecedents (e.g., as proposed to account for similar facts in Niuean by Massam 2000a and in Quiaviní Zapotec by Lee 2000a).26 In our proposal, the verbal or nominal predicate is phrasal, as Massam also argued for Niuean, but our LPP raises from a position which is lower than the traces of the argument phrases in the predicative VP or NP, assuming movement of nominative and accusative pronouns from original VP/NP-internal positions into the specifier positions of the higher Agr Phrases.
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. Limiting long-distance movement If the specifier of CP is obligatorily filled, as we have argued for Wanyi finite clauses, then the absence in Wanyi of examples of long-distance movement which extend beyond the clause of the English type, ‘Where did you say that you saw him?’ or ‘Who did you think that you saw?’ might seem to follow. However, McCloskey (1990) argues, mainly on the basis of Irish, that agreement does not block further movement of a wh-phrase, and that intermediate complementizer agreement is evidence for cyclic movement of the wh-phrase. The inability of wh-phrases to escape their clause of origin in Wanyi and in other Australian languages such as Warlpiri may rather derive from the absence of verbs such as ‘think’ or ‘say’, which take CP complements. If, as we have argued, the Wanyi category V (or N) must always be associated with a complement LPP, the possibility of having verbs (or nouns) with clausal complements may simply not be available.
. Predicates in finite and non-finite clauses In non-finite clauses, verbal and nominal predicates may be marked with ‘nominal’ suffixes, e.g., -(k)anyi ‘dative/genitive’, -nV ‘locative’ and -kurru ∼ -wurru ‘allative’. If these suffixes head projections of a P(ostposition) with an XP specifier, then lexical verbs, like nominal predicates, must be phrasal – as we have claimed for the LPP complement of V or N. While the valency, or argument structure with which an LPP is associated is constant across both finite and non-finite constructions, these clause types are distinguished by the nature of the higher Infl and C categories. The ‘default’ assignment of [+focus] to C does not operate in a non-finite clause, nor does the assignment of [+neg] or [+wh] features.27 Modal particles (like the modal auxiliaries of Modern English) are not found in non-finite clauses either. In (28a) the locative suffix heads a PP containing the nominals kunta ‘stick’ and kadimirra ‘small’. In (28b), the locative phrase jungku-nu contains the verb jungku ‘sit’ as the main predicate in a non-finite clause whose understood subject is controlled by the subject of the matrix finite clause. This use of the verb jungku can be compared with its use as the main predicate of a finite clause in (28c). The non-finite locative clause in (28c) contains the complex verbal predicate kuku-na-j(i) ‘observe’ (lit. observe-see-verbalizer) whose understood subject is controlled by the subject of the matrix finite clause. The locative clause dara-muku-nu in (28d) contains the nominal predicate dara-muku ‘many dogs’ and constitutes a temporal adjunct clause with scope over the finite clause.
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(28) a.
Wudumilajijbi=nurri – kunta-na. Kadimirra-na kunta-na. wind=1pl.ex.nom – stick-loc small-loc stick-loc “We wind it (line), onto a stick, onto a small stick.” b. [Jungku-nu], nyulu, yanypa ngamba-langi. sit-loc 3sg.nom speak 1/2pl-dat “Sitting down, he spoke to us.” c. Jungku=nyulu panyja-na. Kunta-na. [Kuku-na-ji-ni]. sit=3sg.nom behind-loc tree-loc observe-see-vb-loc “He’s there behind the tree. Looking.” d. Langan.daba=ngamba bindawarra kaku-yudu [dara-muku-nu]. hang=12pl.nom bag fish-with [dog-many-loc] “We hang a bag with the fish (in it) (up in a tree) (when there are) dogs (around).”
Supposing that the ‘case’ suffixes (or postpositions) which govern the predicates of non-finite clauses are actually associated with the C of the non-finite clause, then the predicate VP or NP must be in the specifier of CP in Wanyi non-finite clauses, as in many other Australian languages (see Simpson 1988 for a discussion of the relationship between case and complementizer in Warlpiri, exemplifying a widespread Australian pattern). The order of constituents in non-finite clauses shows no obvious bias towards predicate-initial as observed in finite clauses. (29b) shows the logical object phrase mama-wurru ‘food-allat’ preceding the non-finite verb dabara-kurru ‘cook-allat’. Both constituents of this clause are obligatorily marked by the allative suffix -kurru/-wurru which indicates, among other things, that the subject of this clause is controlled by the object of the matrix finite clause najba=ngawu=ninya ‘I am looking at you’ in (29a). (29) a.
Najba=ngawu=ninya – dabara-kurru. (. . . ) see=1sg.nom=2sg.acc – cook-allat “I am looking at you cooking. . . ” b. (. . . ) mama-wurru dabara-kurru food-allat cook-allat “. . . while (you) cooking food.”
A more detailed account of Wanyi non-finite clauses would take us beyond the scope of this study.
. Recapitulation We have argued for Wanyi that in finite clauses, one of a small set of features [+wh], [+neg], and [+focus] must be present in C. The presence of one of these con-
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trasting features triggers obligatory movement of an appropriate phrase to fill the specifier of CP, assuring specifier-head feature agreement within the CP. A modal particle generated in C coexists with the feature [+focus] which may enter into an agreement relationship with an overt phrase in specifier of CP (assigned contrastive focus), or which may be ‘absorbed’ by the modal particle in C. When none of these marked features is assigned to C, then a value of information focus is assigned by default which may force the main predicate (LPP) to move to the specifier of CP in the absence of a predicate phrase with more limited scope.
. The verb-initial phenomenon in Australian languages Verb-initial languages have not been widely reported for Australian languages although many, or even most languages, feature the verb in clause-initial position under a number of circumstances: e.g., where the verb is the only lexical category constituent of the sentence, or the verb is the focused constituent in some sense. This is exemplified by the Warlpiri sentences in (30) in which the verb is in boldface.28 In (30a) and (30b), the verb wangkami is the only open class constituent. In (30a) wangkami is placed in the informationally neutral position, preceding the complex of functional categories marking tense, aspect, mood and pronominal subject/object features, referred to as the aux in the Warlpirist literature (e.g., Nash 1986; Simpson 1991). The order is reversed in the highly marked (30b) which attributes implicit contrastive focus to the asserted proposition and the speaker’s commitment to its realization. This blocks movement of a phrase to specifier of CP, since [+focus] is checked and absorbed by the aux, as seen to be possible in the case of Wanyi modal particles. Sentence (30c) is also verb-initial, but here the choice of the verb over the nominal phrase with an open class item is partly determined by the discourse context. The ‘new’ information is supplied by the verb wangkami, which carries an information focus by comparison with the other open class constituent conveying ‘old’ or ‘given’ information. The reverse situation applies to (30d) in which the nominal expression kurdu-kurdu-ku ‘to the children’ conveys new information signaled by its clause-initial pre-aux position.29 (30) Warlpiri: a. Wangka-mi ka=rna=jana. talk-nonpast pres.aux=1sg.s=3pl.o “I’m talking to them/ I talk to them.” (e.g., in reply to “Do you talk to them?”)
