New Perspectives on Romance Linguistics: Morphology, Syntax, Semantics, and Pragmatics : Selected Papers from the 35th Linguistic Symposium on Romance Languages (LSRL), Austin, Texas, February 2005

New Perspectives on Romance Linguistics VolUME I: Morphology, Syntax, Semantics, and Pragmatics

AMSTERDAM STUDIES IN THE THEORY AND HISTORY OF LINGUISTIC SCIENCE General Editor E.F.K. KOERNER (Zentrum für Allgemeine Sprachwissenschaft, Typologie und Universalienforschung, Berlin) Series IV – CURRENT ISSUES IN LINGUISTIC THEORY Advisory Editorial Board Lyle Campbell (Salt Lake City); Sheila Embleton (Toronto) Brian D. Joseph (Columbus, Ohio); John E. Joseph (Edinburgh) Manfred Krifka (Berlin); E. Wyn Roberts (Vancouver, B.C.) Joseph C. Salmons (Madison, Wis.); Hans-Jürgen Sasse (Köln)

Volume 275

Chiyo Nishida and Jean-Pierre Y. Montreuil (eds.) New Perspectives on Romance Linguistics Volume I: Morphology, Syntax, Semantics, and Pragmatics Selected papers from the 35th Linguistic Symposium on Romance Languages (LSRL), Austin, Texas, February 2005

New Perspectives on Romance Linguistics VolUME I: Morphology, Syntax, Semantics, and Pragmatics Selected papers from the 35th Linguistic Symposium on Romance Languages (LSRL), Austin, Texas, February 2005

Edited by

Chiyo Nishida Jean-Pierre Y. Montreuil University of Texas, Austin

JOHN BENJAMINS PUBLISHING COMPANY AMSTERDAM/PHILADELPHIA

4-

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   New perspectives on romance linguistics. Vol.I: Morphology, Syntax, Semantics, and Pragmatics. Selected papers from the 35th Linguistic Symposium on Romance Languages (LSRL), Austin, Texas, February 2005 / edited by Chiyo Nishida and Jean-Pierre Y. Montreuil.    p.   cm. -- (Amsterdam studies in the theory and history of linguistic science. Series IV, Current issues in linguistic theory, ISSN 0304-0763 ; v. 275)  Includes bibliographical references and index. 1. Romance languages--Congresses PC11 .L53  2006 440--dc22 2006045892 ISBN 90 272 4789 7 (Hb; alk. paper) © 2006 – 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

CONTENTS

Acknowledgements

vii

Introduction

ix

A Polarity-Sensitive Disjunction: Spanish ni ... ni Raúl Aranovich

1

Taking a Closer Look at Romance VN Compounds Reineke Bok-Bennema & Brigitte Kampers-Manhe

13

Beyond Descriptivism: Exaptation and Linguistic Explanation Denis Bouchard

27

Do Subjects Have a Place in Spanish? José Camacho

51

On the Conceptual Role of Number Viviane Déprez

67

The Diachronic Development of a French Indefinite Pronoun: Comparing Chacun to Aucun Amanda Edmonds

83

A Syntactic Analysis of Italian De-verbal Nouns Franca Ferrari-Bridgers

97

V-N Compounds In Italian: A Case of Agreement in Word Formation Martina Gračanin-Yuksek

113

A Reinterpretation of Quirky Subjects and Related Phenomena in Spanish Rodrigo Gutiérrez-Bravo

127

Cognitive Constraints on Assertion Scope: The Case of Spoken French Parce que Knud Lambrecht, Julia Bordeaux & Robert Reichle

143

vi

CONTENTS

Avant que- or Avant de-Clauses: When Presupposition Gives Way to an ‘Assertive Construction’ Anne Le Draoulec

155

Null Directional Prepositions in Romanian and Spanish Jonathan E. MacDonald

169

A Unified Account for the Additive and the Scalar Uses of Italian Neppure Alda Mari & Lucia M. Tovena

187

Default Morphology in Second Language Spanish: Missing Inflection or Underspecified Inflection? Corrine McCarthy

201

Early Object Omission in Child French and English Ana T. Pérez-Leroux, Mihaela Pirvulescu & Yves Roberge

213

Agreement Paradigms Across Moods and Tenses Mihaela Pirvulescu

229

Italian Volerci: Lexical Verb or Functional Head? Cinzia Russi

247

Restructuring of Reverse Psychological Predicate Almeida Jaqcueline Toribio & Carlos Nye

263

Subject Index

279

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The papers selected for inclusion in this volume originated as presentations at the Thirty Fifth Annual Meeting of the Linguistics Symposium on Romance Languages (LSRL 35), with parasession on Current Approaches in Historical Linguistics and Dialectology, which took place February 24-27, 2005, at the University of Texas, Austin, Texas. The editors gratefully acknowledge the scholars listed below for their generous assistance in selecting the papers to be presented at LSRL 35 and for reviewing those submitted for inclusion in this volume: Jean-Marc Authier, Dalila Ayoun, Brigitte Bauer, Paola Benincà, David Birdsong, Antonietta Bisetto, Carl Blyth, Ignacio Bosque, Joyce Bruhn de Garavito, Luigi Burzio, Greg Carlson, Ileana Comorovski, Viviane Déprez, Anna-Maria Di Sciullo, Jon Franco, Grant Goodall, Jacqueline Guéron, Javier Gutierrez-Rexach, Paul Hirschbühler, Mary Kato, Paula Kempchinsky, Ekkehard König, Knud Lambrecht, Geraldine Legendre, Rochelle Lieber, Andrew Lynch, France Martineau, Pascual Masullo, Silvina Montrul, Francisco Ordóñez, María Luisa Rivero, Yves Roberge, Sergio Scalise, Carmen Silva-Corvalán, Dominique Sportiche, Christina Tortora, Enric Vallduvi, Dieter Wanner, Steve Wechsler, Karen Zagona, Raffaella Zanuttini Additional thanks to Knud Lambrecht for his Outreach Lecture, to Sergio Acosta, Carl Blyth, Pascal Denis, Laurie Modrey, Robert Reichle, Ellenor Shoemaker, Alexandra Teodorescu, Alfonso Abad-Mancheño, Steve Byrd, Tim Ditoro, and Chris Bryce for their help in the organizational and editorial assistance, and to Anke de Looper for her assistance in editing this volume. Finally, neither the LSRL conference nor this volume would have been possible without the financial support of the College of Liberal Arts, the Department of French and Italian, and the Department of Spanish and Portuguese. Chiyo Nishida and Jean-Pierre Montreuil May 2006

INTRODUCTION

CHIYO NISHIDA

This volume includes papers selected from both the general session and the parasession on historical linguistics and dialectology. It covers topics in morphology, syntax, semantics and pragmatics. The studies represented here reflect the remarkably diverse perspectives one can take in researching Romance languages. Below we have divided the papers according to traditional fields; however, the scope of investigation in many papers is not strictly confined to one particular module. Some are also concerned with the relation among components; others deal with their topics in the context of language acquisition and bilingualism as well as from historical perspectives. Despite variations in approach, each paper sheds new light on the problem it tackles and uncovers something amazing about human language in general. Topics in Morphology. BOK-BENNEMA & KAMPERS-MANHE propose an analysis of Romance VN compounds as nominalizations of vPs with a pro subject, which later moves to the specifier position of the nominalizer. Applying this analysis to analogous English synthetic compounds, the authors argue for an incorporation strategy inherent to the nature of the English nominalizer. Through comparative analysis of VN compounds in Romance languages and English, they show that morphology is highly parallel to syntax, but still has its own ontological restrictions. FERRARI-BRIDGERS proposes a syntactic analysis of Italian deverbal nouns that are formed by merging a nominal feature [n] with either a verbal stem, an AspectP or a VoiceP. By examining the semantic and morphological properties of de-verbal nouns, the author identifies a large array of functional projections involved in the derivation of these nouns. She concludes that semantic and morphological variations across de-verbal noun types can be reduced to syntactically defined structural differences. GRAČANIN-YUKSEK examines the case of ‘gender mismatch’ observed in Italian between the morphological shape of the V-N compound and its syntactic agreement, as in dei poggia-teste “some headrests”. The

x

INTRODUCTION

author argues that the structure assigned to the compound and the featuresharing operation is responsible for this gender mismatch and shows that the model of morphology developed in this paper correctly derives the plural forms of both invariant and inflected V-N compounds in Italian. Throughout this study, she postulates that morphology and syntax are the same with respect to the processes they employ in deriving legitimate structures. MCCARTHY contends that second language morphological errors are constrained by features available in the UG and that the ‘underspecification theory’ explains why certain features are available and others are not. According to this theory, only underspecified morphemes may act as defaults. Using the data collected on verbal morphology (person/number and tense) in a spontaneous production of L2 Spanish the author shows that the majority of errors committed by L2 learners are due to underspecification and not to feature clash. This paper adds a new perspective to the on-going discussion on the second language acquisition of morphosyntactic features. PIRVULESCU investigates why the agreement paradigm in the subjunctive and imperative moods seems to show the same agreement affixes as those of the paradigm in the indicative present across Romance languages. Adopting the framework of distributed morphology, the author argues that such a similarity is a consequence of the syntactic status of TENSE in the subjunctive and imperative moods as well as in the indicative present; in all three paradigms TENSE is underspecified. Pirvulescu observes that this generalization seems to be supported from examples in unrelated languages outside Romance languages. Topics in Syntax. BOUCHARD compares two views on what is unique to human language—the generative mode proposed by Hauser, Chomsky & Fitch (2002) and the ‘exaptive’ model proposed by the author himself. Observing that humans apply recursion to signs, Bouchard hypothesizes that the distinctive property of human language is not recursion, as claimed by the proponents of the generative model, but is rather the signs that link two kinds of substance, perceptual and conceptual. He offers several arguments in support of his model. First, this model provides a basis to explain the presence of recursion in human language. Second, it explains why several novel traits that seem to be unconnected in a generative model appeared simultaneously in human language. Finally, the model leads to insightful reanalyses of five well-studied syntactic phenomena. Introducing a new set of data, CAMACHO maintains that preverbal subjects in Spanish can occupy a number of positions, some left-peripheral (lexical subjects) and some within IP (pro, expletives) and that the L or non-Lrelated nature of subject positions is derivationally determined by verb

INTRODUCTION

xi

movement. To account for the distribution of preverbal subjects, he proposes two principles, agreement-active (a given functional projection may be inert for agreement until activated by movement of a head to it or filling of its specifier) and the Phase Consistency Condition (all categories within a phase are consistent with respect to being selected or non-selected). GUTIÉRREZ-BRAVO argues that experiencer dative arguments that surface in the preverbal position in Spanish cannot be analyzed as an underlying or a quirky subject, as has been previously proposed. Instead he postulates the notion of the ‘Pole’ of the clause defined as the XP that occupies the highest inflectional specifier and is occupied by the argument that ranks highest in the ‘Thematic Hierarchy’. The author claims that his analysis accounts for the fact that dative arguments surface in the preverbal position of some Spanish verbs, without compromising the evidence that the nominative argument of these verbs is the true grammatical subject. MACDONALD proposes that non-reflexive, non-argumental dative clitics of Spanish and reflexive non-argumental clitics of Romanian are introduced as the complement of a null directional-like preposition that merges as a complement of the verb. He contends that such an analysis can account for the cluster of properties that constructions containing these two clitics share: 1) the inability to produce a telic interpretation of a predicate; 2) the lack of on/with entailment; 3) the ability to express temporary relations; 4) the ability to prevent idiomatic interpretations; and 5) the resistance to adjectival secondary predication. PÉREZ-LEROUX, PIRVULESCU & ROBERGE present a comparative study of object omission in child French and English. The experimental cross-linguistic comparison of children’s performance shows that while null objects decrease with age for English children, they do not for French children for both the individuated and the non-individuated object. Based on these findings, the authors postulate that while the object omissions for English children might be a sporadic, performance-driven fall back to a default null object, those for French children are due to the overgeneralizaion of a null object as a referentially bound anaphora as well as one with independent reference. TORIBIO & NYE examine the alterations manifested in the grammars of Spanish heritage speakers with respect to their production and interpretation of constructions with the so-called ‘reverse’ psychological predicates, whose experience argument is mapped into the dative. From the experiments conducted with heritage speakers, the authors show that such speakers use two strategies for this class of predicates: 1) mapping the animate argument to the structural subject position and the inanimate argument to the structural object position; 2) placing the constituents in the SVO order.