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b. Ka=rna=jana wangka-mi. pres.aux=1sg.s=3pl.o talk-nonpast “I am (going to) talk to them.” (in reply to “You should/must talk to them.”) c. Wangka-mi ka=rna=jana kurdu-kurdu-ku. talk-nonpast pres.aux=1sg.s=3pl.o child-child-dat “I am talking to the children.” (in reply to “What are you doing?”) d. Kurdu-kurdu-ku ka=rna=jana wangka-mi. child-child-dat pres.aux=1sg.s=3pl.o talk-nonpast “I am talking to the children.” (in reply to “Who are you talking to?”) Although the initial positioning of wangkami in (30a) is informationally ‘neutral’ by comparison with (30c) where there is a choice, one could argue that (30a) still represents a sort of default focus construction – with the focus defaulting to the information expressed by the non-predictable (open) lexical category. Except for (30b), the clause-initial position in (30) corresponds with the immediate pre-aux position.30 Laughren (2002a) argues that the non-pronominal aux morphemes such as ka are generated in one of a series of functional heads (Mood, Tense, Aspect), which are c-commanded by a head C that may license a focused interpretation of the XP in the specifier of CP. In turn the CP may be selected by another functional head F that licenses a topic interpretation for the XP in its specifier. Support for this analysis comes from examples such as (31). It is argued that the aux elements must move into successively higher functional head positions raising to C and F, in order to license their focused or topicalized specifier. This movement preserves the ‘aux in second position’ phenomenon. Pronominal clitics also raise from their respective AGR(eement) phrases to incorporate into the higher Aspect, Tense and Mood heads (which are subsumed under a single head ‘Infl’ in (31b)). The head of CP’s complement phrase raises with the incorporated pronominal clitics to C and, if projected, to the higher head F. This is the path taken by the aux morpheme, the pronominal clitic =npa in (31). (31) a.
[FP Pikirri=ji=npai [CP nyarrpara-rla ti [IP ti spearthrower=top=2sg.s where-loc [warungka-ma-nu=rnu]]]? forget-vb-past=hither “Where did you inadvertedly leave the spear-thrower on your way here?”31
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b.
FP DP [+top]
F’ F [+top]
CP
PP [+wh/foc]
C’
C [+wh/foc]
IP I’ AgrSP I [+finite] Pronominal Heads
Pikirri=ji=npa nyarrpara-rla
VP
warungka-manu=rnu
The aux (whose only overt element in (31) is the subject clitic =npa ‘you’) must raise into the highest head position, namely F, when the specifier of the highest phrase is overtly filled. In this it is different from the sentence-initial aux in (30b) which remains in C. The close syntactic relationship between the aux (in the head of a phrase) and the preceding specifier phrase is reflected prosodically – specifier and aux form a single word-like prosodic unit, distinguishable from the complement material as we have already observed in the case of the initial element and encliticized pronouns(s) in Wanyi (Section 2.1). In (30b), the focused aux constitutes its own accented prosodic phrase excluding the following verb which constitutes a new prosodic domain, as expected if part of the complement material of the phrase headed by the raised (and focused) aux. Laughren (2002a) also argues that the Warlpiri verb in pre-aux position as in (30a) and (30c) is an XP which moves to the relevant specifier position. However, it has been argued by Legate (2002) that the pre-Auxiliary verb in Warlpiri is an Xo , which occupies the head of CP when in pre-aux position, and by doing so prevents an XP from occupying the specifier of CP.32 Similar questions arise about the categorial status of the verb, given its syntactic behavior, in the Wanyi language which has been the focus of this study. We have argued for Wanyi, that the behavior of the verbal predicate (i.e., LPP) is so much like that of other elements including nominal and postpositional predicates and non-predicates which have clearly phrasal properties, that it too must be phrasal. In Warlpiri verb-initial finite clauses, only the verb may precede the aux containing pronominal clitics,
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while in Wanyi verb-initial finite clauses, only the verb may precede the nominative/accusative pronouns; in neither language can the verb plus other phrasal constituents occupy this position.33 In contrast to Warlpiri, in Wanyi the main predicate-initial construction is clearly favored in affirmative declarative clauses irrespective of the number of open class constituents in the clause. This verb-initial behavior of Wanyi has also been observed in the neighboring and closely related Garrwa language (Mushin 2003). Recent work by Blake (2003) on the Warrnambool languages of Victoria (southeastern Australia) reveals that they also displayed the predicate-initial behavior that we have discussed for Wanyi. Beyond Australia, languages such as Lummi (Straits Salish) exhibit many of the same characteristics as Wanyi (Jelinek 1995, 2000), including the predicate defaulting to clause-initial position where it is associated with information focus. We have argued that the relationship observed in Wanyi between the clauseinitial phrase and the prosodically encliticized pronoun, while similar to the relationship between a clause-initial phrase and the Warlpiri aux which contains enclitic pronouns, is not of the same sort; the Wanyi subject/object pronouns continue to behave like XPs which remain in the specifier of their respective agreement phrases unlike the Warlpiri Xo pronominal clitics which raise and incorporate into head positions including C. Wanyi subject and object pronouns may be dropped, and they may be separated from each other by another phrase. Wanyi argument pronominals are not obliged to encliticize to a modal particle, as seen in (22b), contrary to the obligatory encliticization of Warlpiri enclitic pronouns to overt Xo functional categories with clausal scope, including complementizers and modal particles. In both Warlpiri and Wanyi, as in many Australian languages, negative interrogative clauses with a wh-word are ungrammatical. In both languages the negator in finite clauses must precede the predicate. Laughren (2002a) argues that the Warlpiri negator kula is an Xo base-generated in C but which obligatorily raises to the higher head F along with any other elements incorporated into the negative aux. While it may c-command the verb (32a, 32c, 32f) or a wh-phrase (32c), neither of these categories may raise to the specifier of FP (or topic position as shown in (31b) and (31d)) where they would c-command kula. Only topicalized nominal phrases may move to this position as in (32f). (32) a.
Kula=ka=lu ya-ni. neg=pres.aux=3pl.s go-nonpast “They are not going.” b. *Ya-ni kula=ka=lu.
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c.
Kula=ka=lu nyarrpara-kurra ya-ni. neg=pres.aux=3pl.s where-allat go-nonpast “They are not going anywhere.” d. *Nyarrpara-kurra kula=ka=lu ya-ni. e. Nyarrpara-kurra ka=lu ya-ni? Where-allat pres.aux=3pl.s go-nonpast “Where are they going?” f. Kurdu-kurdu kula=ka=lu ya-ni. child-child neg=pres.aux=3pl.s go-nonpast “The children are not going.”
The Wanyi clausal negator budangku, on the other hand, we have argued to be an XP which must be realized in the specifier of CP, agreeing with a [+neg] feature in C. Unlike the situation in Warlpiri, there is no evidence that budangku moves out of this position, say to the specifier of a higher phrase (which might be triggered if the feature [+neg] were forced to raise into a higher head, akin to the move of Warlpiri kula from C to F). On the other hand, there is no strong evidence that it does not raise. The fact that one does not find Wanyi sentences such as (32f) with a non-dislocated topic preceding budangku does not provide evidence one way or the other. If budangku does raise to the specifier of the higher phrase FP, then clearly there is no position that a non-dislocated topic phrase preceding budangku could occupy. If budangku does not raise to the specifier of FP, then the absence of an XP in the otherwise unoccupied specifier of FP may be due to the fact that it would fail to be licensed in that position, since no feature is generated in F which could trigger an agreement relation with the specifier of FP.