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INTRODUCTION

EDMONDS gives a detailed characterization of the diachronic development of the French indefinite pronoun chacun “each” using an extensive corpus that dates from the beginning of the 12th century through the middle of the 20th century and compares it to an existing analysis of another indefinite pronoun aucun “none, not any”. After concluding that a unified account for both quantifiers is not possible, she proposes that chacun assumes one underlying structure during Old French and Middle French that develops into two separate structures after the 16th century. RUSSI examines the Italian verb volerci “take/be necessary”, which consists of the verb volere “want” and a grammaticalized clitic ci, in an attempt to determine if volerci can be considered a functional element, i.e., a modal head. Based on a detailed comparison of volerci with the Middle and Old Italian bisogna “must/be necessary”, she concludes that volerci is still a lexical verb; ci incorporation may have altered the thematic grid of volere, but the resulting verb volerci still projects arguments. Topics in Semantics. ARANOVICH proposes a formal semantic analysis of phrases coordinated by the Spanish particle ni (ni XPs). It has been observed that ni XPs must be preceded by a negation when appearing after the verb. Postulating that the ‘inclusion lattice’ proposed for polarity-sensitive items can also be associated with conjunctive coordinations with the conjunctions at the top and disjunctions at the bottom, the author argues that ni XPs are negative polarity disjunctions. He claims that due to the fact that they are the bottom members of an inclusion lattice, disjunctions need to appear in the scope of negation; they can satisfy both their semantic (widening) and pragmatic (strengthening) requirements only in such environments. DEPREZ investigates the role of number in French, English, and Haitian Creole (HC) and argues that languages can differ in the way they individuate kind terms. The author proposes that individuation is done through number in languages like French and English, whereas individuation takes a route that she terms as ‘spatial individuation’ in languages like HC. In these languages, number is used when an entity must be re-identified in a changing context. Deprez’s proposal has empirical consequences for NP syntax and the licensing of bare argument nominals (BAN) in two classes of languages. MARI & TOVENA argue that the Italian neppure contributes in two ways to the interpretation of the clause hosting it. Neppure adds negative information (additive) and poses a strong constraint on scales (scalar). The authors then propose a unified account of these two uses in which they make two claims. First, in both uses, neppure focuses on an element that is understood as a member of a class/series and adds negative information. Second, in both interpretations, neppure sets a temporary closure in the

INTRODUCTION

xiii

speaker’s state of knowledge. The authors conclude that the difference between additive and scalar neppure lies in the way the class/series is built. Topics in Pragmatics. LAMBRECHT, BORDEAUX & REICHLE present a corpus-based analysis of the conversational use of the French conjunction parce que “because”. They propose that in p parce que q, parce que q is either the focus of a larger proposition in which p is presupposed or it expresses an independent assertion due to the effect of a universal cognitive constraint against focus projection from adjunct position. This study contributes to the growing body of research on the difficulties associated with the traditional distinctions between subordination and coordination. LE DRAOULEC contends that temporal conjunction avant que or avant de “before” not only introduces a presuppositional clause, but also has the potential of introducing a non-presuppositional clause, as in the similar case of the well-known ‘quand (when)-inverse’. Using written data, the author shows that, as with quand inverse, a necessary condition is that the avant queor avant de-clause is postposed; i.e., the respective position of the main and subordinate clauses matches the temporal order in which the eventualities take place. As a final note, we hope that this volume will be viewed as a significant contribution to the field of Romance Linguistics and will inspire Romance researchers to pursue these promising lines of investigation.

.

A POLARITY-SENSITIVE DISJUNCTION SPANISH NI ... NI

RAÚL ARANOVICH University of California Davis 0.

Introduction Spanish has a coordinating particle, ni, which is subject to a polarity requirement. As argued in Bosque (1980, 1994) and Herburger (1999a), phrases coordinated with ni (ni-XPs, from now on) must appear in the scope of a negative operator. For instance, ni-XPs must be preceded by negation if they are in postverbal position (1).1 (1)

Las cartas *(no) llegarán ni por avión ni por barco The letters not will.arrive ni by plane ni by ship. “The letters will neither arrive by plane nor by ship.”

In this paper I argue that ni-XPs are subject to a polarity requirement because they are disjunctions, which can only satisfy a requirement of pragmatic strengthening in the scope of negation. My argument assumes the widening/strengthening (W/S) account of polarity sensitivity developed in Heim (1984), Kadmon and Landman (1993), Israel (1996), and Lahiri (1998), among others. The W/S account states that polarity-sensitive items are subject to a couple of seemingly incompatible constraints. From a semantic point of view, NPIs have a wider denotation than a set of alternatives. From a pragmatic point of view, however, NPIs must strengthen the statement they occur in. These two requirements can only be satisfied in contexts like the scope of negation, which reverse the normal direction of entailments. A key hypothesis in my analysis is that ni-XPs are disjunctions, a claim that I defend 1

The following abbreviation is used in the glosses: RECP (reciprocal). Since negative expressions like nada, can be translated as either “nothing” or “anything”, it will be glossed as “n-thing” (similarly for nadie “anybody, nobody” or ninguno “any N, no N”. Occurrences of ni are glossed as ni.

2

RAÚL ARANOVICH

based on syntactic and semantic properties of ni-XPs. Disjunctive coordinations, I suggest, are the weakest members of a set of expressions that includes conjunctive coordinations and the independent coordinated phrases (forming an inclusion lattice, in terms of Krifka 1992). Their disjunctive nature makes Ni-XPs semantically wide (being the bottom element of a polarity lattice). In accordance with the W/S account, then, ni-XPs are limited to appearing in the scope of negation because only there can they satisfy a pragmatic strengthening requirement. The paper is structured as follows: Section 2 shows that ni-XPs are in fact polarity-sensitive items, and discusses other details of the grammar of niXPs against the background of negative concord. Section 3 gives evidence for the hypothesis that coordinated constructions with the particle ni are disjunctions, and not conjunctions. In Section 4 I summarize the widening/strengthening account of polarity sensitivity, and I apply this analysis to explain the distribution of ni-XPs. Conclusions are presented in Section 6. 1.

Negative concord and ni-XPs Spanish is a 'negative concord' language. When expressions like nada “nothing”, nadie “no one”, and ningún N “no N” (often referred to in the literature as n-words) precede the verb, they count as an expression of negation (2). But when they follow the verb, they must occur with the negative adverb no “not” or with another n-word in preverbal position. When this occurs, as in (4), the clause is interpreted as having a single instance of sentential negation, and not as a statement with multiple negations. (2)

Nadie ha leído este poema N-body has read this poem “Nobody has read this poem.”

(3)

López *(no) sabe nada López (not) knows n-thing “López (doesn't) know(s) anything.”

(4)

Nadie ha leído ninguno de estos poemas N-body has read n-one of these poems “Nobody has read any of these poems.”

Bosque (1980) and Laka (1990) make the influential suggestion that Spanish n-words are ‘negative polarity items’, i.e. expressions whose

SPANISH NI ... NI

3

distribution is conditioned by the polarity of their context of occurrence.2 They reach this conclusion on account of the limited distribution of n-words. Across languages, it is not uncommon to find lexical items that must be licensed by negation or other ‘affective’ expressions (the term that Klima 1964 uses to describe the phenomenon). An English NPI like anything, for example, is excluded from simple statements (5), but it occurs in the scope of negation (6), in the restriction of universal quantifiers (7), and in a variety of other environments. (5)

*Sandy ate anything.

(6)

Sandy did not eat anything.

(7)

Every student who had ever read anything on phrenology attended the lectures. (Ladusaw 1979:149)

According to Bosque (1980) and Laka (1990), the limited distribution of n-words in Spanish shows that they are NPIs as well. Following the same line of reasoning, ni-XPs are NPIs too. As shown before, in example (1), niXPs must be preceded by a negative expression if they are in postverbal position. This negative expression can also be an n-word. (8)

Ninguna carta llegará ni por avión ni por barco n-one letter will.arrive ni by plane ni by ship “No letters will arrive by plane or by ship.”

In preverbal position, ni-XPs count as the sole expression of negation (9). I follow the analysis in Giannakidou (1998, 2000), according to which preverbal n-words are licensed by a negative adverb that deletes when preceded by an nword in some negative concord languages. Ni-XPs pattern with other n-words in this respect as well.

2

This is by no means the only position found in the literature about n-words in Spanish, or in the Romance languages in general. Vallduví (1994) and Aranovich (1996) question claims about the parallel distribution of n-words and English NPI's, while Herburger 1999b, following work by Zanuttini (1987, 1991), argues that n-words are ambiguous between a universal and an existential interpretation.

4 (9)

RAÚL ARANOVICH

Ni Fulano ni Mengano (*no) salieron a caminar Ni Fulano ni Mengano (not) went.out to walk “Neither Fulano nor Mengano went on a walk.”

An intriguing fact about ni-XPs, mentioned in Bosque (1994), is that the doubling of the conjunction is mandatory in preverbal position (10), but optional in postverbal position. He argues that the initial ni is necessary to identify a ni-XP as expressing negation. (10) *(Ni) Fulano ni Mengano salieron a caminar. Ni Fulano ni Mengano went.out to walk “Neither Fulano nor Mengano went on a walk.” There is another function of ni, not as a coordinating particle but as a focus particle. These phrases with focus ni are minimizers, which can sometimes be translated as “not even NP”. (11) Ni Gómez asistió a la reunión Ni Gómez attended to the meeting “Not even Gómez attended the meeting.” Like ni-XPs, focus ni is a kind of NPI. In preverbal position a ni-minimizer expresses negation by itself, without any additional negative expressions. In postverbal position it requires a preverbal negative expression, and when the two co-occur they do not give rise to multiple negative readings in the clause. The relationship between the use of ni as a conjunction, and its use as a focus particle, raises interesting questions which I am unable to explore in detail due to space limitations. In this paper, then, I will exclude consideration of focus ni. 2.

The nature of ni as a coordinating particle A fundamental hypothesis in my analysis of the distribution of ni-XPs is that the coordinating particle ni is a disjunction, and not a conjunction.3 In this section I develop three arguments in favor of this hypothesis. They are based on evidence provided by the doubling of coordinating particles in Spanish, on the ability of coordinations to occur as subjects of reciprocal

3

De Swart (2001) reaches a similar conclusion regarding the disjunctive sense of the French counterpart of Spanish ni. Her arguments are based on interpretations of the relative scope of the negative operator with respect to the coordinating particle ni.

SPANISH NI ... NI

5

predicates, and on the possibility of assigning a temporal interpretation to some coordinated structures. The first piece of evidence supporting the hypothesis that ni-XPs are disjunctive in meaning is that, like the disjunction o “or” in (12), ni can occur multiple times in a coordinated XP, as in examples (1) and (9). (12) Las cartas llegarán o por avión o por barco The letters will.arrive or by plane or by ship. “The letters will either arrive by plane or by ship.” Doubling of conjunctions is possible in some languages, as the Polish example below (from Borsley 2005) shows. French conjunctions can also be doubled (Piot 2000), and so can Latin and Modern Greek ones (Johannessen 1998). In Spanish, however, the conjunction y “and” cannot be doubled, as shown in (14). (13) i Jan i Maria and Jan and Maria “both Jan and Maria.” (14) Las cartas llegarán (*y) por avión y por barco The letters will.arrive and by plane and by ship. “The letters will arrive by plane and by ship.” The multiple occurrence of a coordinating particle in Spanish is a characteristic feature of disjunctions, and not of conjunctions. The fact that ni can be doubled, then, is evidence that ni-XPs are disjunctive.4 A second piece of evidence for the disjunction hypothesis is found in the interaction between ni-XPs and reciprocal expressions. A reciprocal pronoun can have an XP coordinated by y 'and' as its antecedent (15), but not one coordinated by o “or” (16). 4

Bosque (1994) assigns the structure of a Conjunction Phrase (CoP) to ni-XPs. In this analysis, the coordinating particle ni is the head of a phrase that has one of the coordinated terms (the first one) as its specifier, and the other term as its complement. As noticed in Borsley (2005), however, the doubling of a coordinating particle, as in examples like (1) or (12), has been long recognized as a problem for the CoP analysis. Johannessen (1998) suggests that the initial particles in cases of doubling should be treated as adverbs, similar to English either or both, thus salvaging the status of the second particle as the head of a construction. The issue of finding the right syntactic representation for coordinated phrases, with or without a double coordinating particle, is beyond the scope of this paper, and does not bear on the argument that doubling is a characteristic feature of conjunctions in Spanish.

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(15) Fulano y Mengano se encontraron en la esquina Fulano and Mengano RECP met in the corner “Fulano and Mengano met each other at the corner.” (16) *Fulano o Mengano se encontraron en la esquina Fulano or Mengano RECP met in the corner ("Fulano or Mengano met each other at the corner.") The explanation for the contrast between (15) and (16) is simple: the reciprocal predicate requires a subject that is semantically plural, and this interpretation can only be assigned to conjunctive coordinations, not to disjunctive coordinations. Ni behaves like a disjunction with respect to reciprocals as well, as in (17). If ni-XPs were conjunctions, sentence (17) should be grammatical as the negation of (15).5 (17) *Ni Fulano ni Mengano se encontraron en la esquina Ni Fulano ni Mengano RECP met in the corner (“Neither Fulano nor Mengano met each other at the corner.”) A third piece of evidence for the hypothesis that ni-XPs are disjunctions is the absence of a temporal reading for this kind of coordination. Conjunctions have a temporal interpretation, in which the first conjunct precedes the second one in time. Thus, a sentence like (18) means that the action of opening the door precedes the action of leaving. Reversing the order of the terms results in a nonsensical statement. (18) Fulano abrió la puerta y salió Fulano opened the door and got.out “Fulano opened the door and got out..” The terms of a disjunction are not subject to the same temporal constraints as a conjunction. Thus, there is no common sense incongruence on a sentence like (19). Phrases coordinated with ni pattern with disjunctions in this respect as well, as shown in (20).

5

Moreover, reciprocal predicates cannot take arguments that receive a distributive interpretation. Ni-XPs and disjunctions share this semantic property, while conjunctions do not (I am indebted to a reviewer for bringing up this point).

SPANISH NI ... NI

7

(19) Fulano salió o abrió la puerta Fulano got.out or opened the door “Fulano either got out or opened the door.” (20) Fulano ni salió ni abrió la puerta Fulano ni got.out ni opened the door “Fulano neither got out nor opened the door.” Having shown that ni-XPs are disjunctions, I will argue that their limited distribution is the result of a potential conflict between their semantics and a pragmatic requirement that statements containing ni-XPs be more informative than contextually salient alternatives. In negative contexts the pragmatic requirement can be satisfied. 3.

The W/S account of negative polarity The semantic theory of polarity sensitivity I assume in this work has its roots in Ladusaw's (1979) semantic account of the distribution of NPIs like English anything. Ladusaw argues that the operators that licenses the NPI (also referred to as the ‘trigger’) are downward-entailing (DE), defined below in (21). Negation is downward-entailing, as the formula in (22) shows. (21) Downward-entailing operator: An operator Op is downward-entailing iff p ⊃ q = Op(q) ⊃ Op(p). (22) (P → Q) ≡ (¬Q → ¬P) Ladusaw's semantic approach to negative polarity has inspired a fruitful line of research, which also extends to negation in the Romance languages and other negative concord languages. Many have noticed that the class of operators that license n-words in negative concord languages tend to be a sub-set of the downward-entailing ones (Ladusaw 1992, De Swart 2001). According to Giannakidou (1998), the triggers that license NPIs in negative concord languages like Spanish and Greek (on which most of her research is focused) share the semantic property of being ‘nonveridical’, a semantic concept introduced in Zwarts' (1995) analysis of Dutch and English polarity, and defined in (23). Given the scope of this paper, however, the distinction between DE and nonveridical operators will be glossed over. (23) Nonveridical operator: An operator Op is nonveridical iff Op(p) ⊃ p is not a logically valid statement.