. Conclusion In attempting to account for the data presented, we have argued that both verbal and nominal predicates are XPs, which can occupy specifier (and complement) positions, but which cannot be phrasal heads. We argue that the specifier of CP is where focus is assigned to an XP through its relationship with a feature [+focus] in the head of the CP. The head of CP may also be the locus of the features [+wh] or [+negative]. These three features, [+wh], [+negative] and [+focus], contrast in C; the presence of one precludes the presence of the other. One of these features must be present in C, with [+focus] being the default feature.34 Following É. Kiss (1998) and Jelinek (2000), we have distinguished contrastive (or ‘identificational’) focus from default information focus. Where contrastive focus is not assigned, then information focus emerges as the default interpretation. The informationally ‘neutral’ affirmative declarative clause with an initial predicate phrase results from the
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obligatory assignment of a feature [+focus] to C that must be checked via agreement between the features present in the specifier and the head. This requires the obligatory movement of the predicate phrase to the specifier of CP as represented in (27), if no other XP moves to that position to check this focus feature. É. Kiss (1998) argues that while identificational (our contrastive) focus is quantificational and requires movement into a scope position, the focus phrase being an operator, information focus is not quantificational and does not involve movement, either in the overt syntax or at the level of Logical Form (LF), contra other studies (e.g., Vilkuna 1994 for Finnish, who argues that all focused phrases are operators which must move to the specifier of CP, and Tsimpli 1994 for Greek, who argues that both types of focused phrase involve movement to the specifier of a left-peripheral functional projection, FP). Our analysis of focus in Wanyi involves overt syntactic movement for both types, and crucially involves predicates as well as other constituent types.35 We have proposed that the relationship between the features [+neg], [+wh], and two types of focus, contrastive and information, is such that they belong to a single ‘focus’ category in which [+neg], [+wh] and [+contrastive focus] are the marked values, while [+information focus] is the unmarked default value of the class-level focus feature where none of the three marked values is assigned. In the absence of a predicate phrase with narrower scope in the specifier of CP, the main predicate (or LPP) with clausal scope must move to this position to check this feature. Overt modal particles (e.g., ja, mayi, kiya) appear in C if the feature [+finite] is in Infl. These particles license either modal modifying XPs such as non-factive wayi or ngamuyu to appear as the specifier of CP, or permit other XPs which agree with the [+focus] feature in C to appear there. Modal particles do not block the feature [+focus] from being associated with C; in fact, contrastive focus is associated with an XP raised to the specifier of CP in the presence of a modal particle. However, modal particles may themselves absorb the [+focus] feature, thus blocking XP movement to the specifier of CP. Given that the assignment of the features [+neg], [+wh], and [+focus] is only characteristic of finite clauses, it may be the case that incorporation of Infl into C is involved in the assignment of focus in Wanyi, as it is in Warlpiri, where the movement is phonologically marked. This movement would assure that the feature [+finite] be associated with C in a finite clause. The relationship between C and lower functional categories in Wanyi requires further investigation. Wanyi has more in common with the “Wackernagel languages” of Australia – such as Warlpiri – in which C may only be overtly filled by functional categories (which exclude the verb) than it does with verb-initial Celtic languages in which the verb is a Xo which moves into C or Infl, or V-second languages such as German in which the verb moves into C (see relevant discussion in Carnie & Guilfoyle
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2000a and Carnie, Harley, & Pyatt 2000). This supports claims such as those by McCloskey (1996) that there is no uniform verb-initial type. Verb-initial can be derived in a number of ways. For example, the derivation of surface verb-initial order seems to be distinct for Irish, which involves cyclic head-raising of V (McCloskey 1991), for Chamorro, which involves subject lowering (Chung 1990), and for Niuean, which involves VP movement (Massam 2000a).36 Our analysis of Wanyi verb-initial finite clauses involves treating these as structures akin to VP fronting in English rather than verb raising. However, the syntactically and semantically marked nature of such structures in English does not seem to be a feature of the Wanyi verb-initial clause; rather this seems to be the neutral ‘default’ clause type. We have attempted to account for this difference by the requirement that whereas in English, C does not have to be associated with a syntactically relevant semantic feature, in Wanyi it does. It is the presence of this feature, we argue, which forces the predicate phrase to move into the specifier of CP where it receives contrastive or information focus (depending on the nature of the feature in C). Furthermore, when a feature is associated with C in English, it seems to require movement of an overt functional head (typically the highest auxiliary verb) into C in the absence of a modal particle such as if, whereas Wanyi requires movement into the specifier of CP.
. Future directions An important and obvious outstanding issue raised by the Wanyi data discussed here is why features such as [+neg], [+wh] and both contrastive and information focus should be base-generated in the same position and exhibit the same syntactic behavior. A supplementary question is why this position should be the one in which modal particles are generated. We have argued that each of these features represents a different type of focus, much as Lee (2000a) proposed to account for similar data in Quiaviní Zapotec. Where Lee proposes a Focus Phrase distinct from a Mood Phrase (complement of the Focus Phrase), we posit a single phrase, the CP. However, an alternative and possibly more promising path to explore would be to construct an analysis of these phenomena purely in terms of quantification (using insights from work by É. Kiss 1998; Jelinek 2000 and others) rather than focus as we have proposed here. While wh and focus phenomena do seem to belong to the same class of phenomena both semantically and syntactically, negation is harder to represent in terms of focus. However, negation as well as contrastive focus and wh have been uniformly treated as types of quantification. It remains to be shown whether information focus can be treated as an operator with quantificational properties. Furthermore, the left-edge effects observed in Wanyi are not unlike those associated with quantifier raising, while the interaction between mood
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and quantification is well attested cross-linguistically. English exhibits the same combination of semantic functions associated with ‘do-support’: focus, negation and interrogation.
Appendix Template of Wanyi finite verb formation
I Outer lexical root
II Lexical root
III +/– Verbaliser
nanganyja ‘get’ jila ‘go’ yany- ‘speak’ bi- ‘bite’
-j- ‘dynamic’
muwa ‘stomach’
-j- ‘dynamic’
bari ‘bad’
-m- ‘causative’
bari ‘bad’
-j- ‘dynamic’ na- ‘see’
-j- ‘dynamic’
kuku- ‘?’
-na- ‘see’
-j- ‘dynamic’
kawa- ‘?’
-na- ‘see’
-j- ‘dynamic’
da- ‘strike’
(-j-) ‘dynamic’
waka- ‘wash’
-da- ‘strike’
-j- ‘dynamic’
burra ‘strike downwards’ burra ‘strike downwards’
-da- ‘strike’
-j- ‘dynamic’
IV Inflectional suffix ø∼-bV ‘neutral’ -kanyi ‘purposive’
V English gloss
nanganyja-ø nanganyja-anyi jila-ba jila-kanyi yany-ba yany-kanyi bi-j-bi bi-j-kanyi muwa-j-ba muwa-j-kanyi bari-m-bi (no example) bari-j-bi bari-j-kanyi na-j-ba na-j-kanyi kuku-na-j-ba kuku-na-j-kanyi kawa-na-j-ba kawa-na-j-kanyi da-ba da-j-kanyi waka-da-ba waka-da-j-kanyi burra-da-ba burra-da-j-kanyi burra burra-kanyi
‘get’ ‘go’ ‘speak’ ‘bite’ ‘be jealous of ’ ‘spoil’ (tr) ‘be bad’ (intr) ‘see, look at’ ‘observe’ ‘find’ ‘hit’ ‘wash’ ‘strike down, knock over’ ‘hit down on’
Note: There are some additional verbal suffixes whose status and role in finite clauses is not well understood.