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RAÚL ARANOVICH

Kadmon and Landman (1993) suggest that NPIs are restricted to appear in the scope of DE operators because the entailment reversal that is verified in these contexts allows the NPIs to satisfy their contradictory semantic and pragmatic requirements. The denotation of English NPIs like lift a finger or anything, they argue, must include even the most marginal cases (what they call ‘semantic widening’), but at the same time the clause with the NPI must provide more information than the corresponding clause without it (what they call ‘pragmatic strengthening’). In upward-entailing contexts (i.e. contexts that preserve entailments), widening clashes with strengthening, since widening the the denotation of a term results in a statement of lesser informative value. It is only in downward-entailing contexts (i.e. contexts satisfying the biconditional in (22)) where by widening the denotation of a term a sentence is strengthened. NPIs are restricted to appearing in the scope of negation (and other downwardentailing operators) because those are the only contexts where their strengthening requirement can be satisfied, given their widening semantic value. Explanations for polarity sensitivity similar to Kadmon and Landman’s are also presented in works dealing with other languages and other polarity items (Heim 1984, Lahiri 1998). An analysis that shares some of the insights of Kadmon and Landman’s approach is developed in Krifka (1992). In his analysis, all NPIs are the minimal element of a ‘polarity lattice’, which can be informally characterized as an ordering among denotations of the same sort as the NPI. The occurrence of an NPI in a statement must make that statement more informative than alternatives resulting from a substitution of the NPI by other members of the lattice. Since the NPI is the bottom element of the lattice, this requirement (analogous to the strengthening requirement of Kadmon and Landman) can only be satisfied in DE contexts. Krifka’s concern is the distinction between any-NPIs and polaritysensitive minimizers like lift a finger. The polarity lattice for minimizer NPIs is ordered according to a pragmatic scale. An NPI like lift a finger, for instance, is the lower limit of a lattice built on the basis of the idiosyncratic scalar property of physical effort or labor. Only in downward-entailing environments can an NPI be more informative than other members of the associated lattice. For the interpretation of NPIs like anything, however, no idiosyncratic pragmatic scale seems to be necessary or available. The polarity lattices associated with non-idiosyncratic NPIs are built on the more general property of ‘inclusion’. In Krifka’s analysis, NPIs like anything are existential quantifiers, denoting the set of properties that some thing has. This set is maximally inclusive. Suppose a domain D where there is something red and something blue. Then blue and red are in the denotation of something (or

SPANISH NI ... NI

9

anything, for that matter). These properties, on the other hand, do not belong to the denotation of everything, since some things are not red (or blue). I will argue that this is the relevant semantic property to understand the polarity requirement on ni-XPs. To find the associated polarity lattice for niXPs, it is necessary to go back to the claim that ni-XPs are disjunctions. I interpret disjunction as the set-theoretic operation of union (∪), and conjunction as intersection (∩). The union of two sets A, B includes each set, and each set includes their intersection, as in Figure 1. Or, in intensional terms, the set of properties that A or B have includes the set of properties that A (or B) has, which in turn includes the set of properties that A and B have. The conclusion is that complex XPs coordinated with disjunctions are also the bottom element of a polarity lattice based on inclusion.6 !$" !

" includes !#"

Figure 1: Inclusion Lattice

By associating ni-XPs with the bottom element of an inclusion lattice, their polarity-sensitive nature can be explained. A sentence with a disjunction will be less informative than all the alternative propositions associated with the other terms in the inclusion lattice, as in (24). That is, a sentence like Max saw Sandy entails (and therefore is more informative than) Max saw Sandy or Pat. (24) P(a) → P(a∨b) I assume that ni-XPs have a strengthening requirement that governs their use in any sentence. That is, the sentence with the ni-XP must be more informative than the corresponding sentence with an alternative member of the lattice in place of the ni-XP, be it one of the coordinated terms or their conjunction. But since disjunctions include the other terms in their associated polarity lattice, the strengthening requirement on a disjunction can only be satisfied in the 6

In this reasoning I am also relying on the well-known equivalence between disjunction and existential quantification. If NPIs like anything, which are at the bottom of an inclusion lattice in Krifka (1992), are indeed existential quantifiers, then disjunctions are also at the bottom of a polarity lattice, since an existentially quantified proposition (∃x)(Px) is equivalent to a disjunction (Pa) ∨ (Pb) ∨ ... ∨ (Pn) of all atomic propositions with property P that are true in the domain Dn.

10

RAÚL ARANOVICH

scope of downward-entailing operators like negation, as shown in (25). In a simple affirmative statement the strengthening requirement of ni-XPs cannot be satisfied. (25)

¬P(a∨b) → ¬P(a)

4.

Conclusions My analysis of the distribution of ni-XPs is based on a simple insight: polarity lattices based on inclusion can be associated with coordinated XPs, so that disjunctions are at the bottom and conjunctions at the top. When this insight is paired up with the W/S account of polarity sensitivity, a prediction is made: there should be a class of negative polarity disjunctions, which can only satisfy their strengthening requirement in downward-entailing environments. In this paper I have argued that this is exactly what ni-XPs are. The polaritysensitive nature of ni-XPs in Spanish, then, offers an argument in favor of the semantic approach to polarity sensitivity developed by Krifka (1992), Kadmon and Landman (1993), and others. References Aranovich, Raúl. 1996. Negation, Polarity, and Indefiniteness: A Comparative Analysis of English and Spanish. Doctoral dissertation, University of California San Diego. Borsley, Robert. 2005. "Against ConjP". Lingua 115, 461-482. Bosque, Ignacio. 1980. Sobre la negación. Madrid: Cátedra. ----------. 1994. “La negación y el principio de las categorías vacías”. Gramática del español, ed. by Violeta Demonte, 167-199. México: El colegio de México. De Swart, Henriëtte. 2001. “Négation et coordination: la conjonction ni”. Adverbial Modification, ed. by Reineke Bok-Bennema, Bob de Jonge, Brigitte Kampers-Manhe, and Arie Molendijk, 109-124. Amsterdam: Rodopi. Giannakidou, Anastasia. 1998. Polarity Sensitivity as (Non)veridical Dependency. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. ----------. 2000. “Negative... Concord?” Natural Language and Linguistic Theory 18.457-523. Heim, Irene. 1984. “A Note on Negative Polarity and Downward Entailingness”. Proceedings of NELS 14, ed. by Charles Jones and Peter Sells, 98-107. Amherst: University of Massachusetts.

SPANISH NI ... NI

11

Herburger, Elena. 1999a. “Lexical Ambiguity is not always Evil: The Example of ni-ni”. Advances in Hispanic Linguistics, ed. by Javier GutiérrezRexach and Fernando Martínez-Gil, 378-393. Sommerville: Cascadilla Press. ----------. 1999b. “On the Interpretation of Spanish N-Words”. Semantic Issues in Romance Syntax, ed. by Esthela Treviño and José Lema, 89-104. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Israel, Michael. 1996. “Polarity Sensitivity as Lexical Semantics”. Linguistics and Philosophy 19.619-666. Johannessen, Janne Bondi, 1998. Coordination. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Kadmon, Nirit. & Fred Landman. 1993. “Any”. Linguistics and Philosophy 16. 353-422. Klima, Edward. 1964. “Negation in English”. The Structure of Language, ed. by Jerry A. Fodor and Jerrold J. Katz, 246-323. Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall. Krifka, Manfred. 1992. “Some Remarks on Polarity Items”. Semantic Universals and Universal Semantics, ed. by Dietmar Zaefferer, 150-189. Dordrecht: Foris. Ladusaw, William. 1979. Polarity Sensitivity as Inherent Scope Relations, Doctoral dissertation, University of Texas at Austin. ----------. 1992. “Expressing Negation”. Proceedings of the Second Conference on Semantics and Linguistic Theory: Ohio State University Working Papers in Linguistics 40, ed. by Chris Baker and David Dowty. Columbus: The Ohio State University, 237-259. Lahiri, Utpal. 1998. “Focus and Negative Polarity in Hindi”. Natural Language Semantics 6.57-123. Laka, M. Itziar. 1990. Negation in Syntax: On the Nature of Functional Categories and Projections. Doctoral dissertation, MIT. Piot, Mireille, 2000. “Les conjonctions doubles”. Lingvisticae Investigationes 23.45-76. Vallduví, Enric. 1994. “Polarity Items, N-words, and Minimizers in Catalan and Spanish”. Probus 6.263-294. Zanuttini, Raffaella. 1987. “Negation and Negative Concord in Italian and Piedmontese”. Canadian Journal of Italian Studies 10.135-149. ----------. 1991. Syntactic Properties of Sentential Negation. Doctoral dissertation, University of Pennsylvania. Zwarts, Frans. 1995. “Nonveridical Contexts”. Linguistic Analysis 25.286-312.

TAKING A CLOSER LOOK AT ROMANCE VN COMPOUNDS

REINEKE BOK-BENNEMA BRIGITTE KAMPERS-MANHE Groningen University/CLCG

0.

Introduction This paper is the partial result of a substantial project on Romance compounding. Applying the rules and principles of sentential syntax to word syntax, we intend to account for the similarities, but most importantly for the differences, between Romance and West Germanic compounds. In this article we concentrate on Romance compounds of the type given in (1), which are usually called exocentric VN compounds: (1) essuie-glace wipe windshield “windshield wiper” These compounds, illustrated in (2)-(4) for French, Italian and Spanish respectively, are the result of a very productive process. (2) a. protège-slip protect pants “panty liner”, coupe-faim cut hunger “diet biscuit”, sèche-linge dry wash “dryer”, essuie-tout wipe all “paper towel”, cache-boutons hide pimples “concealer stick”, porte-tampons hold tampons “tampon holder”, vide-grenier empty loft “jumble fair” b. porte-parole carry word “spokesman”, casse-pieds break feet “bore”, fouille-merde search shit “journalist”, trouble-fête trouble party “spoilsport”, lèche-botte sucks boot “bootlicker” (3) a. pulisciscarpe clean shoe “shoe polish”, portaspilli hold needles “pincushion”, accendisigari light cigars “cigar lighter”, tagliacarte cut letter “letter opener”, sparaneve shoot snow “snow cannon”, acchiapavirus catch virus “antivirus program”

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REINEKE BOK-BENNEMA & BRIGITTE KAMPERS-MANHE

b. mangiamaccheroni eat macaroni “good-for-nothing”, mangialeggi eat laws “law eater” (Berlusconi), guardaboschi watch woods “forester”, guardacoste watch coasts “coastguard”, portalettere bring letters “postman” (4) a. buscapersonas look+for persons “pager”, tragaperras swallow coins “gaming machine”, rompecabezas break heads “puzzle”, exprimelimones squeeze lemons “lemon-squeezer”, rascacielos scrape skies “skyscraper”, llenacines fill movie-theaters “popular movie” b. sacamuelas pull molars “(bad) dentist”, chupasangre suck blood “blood-sucker”, limpiabotas clean boots “shoeblack”, portavoz carry voice “spokesman”, guardaespaldas watch backs “bodyguard” These lists contain recent words like cache-boutons in (2a), manggialeggi in (3b) and acchiapavirus in (4a). All these compounds consist of a verb and noun. The relation between the verb and the noun is the same as the relation between a transitive verb and its complement in a syntactic Verbal Phrase: the noun is the theme of the verb. As for the interpretation of the compounds, they all refer either to a device (cf. (2a), (3a) and (4a)) or to a person, as shown in (2b), (3b) and (4b), that acts as the instrument or the agent of the action the verb refers to: for instance, a protège-slip is a device that protects pants, a mangiamaccheroni is a person who eats macaroni. Traditionally Romance VN compounds are considered problematic because they are apparently headless. They have generally been analyzed as nominalizations of Verbal Phrases consisting of a verb and a nominal complement. We will provide a new analysis for these compounds. We will start by considering the status of the verbal projection involved in their formation in Section 2. We will subsequently develop our analysis in Section 3 and compare the structure of Romance compounds to that of their English counterparts like screensaver, that is to say to that of English synthetic compounds (Section 4). We will show that the proposed analysis can account for the differences between the two types of languages and, at the same time, does justice to the properties they share. We finally consider the implications of the proposal for the relation between syntax and morphology in Section 5. 1. 1.1.

VP or vP? Introduction As we have just mentioned, Romance VN compounds have often been analyzed as nominalizations of VP. Di Sciullo and Williams (1987), for instance, provide the word-creating rule in (5):

TAKING A CLOSER LOOK AT ROMANCE COMPOUNDS

(5) N -----> VP

15

Di Sciullo & Williams, 1987: 81

The VP hypothesis can also be found in Rohrer (1977), Zwanenburg (1990), Lieber (1992), Ferrari-Bridgers (2003), a.o. The differences between the authors do not concern the status of VP, but the way the nominalization is achieved. However, within the actual generative framework we are employing here, in which VP is the inner shell of a bigger vP (Chomsky 1995), it seems natural to wonder whether the nominalization involves a VP or a more complex structure, namely that of a vP. Several arguments lead to the conclusion that it is a vP. 1.2.

Arguments in favor of vP The verb occurring in Romance VN compounds is a transitive/causative verb. Under the current assumption that the causative element is hosted in small v, the null hypothesis is that small v is indeed involved. This can also account for the fact that ergative verbs are excluded from these compounds, as shown by the ungrammaticality of (6) in French: (6) *tombe-pierres fall stones *“stonefaller” The second argument comes from the Spanish and Italian words given in (7a) and (7b) respectively: (7) a.

b.

cuentagotas count drops “pipette” muoviculo move bottom “foreman” (pejorative)

The verbal stem vowel of cuenta and muovi has undergone diphthongization, a process that requires that the stem vowel — in addition to being lexically specified as diphthongizing — bears primary stress, as illustrated in (8a) and (8b) for the Spanish case: (8) a.

Esta cosa cuénta gótas “This thing counts drops.”

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REINEKE BOK-BENNEMA & BRIGITTE KAMPERS-MANHE

b.

Esta cosa sirve para contár gótas “This thing serves to counts drops.”

In both cases the normal stress-assignment rules (see e.g. Harris 1983) have applied. The result is that in (8a), the stem vowel is stressed and therefore diphthongized. No diphthongization occurs in (8b) however because the theme vowel of the infinitive bears stress. To account for the diphthongization in the compounds cuentagotas and muoviculo in (7), we have to assume that, although the stem vowel does not bear primary stress, it must have done so at some point of the derivation and, therefore, that Spell-Out has occurred in an earlier phase. Given the assumption that vP is a cyclic phase, adopting a vP-structure for the compound enables us to account for the facts. The derivation is that of (9): conta adjoins to v, vP is spelt out, the stem vowel of conta gets primary stress, the same way as in (8a), and diphthongizes. (9) [vP conta [VP conta gotas ]] ---> Spell-Out ---> [cuentagotas] After nominalization, the verb, as an element of the edge of vP, remains accessible and can be de-stressed in the next phase, while primary stress is assigned to gótas. The third argument concerns the contrast between Romance and English compounds that is illustrated in (10): the nominal complement screen cannot be pluralized in English, whereas the plural form of the complement can occur in Romance VN compounds: (10) a. b.

salvapantallas “screensaver” (Spanish), porte-jarretelles “suspenders” (French), manggialeggi eat laws (Italian) screensaver/*screenssavers

It has often been proposed in the literature (cf. Roeper & Siegel 1978, Lieber 1992, Kayne 1994, Sportiche 1999, a.o.) that the complement in English compounds of that type is licensed by incorporation. Adopting this idea enables us to account for the fact that it cannot be plural: it is just a stem (cf. Baker, 1988). As for the Romance complements, they have to be licensed in another way. Our claim is that they are licensed by Case-checking. Given the fact that v is the probe for object Case, it must be present in the structure of the compound. Licensing can take place as in (11): V adjoins to v, which activates Case-checking, so that the complement is licensed.

TAKING A CLOSER LOOK AT ROMANCE COMPOUNDS

17

(11) [vP [ essuie+v] [VP essuie glace ]] |____________| CASE-CHECKING

Finally, the vP analysis enables us to account for the semantics of the compounds, as we will show in the next section. 2.

Extension of the analysis VN compounds involve an agent or an instrumental role: an essuieglace is a device that wipes windshields, a sacamuelas is a person who pulls molars. The idea we adopt is that the agent/instrumental role is structurally assigned to the specifier position of small vP. This implies that this position must be filled by an empty DP that can bear this theta role. Two possibilities come to mind: either PRO or pro is present. This nominal element does not refer to an arbitrary person, nor is it co-referential with another DP, contrary to PRO. This leads us to the proposal that the agent theta role is assigned to a pro present is the specifier position of vP. This pro is comparable to the one that occurs in Romance DPs of the type illustrated in (12), according to Sleeman (1996): (12) a.

b c

los pro que están ahí the that are there “the ones over there” Je veux le pro rouge. “I want the red one.” il pro più attento della classe “the most attentive one of the class”

(Spanish)

(French) (Italian)

The structure of the vP is then that of (13): (13) [vP pro [v’ essuie [VP essuie glace ]]] For the next step of the derivation, the nominalization, a nominal head is needed. This head obviously lacks phonetic content, but possesses a phifeature for gender. Following GraČanin-Yuksek (2005), who refers to Riente (2003), we propose that this gender feature is [natural], which is realized as [+masculine] for nouns referring to male humans, and [-masculine] if they refer to female humans. The unmarked [+masculine] is also used for devices, which lack a natural gender. This is illustrated in (14), where the article is masculine in all three Romance compounds referring to

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REINEKE BOK-BENNEMA & BRIGITTE KAMPERS-MANHE

devices and masculine or feminine depending on the natural gender of the referent of the compound: (14) a. b.

un essuie-glace, el salvapantallas, il tagliacarte un fouille-merde, une fouille-merde

Our claim is that the nominal head under consideration is a noun, and not an affixal head, contrary to Rohrer (1977) and Lieber (1992), among others. As we will show in Section 3, this enables us to account for some crucial differences between Romance VN compounds and English synthetic compounds. After the merging of vP with the nominal head, the structure is as in (15): 1 (15) [NP N0 [vP pro [v’ essuie [VP essuie glace]]]] This structure consists of a nominalized vP. However it is not sufficient with respect to the semantics of the compounds. In fact, the interpretation of (15) will be something like “the wiping of windshields by something (or someone)”, instead of “something that wipes windshields”. Under the same analysis Spanish sacamuelas, for instance, would mean “the pulling of molars by someone (or something)”, instead of “someone who pulls molars”. This means that we have to extend our analysis in such a way that we do obtain the required interpretation. In general terms, the interpretation of the compounds is the one presented in (16). (16) x such that [x [V N]] This is essentially the interpretation of a relative clause. In our opinion this implies that the compounds as a whole have a relative clause-like structure. We can derive such a structure from (15) under the assumption that relativization in general involves the raising of the so-called ‘antecedent’ from an A-position to an A'-position. This view on relativization is the one proposed in Kayne (1994) and earlier in Vergnaud (1974). It is illustrated in (17) for Spanish los que están ahí (example (12a)), using Kayne’s implementation, which differs slightly from that of Vergnaud. 1

An anonymous reviewer remarks that there is no independent evidence from sentential syntax that N0 can take vP as a complement. This is true, and it is one of the reasons why we think the morphological component cannot be equated to the syntactic one (see Section 5).

TAKING A CLOSER LOOK AT ROMANCE COMPOUNDS

19

(17) los [CP pro [C’ que [IP pro están ahí]]] In (17) the pro subject has raised from its A-position within IP to become the A'-specifier of the complementizer que, so that the relative interpretation is obtained. The relevant aspects of the analysis we have in mind for Romance VN compounds, which we present in (18) for essuie-glace, are very similar to those in (17). (18) [NP pro [N’ N0 [vP pro [v’ essuie [VP essuie glace]]]]] As in (17), the pro subject raises here from an A-position to become a specifier. The differences are that the A-position is the vP internal subject position, and that the specified head is the nominalizer. Notice that we have to assume that the specifier-position of the nominalizer is an A'-position. As far as we can see, there is no counterevidence for this.2 Besides providing us with the correct semantic interpretation, this analysis has another advantage. Given the relation between the nominalizer and pro we can assume that the former acts as licenser of the latter under spechead agreement. This entails that the phi-feature [natural] of the nominalizer is sufficient for the licensing under consideration. We will return to this point in Section 5. The structure in (18) represents our final analysis of Romance VN compounds, the most important characteristics of which are: 1) they consist of transitive nominalized vPs with a pro subject and 2) they involve raising of this subject to the A'-specifier of the nominalizer. Before going on with the next section, we will briefly digress on another type of compound in Romance. We refer to ‘exocentric’ PN compounds, which are exemplified in (19) for French, in (20) for Italian and in (21) for Spanish. (19) sans-papiers without papers “illegal immigrant”, sans-abri without roof, “homeless person”, contrepoison against poison “antidote”, après-soleil, after sun “after-sun product”, hors-série outside series “special edition”

2

Cf. Di Sciullo (1996), who proposes that the English affix –er has an A'-specifier. She also explicitly mentions the parallelism between relative clauses and synthetic compounds with –er. It is worthwhile to remark here as well that in the early stages of Generative Grammar the English forms were sometimes derived from relative clauses (cf. Levi, 1978). We will argue below in the text that the English forms have essentially the same structure as Romance VN compounds.

20

REINEKE BOK-BENNEMA & BRIGITTE KAMPERS-MANHE

(20) lungo fiume along river “road along the river”, dopoguerra after war “period after the Second World War”, dopovoto after vote “period after elections”, fuoribordo outside board “boat with outboard motor”, fuoriborsa outside Stock-Exchange “off the floor transaction” (21) sinvergüenza without shame “shameless person”, simpapeles without papers “illegal immigrant”, entrepiernas between legs “crotch”, contratorpedero against torpedo boat “torpedo boat destroyer”, sobrecama over bed “bed spread” Compounds of this type can quite easily be analyzed along the lines we proposed for VN compounds. They involve PPs instead of VPs, but these PPs arguably serve as predicates for a silent subject, with the interpretation “someone” in for instance sans-papiers, “something” in contrepoison, “some period of time” in dopoguerra etc. Under the assumption that this subject is present as a small pro, we have to do with PP small clauses. As in the case of VN compounds, the status of the compound as a whole is nominal and the interpretation is relative clause-like (a sans-papiers is a “person who is without papers”, a contrepoison is “something that acts against poison”, etc.). These facts are accounted for by assuming that: 1) there is a nominalizer present here as well and 2) the pro subject moves to its A' specifier position.3 In (22) we present the structure of sans-papiers by way of illustration of the analysis discussed in the last paragraph. (22) [NP pro [N’ N0 [PP pro [P’ sans papiers]]]] 3.

English synthetic compounds There is a great deal of literature on English synthetic compounds such as screensaver or truck-driver. For an overview of proposals up until 1988 we refer to Spencer (1991); some newer analyses are presented in Lieber (1992), Sportiche (1999) and Di Sciullo (1996, 2003). As far as we know, there have hardly been any attempts to come up with analyses that generalize over both of

3

PN compounds are less frequent than VN compounds. This is partially due to the fact that the class of prepositions is smaller than that of verbs. But another factor is that Romance has a class of PrefixN forms with the same semantic characteristics as PN compounds. Examples of these are French antirides “anti-wrinkle product”, Spanish proguerra “person in favor of war (the war in Iraq)” and Italian transatlantico “ocean steamer”.

TAKING A CLOSER LOOK AT ROMANCE COMPOUNDS

21

these English forms and Romance VN compounds.4 Some authors even explicitly propose quite different structures for them. Thus, for instance, Lieber (1992) presents the structure in (23a) for French essuie-glace and that in (23b) for English thirst-quencher.5 (23) a b

[N [VP essuie glace] 0/ ] [NP [N’ [N thirsti [N quench er] ti ]]]

No doubt these discrepancies in the analyses for both language types stem from the fact that the forms manifest a number of clearly observable differences. In the first place, whereas in English the N precedes the verb, it follows it in Romance. Secondly, the English forms end in the affix –er, while such an affix is absent in Romance. And finally, both the verb and noun are stems in English, and not words as in Romance. It should be noted, however, that the English and Romance forms also have a number of properties in common. In both types of languages the verb is transitive-causative and the noun is its complement. They also share the presence of an agentive or instrumental element in their interpretation.6 Moreover, they have the same overall semantic structure, the one of (16) in Section 2. Our purpose here is to present an analysis of the English forms that does justice to their similarities with the Romance compounds and at the same time accounts for the differences between them. In particular, we want to propose that the analysis we have presented above for Romance holds for English as well, but that, in addition, the English forms involve some extra steps, which follow from the distinct status of the nominalizer. Recall that we claimed that the (empty) nominalizer in Romance is non-affixal. For English, we follow the standard assumption that it is the overt affix –er. We suppose that –er merges with a vP with a pro subject, just as this happens in the case of the Romance nominalizer. The affixal character of –er however requires a further step: the verb must incorporate in it, in order to comply with the Stray Affix Filter (Baker 1988). Apart from the fact that this 4

Kayne (1994:41) briefly discusses the possibility that both English and French forms are partially subject to the same analysis. Varela (1987) presents an analysis for Spanish which greatly resembles the one presented in Lieber (1992) for English. 5 Di Sciullo and Williams (1987:82) claim that their rule for Romance VN compounds (cf. section 1.1 above) is a “word creating rule of the periphery of the grammar”. Such a rule plays no role in their analysis of the English forms. 6 Our reviewer points out that English also has forms such as early riser. We leave these out of consideration here.

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REINEKE BOK-BENNEMA & BRIGITTE KAMPERS-MANHE

entails that the verb must be a stem, there is another consequence. We know from the work of Baker (Baker 1988) that incorporating a verb in a lexical affix annihilates the verb’s licensing ability with respect to its complement. In the Minimalist framework verbs are no longer uniquely responsible for the licensing of their complements, but Baker’s insight can be easily adapted to this framework under the assumption in (24): (24) Verbal stems cannot activate the Case-checking feature of v It follows that the complement in the English compounds cannot be Caselicensed. This accounts for the fact that, as we have already briefly mentioned in 1.2, English resorts to a different licensing strategy than Romance, which is incorporating the complement, a stem, in the verb. The analysis we now obtain is presented in (25) for screensaver: first screen incorporates in save, then screensave moves to v and from there it incorporates in –er. (25) [N’ screen+sav+er [vP pro [v’ screen+save [VP screen+save screen]]]] The final step of the derivation is the same as in Romance: the pro subject moves and merges as the A'-specifier of the nominalizer, which gives us the result in (26). (26) [NP pro [N’ screen+save+er [vP pro [v’ screen+save [VP screen+save screen]]]]] Notice that the only visible part of the structure in (26) is the incorporation complex. This complex, which we reproduce in a more detailed form in (27), is in fact the same as the one proposed in Lieber (1983), Fabb (1984), Sproat (1985) and others for the compounds as a whole.7 However, in our approach it is just a by-product of the affixal status of the nominalizer and for this reason absent in comparable Romance forms, which apart from this have the same derivation. (27) [N [V [N screen] save] er]

7

We are not implying that the authors mentioned here disregard the semantic properties of the compounds. However, their approaches differ from ours in that they do not implement these structurally.