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Notes * This chapter would not have been possible without the invaluable contribution of Mr. Roy Seccin Kamarrangi to our investigation of his language which we gratefully acknowledge. The Wanyi language research has been supported by Grant 2000100377 from The U. of Queensland Small Grant Scheme and by The U. of Queensland Research Development grants Nos. 2001000947 and 2002001765 to Laughren, while revision of this chapter was supported by the U. of Queensland Special Studies Program (2003). We are also indebted to Gavan Breen who has made his Wanyi fieldnotes available to us. In revising this paper we have benefitted from the feedback received when this work was presented at the Workshop on Verb-Initial Languages at the University of Arizona, Tucson in February 2003 and particularly from the detailed comments given by anonymous referees and the editors of this volume. Of course the authors of this paper take full responsibility for the accuracy of the data and the validity of the analysis given. . Wanyi was traditionally spoken in an area straddling the Northern Territory-Queensland border on the southern side of the Gulf of Carpentaria in northeastern Australia. It is a nonPama-Nyungan language, but has been subject to many Pama-Nyungan influences over a long period of time (Blake 1988). Most of the data on which this account is based derives from fieldwork carried out by Mary Laughren and Luise Hercus (2000) and Mary Laughren (2002 and 2003) with one of the very few remaining fluent Wanyi speakers, Mr. Roy Seccin, along with his cousin Mr. Archie Dick. Other data come from fieldwork carried out by Gavan Breen in the 1970s and Elwyn Flint and Charles Osborne in the 1960s. . The =n enclitic on the pronoun ngaa is what we have dubbed as ‘ephemeral n’, a poorly understood element which is sometimes added to a word. It is usually found at the end of a phrasal constituent, and may be part of the prosodic marking of certain syntactic domains. . We do not mark ABS[olutive] case in the glosses of the unmarked nominals such as jukuli ‘boomerang’ in (1b) or mama ‘food of vegetable origin’ in (1c). . The exceptional underlying form of the first person singular accusative pronoun is the root nga. However, it frequently surfaces with a lengthened vowel as ngaa in order to conform with the minimal word requirement that there be a minimum of two vowels (each counting as a mora) in the phonological word. . For example, the clitic sequence bula=ngaa(n) in (1a) cannot be extraposed as such; it would have to be decomposed into two separate extraposed phrases. We thank Jane Simpson for bringing this to our attention. . The exact status of these agreement phrases is problematic; they would seem to form part of the voice system of the language and hence may be more profitably represented explicitly in terms of this category. We will not pursue this question in this chapter but simply assume the presence of agreement projections within the clausal architecture. . Wanyi has no overt ‘that’ complementizer as illustrated by (3b). . Topic phrases are similarly distinguished from focus phrases in Chalcatongo Mixtec (Macaulay this volume). In English, the contrast between clauses with fronted topic phrases and those with fronted focused phrases also involves the presence (as opposed to the ab-
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sence) of phonologically overt coreferring pronouns, e.g., Topic: Carrotsi , I like themi ; Focus: Carrotsi I like ti . . The affirmative counterpart of the first clause of (6c) is (i)
warnami-yudu=barri (nayi) water-with=now (this) ‘There’s water here.’ (lit. ‘This (is) with water.’)
The predicate contains the comitative suffix, not the dative which is obligatory in the negative (6c). It is not grammatically acceptable to negate the sentence containing the predicate warnami-yudu by preceding it with negative budangku, e.g., *Budangku (nayi) warnamiyudu. The negative budangku must combine with the dative case-marked complement to form a complex negative phrase. However, like the complex wh-phrase in (5a), only the negative constituent budangku is realized in the clause-initial (pre-pronominal) position. . Australian languages differ in whether their marker of clausal negation is an Xo (such as Warlpiri kula to be discussed in Section 3) or an XP meaning ‘nothing, empty, void’. Some languages have both, and may also have an additional negative Xo with NP scope. Wanyi uses the phrasal negative budangku for both clausal and NP negation. . In terms of the logical form representation, only the operator may occupy the specifier of CP, while the restrictive predicate must remain in situ. . The locative suffix is of the form -nV where vowel V takes the same value as the preceding vowel. The morpheme j(i) is a productive verbalizing suffix in Wanyi which may combine with a nominal stem to form either semantically transparent or non-transparent verbs. For example, the verb muwajba ‘to be jealous of ’ in (2b) is derived from muwa ‘stomach’ plus verbalizer j and the neutral verbal suffix -bV. The locative suffix on the verb is part of the switch reference system signaling that the non-overt subject of the verb marked with the locative must be coreferent with the subject of the matrix clause (see Austin 1981 for a survey of switch reference strategies in Australian languages). . The case we have glossed as dative could just as well be glossed genitive, as the same case form serves the semantic and syntactic functions typical of both dative and genitive cases in languages such as the well-known Indo-European ones which usually distinguish these two cases. . We have labeled the phrasal node which is the complement of C as IP (Inflectional phrase), and not TP (Tense Phrase) because we remain somewhat agnostic about the nature of the functional phrases immediately below CP and their exact identification is not crucial to our argumentation. It is difficult to argue in the case of Wanyi, in particular, for a TP, because there is no formal marking of tense distinctions. The tense distinctions made in the English translation we have given of the Wanyi sentences are those appropriate to the context in which the Wanyi sentences were uttered. The value associated with Infl seems to be that of finiteness, which does not translate into tense, although it may be possible to derive the finite/non-finite contrast from more fundamental features. . É. Kiss (1998) argues on the basis of English and Hungarian data that while exhaustive contrastive focus, which she calls ‘identificational’ focus is quantificational and constitutes an operator which must move to the specifier of CP, information focus is not exhaustive and
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hence not quantificational, and consequently does not involve operator movement: phrases associated with information focus, she argues, cannot move into fronted clefts or to the specifier of CP. Jelinek (2000) argues that the clause-initial predicate in Lummi is associated with information focus and raises to a phrasal position adjoined to C – a position that can also be occupied by the universal quantifier or a wh-word. . The Wanyi verb is minimally inflected in finite clauses. In all the examples of verbal finite clauses presented thus far, the verb is in the ‘neutral’ form, marked by the suffix -bV. As already noted, the interpretation of clauses with neutral form verbs (in the absence of any additional words or morphemes expressing tense-aspect-mood values) can have any time reference relative to the speech act. The English translations we have given are those appropriate to the context in which these utterances were spoken. A future-oriented interpretation is forced by the presence of ja in the clause-initial position where it serves as the obligatory host for encliticized pronouns. The verb follows as shown in (13). Although ja does not constitute a phonological word as it lacks a second vocalic mora, it heads the prosodic phrase formed by it and the following pronoun by typically providing the locus of initial word stress, which results in destressing the initial syllable of the following encliticized pronoun. Despite its tense-like meaning, ja appears to belong to a small set of modal particles, some of which are shown in (14) to (18). Superficially, at least, there is no distinction between the form of statements and directives – there does not seem to be a clearly distinct imperative (as opposed to indicative or declarative) construction. . The meaning expressed by kiya is difficult to capture by a single English gloss. What kiya appears to do is to set up a hypothetical world against which the state of affairs in the world of the discourse is evaluated. Hence in combination with ngamuyu in (22a) it translates into English as if (also projected in C where it excludes the presence of a moved wh-phrase in the specifier of CP). However kiya is used in both the protasis (22a) and apodosis (22b, c). In (21a) the situation in the world of discourse is that the addressee had failed to bring any tea, but the speaker would have liked the situation to be that of a possible world in which the addressee had in fact brought the tea – an ‘if only’ reading. The contrastive focus on mama ‘food’ in (21b) derives from the contrast between the two situations, failure to satisfy the desired state of affairs with respect to tea (nanyalu) expressed in (21a), but non-failure with respect to vegetable food (mama) in (21b), made explicit by the following sentence in parentheses. . Wayi can be used to mark polar interrogative clauses without kiya, as in (i). (i)
Wayi= ngawu nganyi-nbunu jilaa, nganyi-nbunu? nonfact=1sg.nom 2sg.dat-with go, 2sg.dat-with “Can I come with you? With you?”