TAKING A CLOSER LOOK AT ROMANCE COMPOUNDS

23

There is one detail of the analysis above that requires further discussion: the fact that it involves the same pro as the Romance compounds. Such a pro is not otherwise attested in English. French Je veux le (pro) rouge, for example, translates as “I want the red one” and not as “I want the red”. An assumption that accounts for this is that English morphology is normally too poor to license pro. It should be noted however that –er, which we consider to be the licenser of pro in the forms under consideration, bears a number feature. This is evidenced by the opposition –er/–ers, as in the pair screensaverscreensavers. We assume that it is this phi-feature for number that accounts for the possibility to use pro (see also Section 4 below). Corroborating evidence for the pro-licensing capacity of number features comes from Dutch, another Germanic language, where we find pairs like those in (28), in which pro appears with an adjective that manifests morphological alternation for number (rood/rod-e). (28) a

b

Jan heeft een blauw overhemd en Piet een rood (pro) Jan has a blue shirt and Piet a red “Jan has a blue shirt and Piet a red one” Jan heeft twee blauwe overhemden en Piet drie rode (pro) Jan has two blue shirts and Piet three red “Jan has two blue shirts and Piet three red ones”

4.

On the relation between morphology and syntax It is obvious that our analysis of Romance VN compounds and their English counterparts is very syntactic in nature. Nevertheless we would like to maintain that the structures we propose are not derived in syntax. The main reason for this is that there are clear restrictions on the type of the vPs that can be nominalized. For instance, the complement cannot be a clause. Thus, alongside French compte-tours “revolution counter”, a form such as the one in (29) does not occur. (29) *un [compte combien de tours le moteur fait ] a count how+many of revolutions the motor makes Similarly, the complement cannot be a referential DP, as in (30). (30) *un [compte ces tours ] a count these revolutions

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In general terms, the functional categories that make up referential expressions or account for the anchoring of propositions are absent in the compounds under consideration. In our opinion, the lack of such functional categories is a crucial factor that distinguishes morphology from (sentential) syntax and follows from its very nature, i.e. the fact that it is the component of grammar that is concerned with the formation of words (or ‘predicates’ in the Fregean sense), instead of sentences. In other words, we consider morphology an ‘impoverished’ version of syntax. Under this view both components in essence respect the same rules and principles of Universal Grammar. However, the poverty of morphology may sometimes lead to the use of strategies that are absent in syntax. As an example, consider NN compounds such as French homme-grenouille or its English equivalent frogman. In these compounds the head noun is restrictively modified by the other noun. To achieve an equivalent relation in syntax, one has to resort to full-fledged relative clauses, as in un homme qui ressemble à une grenouille or a man who looks like a frog. Morphology, lacking the functional clausal domain, cannot make use of modification by such clauses and must therefore resort to an alternative, which results to be modification by pure nouns. Returning to VN compounds, we assumed above that, whereas the complement noun is either Case-licensed or incorporated, the pro subject is merely licensed by the presence of the phi-feature on the nominalizer ([natural] in Romance and [number] in English). We take this to be another consequence of the poverty of morphology. In syntax the subject would be made visible for theta-role assignment by Case-checking T, and its formal content would be identified by the phi-features of V in T. The absence of T in morphology causes this component to accept pure phi-feature identification as a sufficient condition for theta visibility. One final remark is in order here. We have analyzed the VN compounds as rather complex structures involving complements and specifiers. Thus in fact we claim that the distinction between morphology and syntax does not go as far as to prohibit projections of heads. In doing so, our approach crucially differs from approaches to morphology such as that of Selkirk (1982) and Di Sciullo and Williams (1987), who only allow for head-adjunction structures in this component. Our position has as a consequence that morphological constructs may have the status of XPs. Of course complex words are still words and function as heads in syntax. This entails that the XPs under consideration must be reinterpreted as such before entering syntactic numerations. We call this reinterpretation recycling. The general format of recycling, which involves no change in category, is presented in (31).

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(31) Convert XP to X0 In the case of our VN (and PN) compounds, which are morphologically NPs, recycling then entails conversion to N0. 5.

Conclusion In the first part of this article we have argued that the analysis of Romance VN compounds as nominalizations of VPs should be extended in such a way as to involve vPs with a pro subject. We have also argued that movement of this pro subject to the specifier position of the nominalizer provides us with an adequate overall analysis of the compounds. In the second part we have shown that our analysis for Romance can be transposed to analogous English synthetic compounds, but that these, in addition, involve an incorporation strategy that is a consequence of the nature of the English nominalizer. Finally, we have stressed the fact that our proposals entail that morphology is highly parallel to syntax, but still has its own ontological restrictions. References Baker, Marc C. 1988. Incorporation: A theory of grammatical function changing. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Chomsky, Noam. 1995. The minimalist program. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press. ----------. 2001a. Beyond Explanatory Adequacy. Ms., MIT. ----------. 2001b. “Derivation by Phase”. Ken Hale: A Life in Language, ed. by Michael Kenstovicz, 1-52. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press. Di Sciullo, Anna-Maria. 1996. “X’ Selection”. Phrase Structure and the Lexicon, ed. by Johan Rooryck and Laurie Zaring, 77-107. Dordrecht, Boston & London: Kluwer Academic Publishers. ----------. 2003. “Morphological Relations in Asymmetry Theory”. Asymmetry in Grammar, Volume 2: Morphology, Phonology, Acquisition, ed. by Anna Maria Di Sciullo, 9-36. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. ----------. & Edwin Williams. 1987. On the Definition of Word. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press. Fabb, Nigel. 1984. Syntactic Affixation. Doctoral dissertation, MIT. Ferrari-Bridgers, Franca. 2003. “[V-N] compound nouns formation in Italian”. Abstract Going Romance 17. Gračanin-Yuksek, Martina. 2005. “Italian V-N Compounds and Agreement”. Paper presented at LSRL 35, Austin, TX.

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Harris, James W. 1983. Syllable Structure and Stress in Spanish. A Nonlinear Analysis. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press. Kayne, Richard S. 1994. The antisymmetry of syntax. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press. Levi, Judith N. 1978. The Syntax and Semantics of Complex Nominals. New York: Academic Press. Lieber, Rochelle. 1983. “Argument Linking and Compounding in English”. Linguistic Inquiry 14.251-286. ----------. 1992. Deconstructing morphology: word formation in syntactic theory. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Roeper, Thomas & Muffy Siegel. 1978. “A Lexical Transformation for Verbal Compounds”. Linguistic Inquiry 9.199-260. Riente, Lara. 2003. “Ladies first: The Pivotal Role of Gender in the Italian Nominal Inflection System”. McGill Working Papers in Linguistics 17:2.153. Rohrer, Christian. 1977. Die Wordzusammensetzung in Modernen Französisch. Tübingen: TBL Verlag Gunter Narr. Sleeman, Petra. 1996. Licensing Empty Nouns in French. The Hague: HIL Dissertations. Spencer, Andrew. 1991. Morphological Theory. Oxford: Basil Blackwell. Sportiche, Dominique. 1999. “Reconstruction, Constituency and Morphology”. Abstract, Glow. Sproat, Richard. 1985. On Deriving the Lexicon. Doctoral dissertation, MIT. Varela Ortega, Soledad. 1987. “Spanish Endocentric Compounds and the ‘Atom Condition’”. Studies in Romance Linguistics, ed. by Carl Kirschner and Janet Ann DiCesares, 397-441. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Vergnaud, Jean-Roger. 1974. French Relative Clauses. Doctoral dissertation, MIT. Zwanenburg, Wiecher. 1990. “Argument structure in derivation and compounding”. Recherches de linguistique française et romane d’Utrecht, 37-42. Utrecht University.

BEYOND DESCRIPTIVISM EXAPTATION AND LINGUISTIC EXPLANATION

DENIS BOUCHARD Université du Québec à Montréal

0.

The Uniqueness of Language What exactly distinguishes human language from the systems of communication of other animals? The question is interesting in itself. In addition, the answer we give to this question correlates directly with the way we analyze linguistic data in its fine details. The beliefs we have about what is qualitatively new in human language affect our method of investigation. To illustrate this, I will present two views on what is unique to human language—the view in Hauser, Chomsky & Fitch (2002) (henceforth HCF), and my own view—and I will then compare the kinds of analyses that they lead to. 1.

Hauser, Chomsky & Fitch (2002): Recursion as a mediator is unique HCF assume the standard position that the faculty of language in the broad sense (FLB) is a link between meaning and perceptual form. It comprises three systems as represented schematically in (1): (1) FL Broad: Sensory-Motor=computational system=Conceptual-Intentional The computational system which operates the mediation between the sensory-motor system (SM) and the conceptual-intentional system (CI) has the crucial property of being recursive. FLB is very inclusive and covers all of the capacities that support language independently of whether they are specific to language and uniquely human. Since language is unique to our species, it is possible that some subset of the mechanisms of FLB is both unique to humans, and to language itself. HCF propose the term ‘faculty of language in the narrow sense’ (FLN) to refer to this subset of mechanisms unique to human language.

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HCF is a vast study which evaluates the possibility that all the components of the systems in FLB may be spandrels, in the sense of Gould & Lewontin (1979), by-products of preexisting constraints rather than an end product of a history of natural selection. If this turns out to be the case, then the traits of FLB did not evolve specifically for human language. HCF argue that there is quite a lot of evidence supporting this hypothesis. They discuss several traits of SM and CI which are present in nonhuman animals. Their presence elsewhere indicates that these traits did not evolve specifically for human language. For instance, perceptual discontinuities like those in SM are found in other species, which means that categorical perception is not unique to language: it appears to have “evolved for general auditory processing, as opposed to specific speech processing” (HCF 2002:1572). Likewise, they discuss several studies which show that the mechanisms of CI are not specific to language, since we find rich conceptual representations in other animals and in other domains of human cognition, such as social hierarchies and abstract concepts like tool, color, geometric relationships, food, number. Even recursion is not unique to language: Fitch et al. (2005) note that spatial reasoning and navigation exhibit limitless embedding of place concepts within place concepts. Also, some animals have an impressive cognitive representation of time and space. Therefore, our capacities to pinpoint locations and mark the passage of time are “not unique, and may not rely on language at all (though language may enhance or modify the capacities).” The conceptual-intentional system of humans shares major similarities with other vertebrates. Surprisingly, however, there is a mismatch between the conceptual capacities of animals and the communicative content of their vocal and visual signals […] For example, although a wide variety of nonhuman primates have access to rich knowledge of who is related to whom, as well as who is dominant and who is subordinate, their vocalizations only coarsely express such complexities. (HCF 2002:1575).

The difference between the communicative content of humans and nonhuman animals cannot simply be due to the absence of recursivity in the capacities of nonhuman animals, since they have rich conceptual capacities which suggest that they have a CI component with elementary parts and formation rules similar to ours. Moreover, some recursive aspects of the human CI appear not to rely on language. Therefore, HCF hypothesize that what is unique to human language is not recursivity per se but rather how recursion is set in FLB: a recursive system links SM and CI, thus allowing humans to express complex and potentially infinite conceptions by

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combining words into sentences. “No species other than humans has a comparable capacity to recombine meaningful units into an unlimited variety of larger structures, each differing systematically in meaning” (HCF 2002:1576). More precisely, HCF assume that recursion developed in organisms with a brain as an optimal solution for problems such as spatial navigation. In evolutionary studies, when a structure that evolved for one function starts serving a quite different function, this is referred to as an exaptation. HCF suggest that recursion was exapted from its navigational function and took on the additional function of linking the SM and CI systems in order to solve the problem of communication. During evolution, the modular and highly domain-specific system of recursion may have become penetrable and domain-general. This opened the way for humans, perhaps uniquely, to apply the power of recursion to other problems (HCF 2002: 1578). Because recursion evolved for reasons other than communication, it is not unique to human language. However, according to HCF, the way recursion is embedded as the mediator between SM and CI is unique. They hypothesize that this property is the only one which is unique to human language, that FLN reduces to this single property. Under this hypothesis, recursion has a rather odd status. The transition between applying recursion to navigation and applying it to communication involves a reification of recursion: it is a modular system which exists independently and humans apply its power to another problem— communication. But what is this problem? From their discussion, it appears that recursively combining meaningful units solves the problem of expressing unlimited conceptions. An infinity of conceptions presupposes recursion in CI, and HCF themselves have presented evidence that recursion occurs in nonlinguistic aspects of the CI system of both humans and other animals. This undermines the need for an additional recursive system: it is possible that all the recursivity observed in language comes from the independently motivated recursive systems in CI. In that case, recursion in the linking between SM and CI is totally redundant and can be dispensed with. HCF do not explore that avenue. That’s a crucial difference between their model and mine. 2.