(Breen data, text78)
The phrasal nature of wayi permits it to host the deictic enclitic =barri ‘now, then’ as in (ii). (ii) Wayi=barri=ninji ngaba mama=n? nonfact=now=2sg.nom bring food-n “Have you brought (any) food then?”
(Breen data, text78)
. These alternate word orders in (22b) and (22c) were spoken in rapid succession by the Wanyi speaker (RS) in relation to the same situation. The repetition of sentences with
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Mary Laughren, Rob Pensalfini, and Tom Mylne
slightly different word ordering is a very common feature of speech in Australian ‘free word-order’ languages. . Depending on discourse context (22) would translate as ‘Supposing that I had gone over to that one, it would have bitten me.’ . In the context of an analysis of verbal inflectional morphology in Kalkutungu spoken a little to the south of Wanyi, Mylne (1997, 2000) has proposed that finiteness is better defined in terms of mood than tense. A similar position is adopted by Jelinek (2000: 218) in her discussion of Lummi: “Mood, which marks a clause as finite, is initial in the clitic string. I identify this mood projection as C. . . ”. Although we propose that Wanyi modal particles are generated in C, we distinguish the property ‘finite’ from mood. . The variable position of the verb, and of the prosodically dependent enclitizing nominative and accusative pronouns, as illustrated in (22), requires further investigation beyond the scope of this chapter. . Mylne (1997, 2001) has shown how the valency structure of another Australian language, Kalkutungu, is reflected in the verbal morphology, where there is a strict order of inner valency changing morphology, followed by outer voice changing morphology, with even more outer mood and tense morphology. . The internal composition of Wanyi finite verbs (which fall into a number of conjugation classes) is shown in the Appendix. As well as being associated with any time reference relative to time of speaking, the neutral verb form is found in a range of sentence types (declarative, directive, interrogative). The neutral form contrasts in finite clauses with the ‘purposive’ form marked by the suffix -kanyi, related to the genitive/dative case form -anyi. The Wanyi LPP may be polymorphemic. . Wanyi exhibits many of the properties Jelinek (1984, 1995 & 2000) has identified as characteristic of a ‘pronominal argument’ language. However, it is not incompatible with the claims we are making with respect to Wanyi to assume that the nominative and accusative pronouns originate in the same VP or NP-internal argument positions as their modifying NP predicate phrases from which only the pronouns must move into Agr phrases. . Massam (2000a: 107) discusses this problem, adopting the solution proposed by Legate (1997) in which obligatory predicate reconstruction at LF allows the appropriate DP to c-command its trace inside the VP in its base-generated position. We take the position that solutions which avoid LF reconstruction are preferable, since they avoid weakening constraints over possible grammatical structures. . The verb-initial phenomenon is also restricted to finite clauses in Irish where the verb behaves like an Xo category which raises into higher phrasal heads (McCloskey 1991: 255– 261). . In the polysynthetic languages found in the non-Pama-Nyungan area to the west and north of where Wanyi was traditionally spoken, many sentences are purely verbal, in the sense that the verb hosts prefixal and suffixal inflections including pronominal categories as well as tense, mood and aspect marking. . See Swartz (1991) for a detailed study of the discourse functions associated with variable word order and construction type in Warlpiri.
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Accounting for verb-initial order in an Australian language . The clause-initial placement of aux in (30b) is possible because of the presence of the present auxiliary ka which can initiate a phonological word. This contrasts with the corresponding past perfective clause lacking ka, as in Wangka-ja=rna=jana ‘I spoke to them’, which cannot be reordered like (30b) (*=rna=jana wangka-ja), possibly because the enclitic pronominal =rna would fail to have an overt host – a morphophonological, rather than syntactic, requirement. However, it may be some syntactic property of ka which permits the aux containing it to be clause-initial as in (30b). . The construction in (31) is to be distinguished from one with a left dislocated topic of the type exemplified by the Wanyi sentences in (2). The Warlpiri counterpart would be Pikirri=ji, nyarrpara-rla=npa warungka-ma-nu-rnu? ‘The spear-thrower, where did you inadvertedly leave it on your way here?’ in which the aux moves no higher than C. . A similar claim was made by Austin and Bresnan (1996). . Note how English presents the opposite phenomenon in cases of raising to an A-bar position to focus the VP, as in He said he would rob a bank, and rob a bank he did as opposed to *He said he would rob a bank, and rob he did a bank. Being an Xo , rob cannot be moved to an XP position such as specifier of CP. . While these features are not associated with overt phonological forms in Wanyi, the Celtic languages have overt complementizers associated with a similar set of features (see Carnie, Harley, & Pyatt 2000; and McCloskey this volume). . Jelinek (2000) argues that information focus in Lummi also involves obligatory movement of the predicate – in this case a fully inflected predicate word incorporating the object argument pronominal suffix. The Lummi predicate-initial structures have more the flavor of English clause fronting in sentences such as He’s a wonderful striker of the ball (is) Bloggs, which does not seem to involve exhaustive quantification either. . Carnie and Guilfoyle (2000a) provide a broader and more detailed overview of various analyses of verb-initial languages.
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JB[v.20020404] Prn:29/12/2004; 9:42
F: LA73IND.tex / p.1 (42-154)
Index
A absolutive 16, 66–69, 79–80, 85, 88–89 adjunct 17–20, 22, 26 adjunction 140 adverbial clitic 77, 310–313, 315–317, 324–325, 338–339 adverbs 2, 76–78, 84, 96–98, 181–182, 184, 205–206, 208, 213, 216–219, 224 Agree 72, 80, 87, 289 agreement 119–120, 223, 265, 274–279 Agreement Phrase 209, 385 Alutor 261 anaphora see backwards anaphora animacy 316–317, 319, 328, 335 antisymmetry 9, 12, 175–201 Arabic, Egyptian 115 Arabic, Standard 100 aspect 128 Association Operator A 254–255 Atayal 177, 186–191, 197–198 Australian languages 367–370, 385, 387–389, 392, 394, 398, 400 Austronesian 9–29, 175–177, 180, 183, 200, 303–329 B backwards anaphora 49 Basque 179 Berber 31 Bikol 334 Binding Condition C 39 binding see also backwards anaphora bound variable anaphora 40, 56 Breton 2, 260, 265–280 Burmese 261
C Case 21, 68, 70–72, 78–80, 83–85, 87–89 Catalan 113, 131 categorial projection 139 causative 320, 337–338 Cebuano 334 Celtic 274, 394, 401, see also Irish, Breton, Scots Gaelic, and Welsh Chalcatongo Mixtec 2, 341–366, 397, see also Mixtec Chamorro 11–12, 14, 16, 22–23, 25–29, 32, 43–44, 47–48, 55, 57–59, 395 Chinese 370 Chinese, Mandarin 198–199 Chukotian 262 clause fronting 91–106 clause structure, (non)-universality of 140, 152–153 Clause Typing Hypothesis 91–106, 114–133 clitic 33–34, 62, 189–195, 198, 200, 303–304, 308–325, 327–329, 331, 334–335, 337–338, 350 clitic doubling 338, 352–353, 358–359, 363 clitic left dislocation 273–274, 365 clitic pronoun 70–76, 80–81, 84, 86–88, 189–190, 338, 348–353, 356–357, 359–361, 363, 365, 368–371, 378–380, 390–392 cluster (of clitics) 303–304, 308–317, 319–325, 329, 334–335, 338 common noun see noun, common complementarity 265, 274–279 configurationality 38, 46 construct state 265–267, 271–273, 279
JB[v.20020404] Prn:29/12/2004; 9:42
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Index
Coordinate Structure Constraint 48, 56 coordination 3, 12–13, 23, 31–64, 210, 233 copula 159–174, 112, 132, 227, 330–331, 335–336, 239, 344–347, 363 CP 281–301 creole 206 crossover 40, 56 c-selection 231–235, 237 D definite(ness) 32, 99–101, 205, 209, 213, 215–216, 293, 295–297 305–306, 308, 314, 326–328, 331, 336 direct object 208 discontinuous constituent 360 dominance 137–139, 151–152 DP 281–301 Dutch 52, 55–56, 64 E ellipsis 2, 32, 41–42, 56, 59, 157–158 English 14, 52–53, 55–56, 63–64, 74, 103, 280, 334, 387, 395, 398, 401 ergative 16, 66–68, 72, 79–80, 83, 85, 88–89, 194, 330, 335 EventP 223 existential 327 extended projection 142, 206, 223 Extended Projection Principle (EPP) 10–12, 24, 27, 65, 67, 70–76, 86, 88, 111–114, 173, 176 extraction asymmetry 38–39 extraposition 52–60, 63–64, 181 F feature-checking 72, 147 finite clause 367, 387–388, 391–392, 394–396, 398–400 finiteness 230, 232, 236 Finnish 394 focus 91, 95, 99–101, 104–105, 352–355, 357–358, 360, 363, 365, 367–368, 371, 373–377, 379–381, 383, 387–390, 393–396, 397
Focus Phrase 96, 99–100, 105, 395 focus, contrastive 307–308, 320–322, 327, 338, 373, 376–377, 381, 389, 393–395, 398–399 focus, informational 73–74, 87–88, 367, 373, 376, 381, 383–384, 389, 392–395, 398–399 focus-fronting 95–96, 99–100, 105 Force 87, 91–106, 290–293, 296–297 Formosan 16–17, 200 French 225, 280 functional categories 178, 206, 222, 228, 231–235, 236–238
G Gaelic see Scots Gaelic or Irish garden path 337 Garrwa 392 generic 336, 338 genitive case 265–267, 270, 279 German 52, 64, 146–147, 179, 223, 394 Greek 11, 394
H have 266, 275, 278, 344, 347, 363 Hawaiian 85 head movement 1, 31, 108–133, 140, 143, 151, 155–175, 180, 186, 189–190, 193, 197–198, 200–201, 223, 189, 196–197 Head Movement Constraint 67, 73, 195–196 Headedness Assignment Rule for Associative Interpretations 256–257 head-final clause 91–92, 95–96, 98, 178–179, 182–187, 196–198 head-initial clause 91–92, 94–97, 102, 178–179, 187, 195–197 Heavy-shift 306, 308, 324, 329, 334–335 Hebrew 203, 249, 312, 338 Hungarian 191, 261, 398
JB[v.20020404] Prn:29/12/2004; 9:42
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Index
I Ibero-Romance 329, 339 Icelandic 209 iconicity 259–260 implicit arbitrary agent 216 incorporation see pseudo noun-incorporation indefinite object 205, 213, 216, 218, 220, 223–224 indirect object 208, 211 Indonesian, Riau 243–263 inflection 227–228, 232, 236, 238–240 information flow 259–260 instrumental advancement 224 internal argument 214, 266–272, 279 interrogative clause 371, 374–376, 378, 392, 396, 399 interrogative particle 187–191, 197, 201 intraposition 181, 208, 213, 215, 218–220 inverse VP 218 Irish 2, 3, 11, 31–32, 59, 78, 108–133, 155–174, 203, 212, 215, 274–275, 279–280, 386, 400 irrealis aspect 93, 101–104 island 14, 16–22, 28 isolating language 227–242 Italian 14, 100 J Japanese 24, 74, 370 K K’iche’ (K’ichee’ or Quiché) 27 Kalkutungu 400 Karen 261 Khanty 261 Khmer 261 Kisongo Maasai 260, 281–301, see also Maasai L left dislocation 353, 357, 365 left-edge-of-inflection verb movement 357–359
lexical category 227–242, see also syntactic category lexical predicative phrase (LPP) 368, 381, 385, 387, 391, 394 Lilooet Salish (St’at’imcets) 3, 12, 31–64 linearization 55–58, 137, 143, 146, 148 Logical Form (LF) 43, 56–57, 64, 394, 398, 400 Lummi (Straits Salish) 34, 261, 392, 401 M Maasai 4, see also Kisongo Maasai Malagasy 3, 11–12, 19–21, 25–26, 28–29, 31, 59, 180, 181, 183, 186–188, 190–191, 198–201, 203 Mandarin see Chinese Maori 11–13, 25–27, 57–58, 64, 235–236 Mayan 11, 18–19, 27 Mixtec 136, also see Chalcatongo Mixtec modal particle 367–368, 376, 378, 380–383, 387, 389, 392, 394–395, 399 Modern Irish see Irish Mood Phrase 395 morphology 304–308, 314–316, 318, 320, 323, 325, 329, 331–332, 336–337 Munda 262 Mundari 261 N negation/negative phrase 24, 26, 95–96, 99–103, 354–355, 358, 367–368, 371–376, 378, 384, 387–388, 392–396, 398 negative concord 26–27 Niuean 3, 4, 21–22, 31–32, 59, 65–90, 111–112, 186, 227–242, 260, 330, 333, 386, 395 nominal predicate 112, 121, 150–174, 186, 194, 229, 233, 237–238, 283, 285, 295–297, 299, 368, 372–373, 375–376, 382, 386–387, 391, 393, see also non-verbal predicate nominalization 233–234