My view (Exaptive Grammar): Signs are unique I follow the general view of Bouchard (2002) which emphasizes the fact that the initial conditions for language are those of the initial state of a human being. i.e., the substantive properties of the physiology and cognition of humans determine what is a possible language. The faculty of language is conditioned by the fact that “the brain in which the language system is

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represented also contains a conceptual system with its own properties, and is set in human bodies that have particular sensorimotor systems that determine the kind of form which can participate in language” (Bouchard 2002:2). These initial conditions are properties which are logically prior to linguistic theory, in the sense that they must preexist linguistic theory since its object of study presupposes them. If we restrict our analytical tools to those which derive from these prior properties, then the tools of the theory are not aprioristic. These analytical tools are of no cost because they derive from the initial conditions. Under this view, recursion has no special ontological status, as it appears to have in HCF: instead, as we will see, recursion is a by-product of the linguistic sign, of the linking of elements of two very different kinds of substances—perceptual substance and conceptual substance. So what is unique to human language is not recursion, but the fact that it includes signs. As a starting point, note that there are already countless cases which show that recursion is not always required in linking SM and CI. The meaningful units on which recursion operates are themselves linking rules: in Saussure’s terms, they are signs which link an acoustic image (signifiant) with a meaning (signifié). The linking between a signifiant and a signifié at the level of words does not involve recursion. So the schematic representation in (1) is only part of the model: it corresponds to the complex linking which takes place when two or more signs combine in a complex sign. However, in a simple sign such as a word, no recursion is involved in the linking itself. For instance, the word assassin has a very complex meaning which most likely involves recursion at CI (evoked by the capitalized words in (2)), and also a complex phonological structure which involves recursion at SM. However, the linking between the signifié and the signifiant does not involve recursion. (2)

Conceptual-Intentional:{PERSON, KILL, POLITICAL MOTIVE} ↑ ↓ Sensory-Motor: {asasIn}

As Saussure strongly insisted, the link between a signifié and a signifiant is arbitrary, in the sense that each language partitions the acoustic and conceptual realities in its own way. The source of this arbitrariness and the reason why the meaning-form pairings vary considerably from one language to another, is that there is no ‘reason of nature’ for any particular pairing, because the sounds produced by our phonatory articulators cannot

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have a meaningful, logical or iconic relation with the meanings to be expressed. So arbitrariness and the variation that derives from it are an artefact of the physiological makeup of human beings. The problem with the recursion approach is that it takes for granted that there are meaningful units, and that the uniqueness of human language is the application of recursion to these units to yield discrete infinity. However, if the only distinctive property is that nonhuman animals lack this recursive system, this leaves open the possibility that some animals could develop a large lexicon of signs, since signs do not involve recursion in linking SM and CI. But this prediction is not borne out: nonhuman animals do not even have words/signs. So this recursion is not the distinctive property of human language, and there must be some other constraint which animals have not overcome. We now have the key to what is unique to human language. Humans apply recursion to meaningful units. But you must have these units in the first place. There is no mystery in the fact that other animals, despite their having recursive processes in other domains, did not apply recursion to communication: other animals simply don’t have the proper kind of units from which recursion derives in language, they don't have signs. Animal calls are not signs, they are not a link between a signifiant and a signifié; animal calls are just reflex responses. A reflex response is independent of the will, it is an automatic response to a perceptual stimulation, like blinking your eyes as a protective reaction, or crying out if surprised or frightened. HCF (2002:1576) give a summary of recent studies on animal calls. Key points indicate that animal calls are reflex responses. First, calls are situation-specific: distinctive calls are in immediate response to functionally important contexts, such as detection of predators and the discovery of food. Second, the repertoire of calls is small, “restricted to objects and events experienced in the present, with no evidence of creative production of new sounds for new situations.” Third, “there is no evidence that calling is intentional in the sense of taking into account what other individuals believe or want.” I hypothesize that the only distinctive property of human language is that it has signs, i.e., a signifiant linked to a conceptual signifié instead of a behavioral reflex. The crucial transition is from reflexes which are immediate and limited to specific situations, to signs which have a nonimmediate and potentially unlimited signifié. As HCF remark, most of the words of human language are not associated with specific functions (e.g., warning cries, food announcements) but can be linked to virtually any concept that humans can entertain. Such usages are often

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DENIS BOUCHARD highly intricate and detached from the here and now” (HCF 1 2002:1576).

Once triggered, the transition from reflex to sign quickly brings about a system that is as expressive as modern language. As soon as the system goes beyond the immediacy of reflexes, it opens up to expressing the complexity of all that is nonimmediate. The domain of what is nonimmediate comprises all that we can conceive, which appears to be unlimited. This is the source of the communication problem of expressing unlimited conceptions which HCF mention. It is logically possible to obtain limitless expressive power without recursion in the linking of SM and CI. All that is needed is an infinite set of meaningful units, including units that correspond to complex meanings such as those expressed by complex sentences. CI is recursive, so there is a limitless potential of signifiés. On the other hand, our perceptual system sets upper bounds on the distinctions which we can perceive or produce as signifiants. Since these distinctions allow a quite limited number of discrete perceptual elements, recursion operating on these elements is the means to obtain an unlimited number of signifiants linked with the unlimited possible signifiés. If the symbols were holistic vocalizations like primate calls, even a thousand symbols would be impossible to keep distinct in perception and memory (Nowak et al. 1999). Modern language deals with this problem by building words up combinatorially from a repertoire of a few dozen smaller meaningless speech sounds” (Jackendoff 2002: 242).

Any sequence of phonemes making up a word can be augmented by adding a phoneme or syllable to it: so recursion of these elements solves the problem of perceptual distinctivity and allows an unlimited derivation of signifiants. Therefore, the expressive power of words is limitless: any potential conception, however complicated, can be the signifié of a sign, and similarly, any combination of distinguishable percepts can be a signifiant. Indeed, humans do invent words quite freely. However, an infinite lexicon is impossible in practice due to pre-existing constraints, the most obvious one being hat the brain is finite, so that there are limitations on the memory our 1

Fitch et al. (2005) note that “the ability to link novel arbitrary noises to some referent appears to be quite general among vertebrates, present in some form not only in chimpanzees but in parrots, dogs and other species.” Crucially, these are not signs as defined, they do not link a signifiant and a signifié, but rather a sound and a referent: they are calls, i.e., immediate, situation-specific reflexes.

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brain provides to store words/signs.2 The way around the limitation is recursion once again, this time combining words into complex phrases and sentences. For instance, consider the combination of two words as in the expression pink poodle. Each word is a sign, and a sign is necessarily complex: neither the acoustic image nor the meaning is a sign; only the whole resulting from the union of the two elements is a sign (Saussure 1916: 99). Therefore, when the association function Merge operates on actual elements in a particular derivation, it always operates on complex elements which are the union of a signifié and a signifiant. Representations are usually simplified by taking the written form of a word as a symbol for the actual sign. However, this is only a convenient format to help us discuss the forms, and we must bear in mind that the representation of the merger of two words is as in (3) (to which a full representation would add the primitives which combine into the CI and SM of each word). Conceptual-Intentional: (3) Sensory-Motor:

{PINK} === Merge === {POODLE} | | {pink} === Merge === {poodle}

The properties of the signs are already in the system and Merge operates on these. Since signifié and signifiant are irreducibly united, Merge cannot operate on one without operating on the other. In Saussurean terms, Merge creates organized groups of signs which are themselves signs 2

The formation rules involved in CI are most likely not combinations of word-like meanings similar to those found in human languages. First, nonhumans appear to have rich conceptual systems, but do not have language. Second, even in the case of word meanings, Fodor et al. (1980) has shown that they cannot be constructed by combining other word meanings, using the principles that combine words into phrases. As Jackendoff (2002: 335-6) indicates, the fact that lexical meanings cannot be decomposed definitionally suggests that meanings arise from non-definitional composition: the parts of lexical concepts may be units which cannot individually serve as possible word meanings, and the principles by which these sublexical units combine may be different from the principles by which word meanings combine into phrase meanings. See also Bouchard (1995). Jackendoff points out that this situation is parallel with composition in phonology: most speech sounds cannot be words on their own; distinctive features cannot be words nor even sounds on their own. Moreover, concatenation combines speech sounds into syllables, syllables into words, and words into phrases; but distinctive features do not combine into speech sounds by concatenation. A similar parallel can be drawn with particles in physics. There is a first layer of a limited repertoire of substances: oxygen, boron, sulfur, etc., combined by chemical bonds; a next layer of entities can exist in isolation but are not substances: electrons, protons, neutrons, combined by electromagnetic and nuclear forces; a further layer of entities are not substances and cannot exist in isolation: quarks, which are like features of elementary particles.

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(Saussure 1916: 177). If there is recursion operating on the signifiés, it necessarily operates on the signifiants, and vice versa. The linking between SM and CI transfers the effects of recursion on one level to the other, but recursion never operates on the linking itself. In this case, Type-recursion is involved: embedding an element of type X within other X elements indefinitely. We must distinguish Type-recursion from the Concatenation-recursion of distinguishable percepts mentioned above. As Fitch et al. (2005) indicate, phonology is hierarchical, but appears not to be Type-recursive: Certainly, syllables cannot be embedded within other syllables indefinitely. However, even in this domain of inquiry, there are many open questions. Syllables are not the only relevant components of phonological structure, and other constituents like intonational phrases seem much better candidates for unlimited self-embedding.” (Fitch et al. 2005:201)

Type-recursion derives from memory limitations on the number of signs that can be stored in the lexicon. The listed signs being relatively few, their signifiés tend to correspond to fairly general and usual categories of things, actions, qualities, etc. When someone wants to express a signifié which corresponds to a less general and usual category, distinguishing properties are added to the stored word/sign by combining it with another sign to zoom in on more specific elements of the same kind. For instance, the set of elements denoted by poodle can be further narrowed as in pink poodle or further again as in the phrase pink poodle with a top hat. Type-recursion is the case when one of the restraining elements happens to be of the same type as the restrained element. We are now in a better position to clarify how recursion functions in language. Recursion is not part of the linking in a sign, simple or complex. Moreover, recursion does not come out of the blue. A sign is a link between perceptual substance and conceptual substance. As we saw, these substances restrict the possibilities of language and lead to recursion. Hence, recursion is a by-product of the sign. More precisely, recursion is a by-product of the substantive properties of the physiology and cognition which define the initial state of a human being. The role which I attribute to the sign is quite different from the view espoused in generative grammar. For instance, in his very brief discussion of the sound-meaning pairing of the substantive part of the lexicon, Chomsky (1995: 8) assumes that “these matters [...] appear to be of limited relevance to the computational properties of language.” In contrast,

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I argue that the sign has profound relevance for the computational system, since recursion derives from it. The transition I propose from animal behavior to human language is similar to the scenario presented in Jackendoff (2002: 427): The initial innovation is permitting sounds to be used symbolically in a non-situation-specific fashion. This is admittedly a mysterious advance over primate calls, but vastly less expressive than modern language. From there we are able to see the evolution of the language faculty as the successive addition of more and more “tricks” to the toolkit, in the interest of greater expressiveness and precision in conveying thought.” (Jackendoff 2002: 427)

However, I don’t agree with his assessment that this is a mysterious advance. There are quite plausible intermediate steps in this transition. For instance, a roar repeatedly produced upon the intrusions of a competitor in a territory, or markings of this territory by scents, are still immediate reflexes: the animal establishes its territory here and now. However, the gesture has future consequences, so this is the beginning of non-immediacy, of abstraction towards concepts: it is still a reflex, but with an inferential chain added to it. Another example is when a dangerous animal triggers the reflex response of fleeing and shouting (possibly to startle the adversary and have more time to flee). If this shout starts acting as a trigger on its own and peers respond to it by also fleeing (and possibly making the same shout), there is the beginning of communication which is not immediate, not triggered by the situation of danger, but by a reaction to this situation by a peer. Moreover, in my view, the situation is not that our language faculty provides us with a toolkit for building languages, and languages make choices among the tools; instead, I assume that the toolkit of FLB is made of the logically prior properties of the perceptual and conceptual substances. As for FLN, all it contains is the association which forms signs, the linking between a signifié and a signifiant. 3.

Deriving other novel traits My hypothesis has another important advantage over the proposal in HCF. In addition to recursion in the linking between SM and CI, they point out several other novel traits, constraints in animals which humans had to overcome at some point in order to acquire natural languages. In their model, these traits appear to be unconnected, to have independently emerged from an ancestral node and have converged into human communication. Under their view, each of these specific traits constitutes a separate empirical discovery, a novel development in our recent evolutionary history. This convergence of

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capacities appears to be fortuitous. Why the correlation should hold remains somewhat mysterious. In contrast, these traits all follow from my hypothesis that the distinctive property of human language is to have signs. Novel trait 1: Words can be linked to virtually any concept. This is the fundamental change according to my hypothesis, the transition from limited situation-specific reflexes to unlimited signifiés. Note that this trait does not follow from HCF’s hypothesis that recursion is the basic distinctive property of human language. Novel trait 2: Human language can convey an unlimited variety of ideas. HCF attribute this trait to recursion in the linking of SM and CI. I argued that there is no recursion in this linking per se, and that, in any event, recursion alone is not sufficient to derive this trait: we need the appropriate units. The signs postulated in my hypothesis are appropriate units, and recursion is obtained derivatively from the interaction of the unlimited signifiés and the perceptual limitations on the signifiants. Novel trait 3: Humans rapidly acquire a large lexicon. The lexicon requires the storage of a large number of different ‘phonological images.’ But there is more than that to it. The lexicon is not a nomenclature of concepts that get labeled: as variation across languages shows, it involves parcelling out the conceptual substance into signifiés which differ from one language to another. Therefore, the elements being stored consist in pairings of a signifiant and a signifié. This irreducible link between signifié and phonological image has a strong mnemonic effect which facilitates the rapid acquisition of a large lexicon. We can see this effect when we try to learn sound bits from lexical items of a language we don’t know: without the leverage from the meaning associated with the sound bits, we are quite poor at it, and quickly limited. This trait—a large lexicon— therefore follows from my hypothesis. But it does not follow from HCF’s hypothesis that recursion is the basic distinctive property of human language. They suggest that this novel trait is an independently evolved mechanism, and they tie it to the human capacity for vocal imitation: Imitation is obviously a necessary component of the human capacity to acquire a shared and arbitrary lexicon, which is itself central

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to the language capacity. Thus, the capacity to imitate was a crucial prerequisite of FLB as a communicative system” (HCF 2002:1574).