JB[v.20020404] Prn:29/12/2004; 9:42
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Index
non-finite clause 387–388, 398 non-finite verb forms, lack of 344–345 non-verbal predicate 13, 66–67, 69, 76, 78–81, 84, 88–90, see also nominal predicate Nootka 261 noun 227–242 noun, common 304–305, 316, 319, 324–326, 328 null anaphora 38–39, 43–44, 59 null-resumption 19 O ontological types 251 Optimality Theory 336 optional clisis 316–325, 327–329, 338, 339 P Palauan 117 Pama-Nyungan 397, 400 Phi(φ)-features 78–79, 274–279 Phonological Form (PF) 56–57 Phrasal Adjunction 171, 174 phrasal affix 338–339 pied piping 18–19 pleonastic pro 332 plural word 359–361 polarity 38 Polyadic Association Rule of Semantic Compositionality 255–256 Polynesian 227–242 portmanteau 313–314 Portuguese 329, 339 postpositional predicate 372, 382, 391 precedence 137 predicate fronting 204–206, 219, 227–242 predicate nominal see nominal predicate predicate raising 66–70, 76, 82, 87, 175–201, see also remnant movement predicate-initial 35, 367–401 presupposition 323, 325, 329–331, 334–335 preverbal particles 135–154
pro-drop 214 pronominal clitic see clitic pronoun pronoun 303–304, 308–326, 328–329, 334–335, 337–339 proper name 303, 305–306, 316–317, 319, 324–326, 328–329, 335–336 prosody 304, 310–317, 319, 321–325, 328–330, 334, 337–339 pseudo noun-incorporation (PNI) 66–70, 73, 76, 82–84, 86, 186, 198, 229, 234 Pseudo-clefts 117 pseudo-gapping 224 psych predicate 307–308, 315
Q quantifier 38 Quiaviní Zapotec 3, 21, 31, 91–106, 186, 386, 395 Quiché see K’iche’
R radical head-marking 33 raising predicate 287, 299 reciprocal 356 reference/referentiality 304, 323, 328 reflexive 356 relative clause 282–284, 288 Relativized Minimality Effect 276–278 remnant movement 1, 2, 9–29, 65–68, 83–84, 93, 105, 108–133, 151, 155–174, 186, 194, 201 213, 228–230, 333 restructuring predicate 287–288 resumptive pronoun 18 Riau Indonesian see Indonesian, Riau right periphery 55–58 right-adjoined 209 rightward movement 209 rightward specifiers 168–169 Romance 101, 329, 339, 370
JB[v.20020404] Prn:29/12/2004; 9:42
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Index
S Scandinavian 189 Scot Gaelic 279–280 scrambling 73–76, 84, 333 second position particle 343–344 Seediq 3, 11–12, 16–17, 19, 26, 28–29, 175–201, 333 self-attachment 140, 153 sentence-final particle 91–93, 95–96, 175–201, 343–344 sentence-initial particle 92–96, 179, 198, 343 small clause 223 specific(ity) 24–28, 305–308, 314–315, 325–328, 331, 336 specifier 146–147, 182–183, specifier-head relation 194, 204, 219, 221, 224, 289, 375–376, 389, 393 Squamish 261 St’at’imcets see Lilooet Salish Straits Salish see Lummi string-vacuous movement 91–92, 99–101, 106 subject lowering 1, 3 subject/topic 204 subject-object asymmetry 31–33, 37–42, 59 Swiss German 280 syntactic categories 3, 243–262 T Tagakaulo Kalagan 334, 339 Tagalog 3, 180, 191–194, 200, 260, 303–329 tense and aspect 247 that-t violation 297–298 thematic roles 247, 249, 303–309, 311, 314–338 Tongan 3, 27, 136, 200, 232–233, 333 topic 26, 94–95, 104–105, 323, 327–329, 339, 352–354, 357–359, 361, 363, 365–366, 369, 376, 382, 390, 392–393, 397
topic, extraposed 369–370, 372, 374–376 topic, left-dislocated 94 topicalization 178 Topic-drop 289, 294 typological similarities 1 Tzotzil 11, 18–19 V verb 227–242 verb movement 65–67, 101, 104–105, 140, 143–144, 150, 194–197, 332–333 verb-to-C movement 65–66, 70, 74–76, 78–79, 84, 195, verbal nouns 266, 273, 280 verbal predicate 368, 372, 374–379, 381–382, 385–387, 391–393 verbs, nominal properties 265–280 verb-second 146–147 V-movement see verb movement, see also Head movement voice 228, 303–307, 309, 314, 316, 320–321, 330–332 vP 223, 265–280 VP anaphora 31–33, 41–43, 59 VP constituency 31–64 VP ellipsis 203, see also ellipsis W Wanyi 3, 367–401 Warlpiri 367–368, 370, 382, 384, 387–389, 391–394, 398, 401 Warrnambool 392 Welsh 59, 135, 148–149, 154, 269 wh-movement 16–20, 22, 108–133 wh-question 39, 74, 91, 94–95, 99–101, 291–292, 297, 300 Y yes/no question 91, 93–94, 105, 343 Z Zapotec see Quiaviní Zapotec
In the series Linguistik Aktuell/Linguistics Today the following titles have been published thus far or are scheduled for publication: 17 BEERMAN, Dorothee, David LEBLANC and Henk van RIEMSDIJK (eds.): Rightward Movement. 1997. vi, 410 pp. 18 ALEXIADOU, Artemis: Adverb Placement. A case study in antisymmetric syntax. .. 1997. x, 256 pp. 19 JOSEFSSON, Gunlög: Minimal Words in a Minimal Syntax. Word formation in Swedish. 1998. ix, 199 pp. 20 LAENZLINGER, Christopher: Comparative Studies in Word Order Variation. Adverbs, pronouns, and clause structure in Romance and Germanic. 1998. x, 371 pp. 21 KLEIN, Henny: Adverbs of Degree in Dutch and Related Languages. 1998. x, 232 pp. 22 ALEXIADOU, Artemis and Chris WILDER (eds.): Possessors, Predicates and Movement in the Determiner Phrase. 1998. vi, 388 pp. 23 GIANNAKIDOU, Anastasia: Polarity Sensitivity as (Non)Veridical Dependency. 1998. xvi, 282 pp. 24 REBUSCHI, Georges and Laurice TULLER (eds.): The Grammar of Focus. 1999. vi, 366 pp. 25 FELSER, Claudia: Verbal Complement Clauses. A minimalist study of direct perception constructions. 