Novel trait 4: Humans have an impressive capacity for vocal imitation. This trait also does not follow from recursion. While HCF see this trait as “a novel capacity that evolved in our recent evolutionary history” which helps in the building of the lexicon, I see it the other way around. It is not that imitation helps the lexicon, but instead that the lexicon—more precisely, the sign—is what allows such a qualitative improvement in imitation: the association of a sound image with a concept has a powerful mnemonic effect which makes remembering and repeating sound bits much more productive than imitating the sound images in isolation. In other words, the crucial difference is that humans imitate signs whereas non humans imitate sound images. Novel trait 5: Human language is detached from any specific modality. When human beings lose one modality (e.g., hearing), they make up for this deficit by communicating in a different modality (i.e., signing). This is another trait which does not follow from recursion. Under my view, this trait also illustrates the difference between a reflex and a sign. Reflexes are a response to a perceptual stimulation. The fact that they are ‘hard-wired’ in this way makes them modality-specific. Thus, even in humans, the gesturecall system (laughter, sobbing, facial signaling) is modality-specific. In contrast, the inputs to the language system are signs, which precisely have the property of being arbitrary, without any connection imposed by ‘nature’ between signifiant and signifié. This holds internally to a modality, and there is no reason from nature why it should not also hold across modalities. So again the trait derives from properties of the linguistic sign. Novel trait 6: Human language shows intentionality. Calls are reflexes, automatic responses to perceptual stimulation, so they are not intentional in the sense of taking into account what other individuals believe or want. Moreover, intentionality requires consciousness of self and of others. The reason why nonhuman animals are limited to nonintentional calls has to do with the kind of consciousness that they have. Higher animals have more than perception, they have consciousness. However, although they are conscious, their consciousness is directed outwards to the perceivable world: as Schopenhauer puts it, theirs is a world

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of perception. This limits them to immediacy in their interaction with the world, hence to calls in their communications. On the other hand, according to Kant, Hegel and many other thinkers, what sets humans apart is that we are self-conscious. Self-consciousness allows us “to distinguish how things seem to me from how they seem to you” (Scruton 2005: 76). This provides the consciousness of self and of others which is a prerequisite for intentionality. It brings about a detachment from immediacy which directly correlates with the nonimmediate and potentially unlimited signifié of a system of signs like human language. The transition from mere consciousness to self-conscious directly correlates with the transition from reflex calls to signs. Novel trait 7: Humans acquire a number system with open-ended recursivity, other animals do not. HCF review some literature on animals and developmental studies of infants. This research shows that there are two core knowledge systems at work for the number concepts which humans and many animals share: a system for representing exact small numbers of objects or events, and a system for representing large approximate numerical magnitudes. After a slow progress from understanding the meaning of one to understanding two, and then three, children take a leap forward: they grasp the idea that the integer list is constructed on the basis of the successor function. By age 5, children can apply this knowledge robustly. Non human animals never undergo this kind of “aha” experience: they “learn the integer list by brute association, mapping each symbol to a discrete quantity” (Hauser & Spelke, in press). HCF underline that there is a convergence of evidence that children possess, but animals lack, the capacity to apply open-ended generative systems in language and in the number system (HCF 2002:1577). Note that this says nothing about where exactly recursion is embedded in the faculty of language. Moreover, Hauser & Spelke remark that “it is not clear whether one mechanism evolved first for language and then for number or whether two distinct mechanisms evolved separately.” In addition, the learning environment of children and the training regime of animals differ in a crucial manner. Animals are taught the meanings of the symbols one by one, whereas children typically first learn an ordered list of symbols: the fact that the list is ordered may play an important role in the transition to acquiring the successor function. Furthermore, recursion in language comes very early on, whereas it is mastered only later in numbers. This connects with Hauser & Spelke’s hypothesis that children construct the natural number concepts by using natural language—number words and verbal counting: so they must

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first acquire a minimum of relevant vocabulary. The hypothesis ties in nicely with the discussion of the limitations of arbitrariness by Saussure (1916: 182). He notes that arbitrariness applied without restrictions would lead to extreme complexity. Language gets around the problem of an infinitely complex list by combining simple signs into a complex sign, so that the complex sign is relatively motivated. Interestingly, one of his examples is French dix-huit “eighteen” whose value is the addition of the values of dix “ten” and huit “eight”. Languages typically express numbers in this way: there is a short list of words corresponding to small numbers, and then the number words are combined in a way that coincides with simple arithmetic functions, and often in a base-ten system. Thus, dix-huit is preceded by dixsept (lit. “ten-seven”) and followed by dix-neuf (lit. “ten-nine”). This strong correlation between simple number theory and how languages express numbers no doubt helps children in learning the number system, including its recursivity. This may help explain some aspects of the learning of the number system, but it leaves open the question why only humans have a number system with open-ended recursivity. The answer may be in the general distinction we have already observed between animals and humans. Animals do not take any distance from immediacy, in contrast with humans. Recursion is an abstract definition of a set, a non immediate notion. So in numbers as in language, animals lack the first crucial step, which is Saussurean arbitrariness in the broad sense of detached from immediacy, as in signs, without any connection imposed by ‘nature’ between signifiant and signifié. 4.

Syntactic analysis and the distinctive property of human language The HCF view and my view share the assumption that recursion is not unique to human language. However, the two perspectives on language differ on how recursion made its way into the faculty of language. HCF follow the method of generative grammar and devise conjectures which rely on formal strategies. Like Chomsky (2001), the general properties of organic systems which they see as part of the initial conditions for language acquisition consist in computational systems. This is what leads them to the hypothesis that recursion is in the mediation between SM and CI, having been somehow transferred from navigation to communication. On the other hand, my exaptive approach asks that we devise conjectures which rely on the logically prior properties of the perceptual and conceptual substances. This leads to the hypothesis that recursion derives entirely from the substantive nature of the elements linked by the signs. These differing points of departure affect the way linguistic analysis is conducted. In the following sections, I briefly

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compare the way the two approaches tackle five well-studied syntactic phenomena. 4.1.

The Head parameter As discussed in Bouchard (2002: 60-61), when two signs A and B are combined to form a complex sign, the signifié of this complex sign consists in the semantic relation established between the signifié of A and the signifié of B. This complex signifié must have a corresponding signifiant—it must be associated with a perceptual form. In a fundamental semantic relation, there is a primary element P to which a dependent D is added, either as an argument or as a modifier. These semantic relations are always asymmetric: an element is never simultaneously a primary P and an argument or a modifier of its D. The signifiant of the complex sign must indicate which signifié, of A or of B, acts as the primary element, and which one as the dependent. One way to encode this information is to juxtapose the signifiants of A and B: this linear order is then the signifiant of the complex sign. Linear order is also asymmetric: A either precedes or follows B. Semantic combination and temporal linearization are united in a complex sign, and both exhibit an asymmetry: therefore, their asymmetries must be matched. The choice of the temporal order A-B or B-A as the signifiant of the complex sign is arbitrary: this arbitrariness forces the association of the semantic and linear asymmetries to be conventionalized. This derives a head parameter as in (4): (4)

Linearization Parameter: The primary element precedes/follows its dependent.

This account of the Linearization Parameter is in line with my exaptive approach: the notions involved are based on logically prior properties of the conceptual and perceptual substances. Thus, on the conceptual side, the source of the asymmetry between Primary and Dependent presumably lies in our cognitive system. On the perceptual side, the asymmetry in temporal Juxtaposition is due to inherent physiological properties of the human sensorimotor apparatus which are such that two words cannot be produced at the same time in oral languages (Saussure’s principle of linearity). Therefore, crosslinguistic variation in the values of the Linearization Parameter is an instance of Saussurean arbitrariness. It arises because the conditions of the external systems provide more than one potential signifiant for the signifié: whether A precedes or follows B is just as good a signifiant for the signifié which consists in the semantic relation between them. Like all linguistic arbitrariness, the possibility of having different values for the Linearization

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41

Parameter derives from properties of human beings that are logically prior to language. Exaptive Grammar strives to derive all types of ‘parametric choices’ from deeply motivated properties in this way, i.e., by appealing to legibility conditions of the external systems. In the Minimalist Program however, variation of this kind receives very little attention because it is assumed that “these matters [...] appear to be of limited relevance to the computational properties of language” (Chomsky 1995: 8). Consequently, a different kind of account of variation is sought: “beyond PF options and lexical arbitrariness (which I henceforth ignore), variation is limited to nonsubstantive parts of the lexicon and general properties of lexical items” (Chomsky 1995: 170). These purported nonsubstantive parts are categories and features with no interpretation at the interfaces. Most of syntactic variation is attributed to uninterpretable features of functional categories. For instance, SVO and SOV languages are assumed to differ in nonsubstantive lexical attributes: an SOV language has a functional category with a feature which attracts the Object to the left of the V, whereas an SVO language does not. In this approach, variation of the type expressed by the Linearization Parameter is not linked to logically prior properties, but is stipulated in an ad hoc list of nonsubstantive elements. Taxonomies of this kind are not very helpful in furthering our understanding of the facts. It could be argued that this list of nonsubstantive elements is motivated on a par with the rest of the lexicon. Every language has a lexicon in which substantive elements must be listed because they vary arbitrarily. Putting this other list of nonsubstantive elements in the same part of the grammar could be seen as an interesting generalization since it restricts parametric variation to the lexicon. However, the generalization is only apparent, because the two lists are of a very different nature and must not be confused. As we saw in the discussion of (2), Saussure showed that we must list the meaning-form pairings of the substantive part of the lexicon because the logically prior properties of human physiology and cognition provide no ‘reason of nature’ for any particular pairing. This list is therefore highly motivated. In contrast, there is no explanation of this kind for the presumed uninterpretable features of the nonsubstantive part of the lexicon. This other list does not follow from any logically prior property, nor does it follow from anything internal to the theory: the assumption that a category X has an uninterpretable feature f is an irreducible descriptive statement. This weak type of list tells us that language has certain properties, but it does not help us understand why. Chomsky (1995: 233) recognizes that this kind of formulation “is a restatement of the basic property, not a true explanation.”

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4.2.

Case marking languages In Case-marking languages, major constituents can appear fairly freely in several different positions. This clashes with the assumption in GG that grammatical functions like subject and object are defined by a universal list of configurations, with corresponding positions. Therefore, corrective solutions must be assumed. For instance, Chomsky (2000) says that Casemarked elements have “a scrambling feature [which] induces pied-piping even after Case assignment, with the pied-piped element ‘attracted’ by a higher probe.” Non-Case-marking languages like English simply do not have such “scrambling” features in their list of features. A list of uninterpretable scrambling features does not help us understand why there is a correlation between overt Case markings and scrambling. In this approach, there just mysteriously happen to be extra mechanisms in Case-marking languages that conspire to give the impression of a freer order. In contrast, Exaptive Grammar brings to the forefront the fact that syntagmatics is the functional use of temporal linearization and that it is crucially linked to the perceptual substance of oral languages. In Bouchard (1996, 2002), I set this in the broad context of the consequences of Saussure’s idea that the linguistic sign takes form according to the substances, in particular when it extends beyond units to cover relations between items. Under this view, linear order and Case marking are two functionally equivalent means among the four provided by the perceptual substance of oral languages to express the combination of signs. (5) Elements of the perceptual substance of oral languages which may combine with a relation of conceptual substance to constitute a form i Juxtaposition: A and B are ordered temporally next to one another, deriving the structural relation of sister and immediately contain. ii Superimposition: B is a modulation superimposed on A, such as intonations to express grammatical functions in tone languages. iii Dependent Marking: the dependent gets a marking, such as Case marking. iv Head Marking: the head is marked, as in predicate marking (polysynthetic languages). These four elements of perceptual substance are equivalent: any one of them is just as good a signifiant for the signifié of a relation. Therefore, covariation between case marking and rigid order does not require costly additions to the theory like a list of scrambling features. On the contrary, the

BEYOND DESCRIPTIVISM

43

fact that languages operate different choices among these means is expected, given the initial conditions arising from the perceptual substance. If there wasn’t this variation, we would have to explain why no language makes use of an option that the perceptual substance provides to the language faculty. 4.3.

Clitics It is a commmon observation that French has clitic pronouns and English does not. (6)

a. a’ b. b'

John sees it/him/her/them. *John it/him/her/them sees. Jean le/la/les voit. *Jean voit le/la/les.

In the generative model, this is accounted for by assuming that French has a list of strong and weak pronouns, and a list of positions in which clitics may appear. Over the years, the list of positions has been expressed by a variety of formal tools: a list of transformational rules which describe where each clitic must appear on the surface (Kayne 1975); a list of items lexically marked as ’simple’ and which must be adjoined to the left of V (Chomsky 1995); a list of items marked by a feature which triggers their adjunction to an I-type functional head and a list ordering these functional heads according to the surface positions of clitics (Kayne 2000); a list of affixal elements which can license an empty pronoun, with a list of hosts corresponding to the surface positions (Borer 1984, Roberge 1990). All these variants in the generative model have in common that they list which elements can be clitics in which languages, and they also list the hosts of the clitics, such as Tensebearing elements. What differs in a non-clitic language is that these lists are empty. Moreover, cliticization is presented as an accidental property, unrelated to any other property of the languages. We would like to go beyond these mere descriptive lists and have an explanation why these particular elements are cliticized and why the Tensebearing element of the clause is the host. The exaptive model of Bouchard (2002) provides such an explanation. Generally, a marking provides information about the interpretation of the element to which it is attached. If we maintain this optimal assumption, it follows that in Jean le voit, the clitic le provides indications to identify an actant of a proposition centered on the semantics of voit and dependent on its Tense; the form of le tells us that it is a direct object, so it relates in a specific manner to the main predicate voit. Since the clitic is affixed to a particular Tense head, this relates it to a

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particular proposition. This directly accounts for the host, the clauseboundedness and the nature of the relation held by the clitic. The fact that English differs from French with respect to cliticization derives from an independently motivated difference in the way these languages encode semantic Number. Lamarche (1990, 1991) observes that the Det bears the semantic expression of Number in French, whereas semantic Number is borne by the Noun in English. Dwelling on this observation, Bouchard (2002: 34-35) shows that, consequently, Det can appear alone in French, it can be a clitic-marking which identifies an actant, because it bears Number, which provides it with the minimum content required to do so. When a speaker uses such a Det alone, without an N range, this indicates that the referent of the corresponding actant is part of the background shared by the speaker and addressee: the Det functions anaphorically. In English, since it is the Noun which bears Number, the Det does not have the minimum required to function anaphorically. The exaptive model provides an analysis which derives the facts from logically prior elements: the relation of Tense to the proposition and the role of Number in atomisation both derive from properties of the conceptual substance; marking of the Tense bearer by a clitic is one of the means allowed by our physiology—our perceptual substance—to express a relation; the fact that there is a choice to express Number either on Det or N derives from properties of both systems: Why Number is encoded in language at all is forced by CI properties: it comes into grammar as part of a grammaticalization of the logically anterior notions of ‘actant’ and ‘set’. Why Number varies in how it is realized is due to the fact that independent SM conditions force a choice upon languages. French expresses Number on Det, English on N, Walloon as an independent word, because these options correspond to different equally efficient ways to give a perceptual form to Number in the SM system: any of these forms is as good as the other to express the Number of a nominal expression (Bouchard 2002:34).