1999. xiv, 278 pp. 26 ACKEMA, Peter: Issues in Morphosyntax. 1999. viii, 310 pp. 27 RŮŽIČKA, Rudolf: Control in Grammar and Pragmatics. A cross-linguistic study. 1999. x, 206 pp. 28 HERMANS, Ben and Marc van OOSTENDORP (eds.): The Derivational Residue in Phonological Optimality Theory. 2000. viii, 322 pp. 29 MIYAMOTO, Tadao: The Light Verb Construction in Japanese. The role of the verbal noun. 2000. xiv, 232 pp. 30 BEUKEMA, Frits and Marcel den DIKKEN (eds.): Clitic Phenomena in European Languages. 2000. x, 324 pp. 31 SVENONIUS, Peter (ed.): The Derivation of VO and OV. 2000. vi, 372 pp. 32 ALEXIADOU, Artemis, Paul LAW, Andre MEINUNGER and Chris WILDER (eds.): The Syntax of Relative Clauses. 2000. vi, 397 pp. 33 PUSKÁS, Genoveva: Word Order in Hungarian. The syntax of Ā-positions. 2000. xvi, 398 pp. 34 REULAND, Eric (ed.): Arguments and Case. Explaining Burzio’s Generalization. 2000. xii, 255 pp. 35 HRÓARSDÓTTIR, Thorbjörg: Word Order Change in Icelandic. From OV to VO. 2001. xiv, 385 pp. 36 GERLACH, Birgit and Janet GRIJZENHOUT (eds.): Clitics in Phonology, Morphology and Syntax. 2001. xii, 441 pp. 37 LUTZ, Uli, Gereon MÜLLER and Arnim von STECHOW (eds.): Wh-Scope Marking. 2000. vi, 483 pp. 38 MEINUNGER, Andre: Syntactic Aspects of Topic and Comment. 2000. xii, 247 pp. 39 GELDEREN, Elly van: A History of English Reflexive Pronouns. Person, Self, and Interpretability. 2000. xiv, 279 pp. 40 HOEKSEMA, Jack, Hotze RULLMANN, Víctor SÁNCHEZ-VALENCIA and Ton van der WOUDEN (eds.): Perspectives on Negation and Polarity Items. 2001. xii, 368 pp. 41 ZELLER, Jochen: Particle Verbs and Local Domains. 2001. xii, 325 pp. 42 ALEXIADOU, Artemis: Functional Structure in Nominals. Nominalization and ergativity. 2001. x, 233 pp. 43 FEATHERSTON, Sam: Empty Categories in Sentence Processing. 2001. xvi, 279 pp. 44 TAYLAN, Eser Erguvanlı (ed.): The Verb in Turkish. 2002. xviii, 267 pp. 45 ABRAHAM, Werner and C. Jan-Wouter ZWART (eds.): Issues in Formal German(ic) Typology. 2002. xviii, 336 pp. 46 PANAGIOTIDIS, Phoevos: Pronouns, Clitics and Empty Nouns. ‘Pronominality’ and licensing in syntax. 2002. x, 214 pp. 47 BARBIERS, Sjef, Frits BEUKEMA and Wim van der WURFF (eds.): Modality and its Interaction with the Verbal System. 2002. x, 290 pp.
48 ALEXIADOU, Artemis, Elena ANAGNOSTOPOULOU, Sjef BARBIERS and Hans-Martin GÄRTNER (eds.): Dimensions of Movement. From features to remnants. 2002. vi, 345 pp. 49 ALEXIADOU, Artemis (ed.): Theoretical Approaches to Universals. 2002. viii, 319 pp. 50 STEINBACH, Markus: Middle Voice. A comparative study in the syntax-semantics interface of German. 2002. xii, 340 pp. 51 GERLACH, Birgit: Clitics between Syntax and Lexicon. 2002. xii, 282 pp. 52 SIMON, Horst J. and Heike WIESE (eds.): Pronouns – Grammar and Representation. 2002. xii, 294 pp. 53 ZWART, C. Jan-Wouter and Werner ABRAHAM (eds.): Studies in Comparative Germanic Syntax. Proceedings from the 15th Workshop on Comparative Germanic Syntax (Groningen, May 26–27, 2000). 2002. xiv, 407 pp. 54 BAPTISTA, Marlyse: The Syntax of Cape Verdean Creole. The Sotavento varieties. 2003. xxii, 294 pp. (incl. CD-rom). 55 COENE, Martine and Yves D’HULST (eds.): From NP to DP. Volume 1: The syntax and semantics of noun phrases. 2003. vi, 362 pp. 56 COENE, Martine and Yves D’HULST (eds.): From NP to DP. Volume 2: The expression of possession in noun phrases. 2003. x, 295 pp. 57 DI SCIULLO, Anna Maria (ed.): Asymmetry in Grammar. Volume 1: Syntax and semantics. 2003. vi, 405 pp. 58 DI SCIULLO, Anna Maria (ed.): Asymmetry in Grammar. Volume 2: Morphology, phonology, acquisition. 2003. vi, 309 pp. 59 DEHÉ, Nicole: Particle Verbs in English. Syntax, information structure and intonation. 2002. xii, 305 pp. 60 TRIPS, Carola: From OV to VO in Early Middle English. 2002. xiv, 359 pp. 61 SCHWABE, Kerstin and Susanne WINKLER (eds.): The Interfaces. Deriving and interpreting omitted structures. 2003. vi, 403 pp. 62 CARNIE, Andrew, Heidi HARLEY and MaryAnn WILLIE (eds.): Formal Approaches to Function in Grammar. In honor of Eloise Jelinek. 2003. xii, 378 pp. 63 BOECKX, Cedric: Islands and Chains. Resumption as stranding. 2003. xii, 224 pp. 64 BOECKX, Cedric and Kleanthes K. GROHMANN (eds.): Multiple Wh-Fronting. 2003. x, 292 pp. 65 MANNINEN, Satu Helena: Small Phrase Layers. A study of Finnish Manner Adverbials. 2003. xii, 275 pp. 66 GROHMANN, Kleanthes K.: Prolific Domains. On the Anti-Locality of movement dependencies. 2003. xvi, 372 pp. 67 MIŠESKA TOMIĆ, Olga (ed.): Balkan Syntax and Semantics. 2004. xvi, 499 pp. 68 BREUL, Carsten: Focus Structure in Generative Grammar. An integrated syntactic, semantic and intonational approach. 2004. x, 432 pp. 69 KISS, Katalin É. and Henk van RIEMSDIJK (eds.): Verb Clusters. A study of Hungarian, German and Dutch. 2004. vi, 514 pp. 70 AUSTIN, Jennifer R., Stefan ENGELBERG and Gisa RAUH (eds.): Adverbials. The interplay between meaning, context, and syntactic structure. 2004. x, 346 pp. 71 GELDEREN, Elly van: Grammaticalization as Economy. 2004. xvi, 320 pp. 72 FUSS, Eric and Carola TRIPS (eds.): Diachronic Clues to Synchronic Grammar. 2004. viii, 228 pp. 73 CARNIE, Andrew, Heidi HARLEY and Sheila Ann DOOLEY (eds.): Verb First. On the syntax of verb initial languages. 2005. xiv, 431 pp. 74 HEGGIE, Lorie and Francisco ORDÓÑEZ (eds.): Clitic and Affix Combinations. Theoretical perspectives. viii, 370 pp. + index. Expected Spring 2005 75 DI SCIULLO, Anna Maria (ed.): UG and External Systems. Language, brain and computation. xviii, 386 pp. + index. Expected Spring 2005 76 STAVROU, Melita and Arhonto TERZI (eds.): Advances in Greek Generative Syntax. In honor of Dimitra Theophanopoulou-Kontou. viii, 360 pp. + index. Expected Spring 2005