4.4.

Absence of Determiner There is another difference between French and English which directly correlates with the contrast in cliticization: rather than the Noun being absent, it concerns the absence of Det. English allows the absence of Det quite freely: a common noun can appear without a Det, whether it is plural (7a) or singular (7b). In contrast, such an omission of the Det is generally impossible in French, as can be seen in (8) (for a few special contexts in which this is allowed, see Curat 1999, Bouchard 2002: 273ff).

BEYOND DESCRIPTIVISM

(7)

a. b.

Beavers build dams everywhere. I ate lion yesterday.

(8)

a. b.

*Castors construisent barrages. J’ai mangé du/*Ø lion hier.

45

The situation is the converse of what we observed with clitics in the previous section. A Noun can appear alone in English and be used referentially because it bears Number, which provides it with the minimum content required for atomization, hence for identification of an actant. In French on the other hand, since semantic Number is expressed on the Det, the Noun alone lacks this minimum content for atomization. The same logically prior properties of the conceptual and perceptual substances which explained the cliticization facts also explain the observations about the absence of Det. 4.5.

Adjectives in French and English The distribution of adjectives in nominal expressions is another instance where the generative model and the exaptive model differ in their approaches. While complementless adjectives are almost exclusively prenominal in English (9a), they may appear before or after the noun in French (9b). (9)

a. b.

an expensive Chinese vase un vase chinois cher

A typical generative account of this contrast is found in Cinque (1994) (the same approach is used for adverbs in Cinque 1999). To account for the fact that adjectives appear in a fixed order before the noun in English, he postulates an ordered list of functional categories corresponding to meaning classes of adjectives (poss> cardinal> ordinal> quality> size> shape> color> nation). This ordering is projected in a hierarchical organization of the categories, and an adjective is generated in the Spec of the category corresponding to its semantic class. Underlyingly, French has the same ‘universal’ list of functional categories as in English in the same fixed order before the noun. The distinctive property of French lies in a list of uninterpretable features which trigger movement of constituents to functional categories. For example, the derivation of (9b) starts off with an underlying order similar to that of English, with the adjectives in prenominal position as in (10a). The N vase is attracted by some feature to the left of chinois, deriving (10b). Then vase

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46

chinois is attracted by yet another feature to the left of cher, producing the surface order in (10c).3 (10)

a. b. c.

basic order: un cher chinois vase intermediate: un cher vase chinois surface order: un vase chinois cher

==> ==>

The difference between the two languages is that the list of uninterpretable features of French contains these two attracting features, but the English list does not. This just restates the facts. Similarly, to account for pairs as in (11) in which the different orders correspond to different meanings, it is assumed that ancienne is in the Spec of two different functional categories, and accordingly, that there are two different ancienne belonging to different semantic classes of adjectives. (11)

a. b.

église ancienne ancienne église

“church that is old” “former church”

These data immediately bring to mind three questions. (i) Why are bare adjectives obligatorily prenominal in English? (ii) Why can adjectives occur on either side of the noun in French? (iii) Why is there a meaning difference between the two orders, as in (11), and what is it? The answers provided by the generative approach are not very insightful: (i) a list of ordered positions places adjectives in that position; (ii) a list of features triggers this; (iii) ancienne is listed in two classes of adjectives which correlate with these positions. In contrast, by appealing to substantive rather than overly formalist properties, Exaptive Grammar produces informative analyses. First, consider what constitutes the semantic part of the entry of a common Noun. It is well known that it is a network of interacting elements: in the terms of the tradition of Montague Semantics, a common Noun consists in a characteristic function f, a time interval i, a possible world w, and a variable assignment function g. This network of elements determines the set of things that have the property of being a f in w at i, i.e., the extension of the Noun; the variable assignment function g determines the denotation of the expression. I showed in Bouchard (2002) that the semantics of an adjective make it apt to apply to the whole network of the noun, or any of its subparts. For instance, postnominal ancienne in (11a) applies to the whole network, but prenominal 3

For a discussion of other variations on this kind of analysis, see Bouchard (2002).

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ancienne in (11b) only applies to a subpart of the network of église, namely the time interval i, hence the interpretation that only the interval of application of the characteristic function is ancient, not the building denoted. This correlation between the order of the adjective and the noun, and what the adjective modifies, holds very generally. When the adjective is postnominal, it always modifies the noun as a whole: this follows directly from the setting of the Linearization Parameter in French, which is Head+Dependent. Under an Elsewhere interpretation of this setting, the reverse order—in which the adjective is prenominal—indicates that the adjective is not a “normal” dependent: a prenominal adjective is therefore interpreted not as modifying the whole network of the noun but only a subpart of it. By taking into account the substantive properties of the semantics of common nouns and the substantive properties on which the Linearization Parameter rests, it is possible to go beyond a mere listing of the observations which brought about questions (i)-(iii) above. Thus, in answer to (ii), there are two possible orders in French because the Linearization Parameter does not restrict elements to one order, but rather each order is a signifiant corresponding to a specific signifié. This immediately answers to (iii), and predicts what effects the two orders have on the interpretation of the adjective: we explain that the adjective applies to the whole noun or to a subpart of it, depending on its position. As for the answer to (i), adjectives are almost exclusively prenominal in English due to an independent property of its nominal constructions. As we saw, Number is expressed on N in English, whereas it is on Det in French. Consequently, in a French phrase like balle rouge, the adjective is in the sister position of the noun and it can apply to the whole network of the noun, as required by its semantics. On the other hand, the phrase *ball red is ill-formed in English because red is a sister of the complex N+NUM. However, the semantics of red require that it modify just the N, i.e., a subpart of the N+Number element. To do this, according to the Linearization Parameter, red must appear in a position other than the canonical post-head position of the dependent, i.e., it must appear in prenominal position. In sum, while the generative model leads to analyses which merely state the facts in a convenient arrangement, the exaptive model makes use of logically prior properties of our physiological and conceptual make-up to explain the distribution and interpretation of adjectives in French and English. 5.

Conclusion Human language crucially depends on signs, whereas animal calls are not signs but just reflex responses. The arbitrariness of signs and the variation

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that derives from it are an artefact of the physiological and cognitive makeup of human beings, which provides no ‘reason of nature’ for any particular pairing of signifié and signifiant. This exaptive model provides a basis to explain the presence of recursion in human language: it derives entirely from the nature of the perceptual and conceptual substances linked by the signs. The model also explains why several novel traits appeared simultaneously in human language, whereas these seem to be unconnected in a generative model. Moreover, the exaptive model leads to a different way of conducting linguistic analysis. The results are promising, since devising conjectures which rely on the logically prior properties of the perceptual and conceptual substances leads to insightful analyses instead of ad hoc lists, as shown by a brief survey of five well-studied syntactic phenomena. References Borer, Hagit. 1984. Parametric Syntax. Dordrecht: Foris. Bouchard, Denis. 1995. The Semantics of Syntax. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. ----------. 1996. “Sign Languages and Language Universals: The Status of Order and Position in Grammar”. Sign Language Studies 91.101-160. ----------. 2002. Adjectives, Number and Interfaces: Why Languages Vary. Oxford: Elsevier Science. Chomsky, Noam. 1995. The Minimalist Program. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press. ----------. 2000. “Minimalist inquiries: The framework”. Step by step: Essays on minimalist syntax in honor of Howard Lasnik, ed. by Roger Martin, David Michaels & Juan Uriagereka, 89-155. Cambridge, Mass. MIT Press. ----------. 2001. “Beyond Explanatory Adequacy”. MIT Occasional Papers in Linguistics 20.1-28. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Linguistics Department. Cinque, Guglielmo. 1994. “On the Evidence for Partial N Movement in the Romance DP”. Paths Towards Universal Grammar, ed. by Guglielmo Cinque, Jan Koster, Jean-Yves Pollock, Luigi Rizzi & Raffaella Zanuttini, pp. 85-110. Georgetown: Georgetown University Press. ----------.1999. Adverbs and Functional Heads. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Curat, Hervé. 1999. Les déterminants dans la référence nominale et les conditions de leur absence. Geneva-Paris: Librairie Droz. Fitch, Tecumseh, Marc Hauser, & Noam Chomsky. 2005. “The evolution of the language faculty: Clarifications and implications”. Cognition 97:2.179-210.

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Fodor, Jerry, Edward Walker & Cornelia Parkes. 1980. “Against Definitions”. Cognition 8.263-367. Gould, Stephen Jay & Richard Lewontin. 1979. “The Spandrels of San Marco and the Panglossian Paradigm: A Critique of the Adaptationist Programme”. Proceedings of the Royal Society of London, Series B, 205:1161.581-598. Hauser, Marc, Noam Chomsky & Tecumseh Fitch. 2002. “The language faculty; what is it, who has it, and how did it evolve?” Science 298.15691579. ---------- & Elizabeth Spelke. In press. “Evolutionary and developmental foundations of human knowledge: A case study of mathematics”. The Cognitive Neurosciences III, ed. by Micahel Gazzanig. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press. Jackendoff, Ray. 2002. Foundations of Language. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Kayne, Richard. 1975. French Syntax: The Transformational Cycle. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press. ----------. 2000. Parameters and Universals. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Lamarche, Jacques. 1990. Tête-à-tête et autres relations: La position et l'interprétation des ADs. M.A. thesis, Université du Québec à Montréal. ----------. 1991. “Problems for N0-movement to Num-P”. Probus 3.215-236. Nowak, Martin, David Krakauer & Andreas Dress. 1999. “An Error Limit for the Evolution of Language”. Proceedings of the Royal Society of London B 266.2131–2136. Roberge, Yves. 1990. The Syntactic Recoverability of null arguments. Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press. Saussure, Ferdinand de. 1916 [1967]. Cours de linguistique générale, ed. by Tullio de Mauro. Paris: Payot. Scruton, Roger. 2005. “The Unobservable Mind”. Technology Review 108.72-76.

DO SUBJECTS HAVE A PLACE IN SPANISH? JOSÉ CAMACHO Rutgers University

0.

Introduction Overt preverbal subjects in Spanish (henceforth PS) have been claimed to be in an adjoined, peripheral layer of the clause (cf. Contreras 1991, Ordóñez and Treviño 1999) and in an IP-layer (cf. Goodall 1999, Suñer 2003). Part of the motivation for the different analyses stems from mixed A and A-bar properties they display. In this discussion, several independent questions are conflated: 1) Is there a uniquely determined position for PS in Spanish? 2) Is it uniquely associated with certain content (topichood, A/A-bar etc.)? 3) Are overt and null subjects in the same position? In this paper, I address these three questions, arguing that subjects can appear in several functional projections along the extended verbal projection (cf. Grimshaw 2005). In some cases, the properties of those projections will be determined in the course of the derivation: if a verb raises to a certain projection, it will render this projection active for agreement purposes and trigger movement of the subject to its specifier. 1.

The status of subjects in Spanish One prominent line of analysis of the position of PS in Spanish claims that they are, in essence, clitic left-dislocated (CLLD) constituents akin to CLLD subjects in Trentino and Fiorentino, or to direct and indirect objects in Spanish, illustrated in (1)a. In this line of analysis, the structure for (1)b would be (1)c, with the subject adjoined to IP (cf. Contreras 1991) or in a leftperipheral projection (following Rizzi 1997). The subject clitic, is either a null pro, as in(1)c, or the inflection morpheme, as proposed by Ordóñez and Treviño (1999) (henceforth, O&T). (1)

a. A la hermana de Susana, la vi el otro día to the sister of Susana, CL saw the other day “Susana's sister, I saw her the other day.”

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b. Susana compró unos regalos Susana bought some gifts “Susana bought some gifts.” c. Susanai [IP proi [I compró [VP unos regalos ]]] 1.1.

PS as CLLD constituents The CLLD analysis of PS rests on several arguments. First, subjects pattern like CLLD objects and indirect objects in VP-ellipsis (cf. O&T): both can appear when the elided VP is in an island, as in (2), (O&P’s (15), underlined text indicates the deleted part). (2)

A ti te admitirán en Harvard pero es probable que a to you CL will admit in Harvard but is probable that to tu amiga no [la admitirán en Harvard] your friend not CL will admit in Harvard “You’ll be admitted to Harvard, but it is likely that your friend won’t.”

Second, Alexiadou and Anagnostopoulou (1998) (henceforth A&A) argue that PS do not involve local, Spec, head agreement with the verb, since adverbs can intervene (cf. (3)a). They also argue that quantificational and indefinite PS have unambiguous scope, as CLLD elements do. Thus, in (3)b, from A&A, the indefinite subject can only have wide scope in Greek, as it does in Spanish. (3)

a. Pedro ayer, inesperadamente, conoció a su profesor Pedro yesterday, unexpectedly met to his professor “Yesterday, after many efforts, Pedro met his professor.” b. Kapios fititis stihiothetise kathe arthro some student filed every article “Some student filed every article.” c. Algún/un estudiante archivó todos los artículos some student filed every the articles “Some student filed every article.”

Finally, A & A argue that if an indefinite PS is in an A-bar position, it cannot reconstruct (like CLLD items), therefore, it should have scope over a modal or negation, assuming that modals do not raise covertly. This is shown in (4), after A&A's examples. In (4)a, the modal can only be deontic, not epistemic, and in (4)b, the only possible interpretation is many > not:

SUBJECTS IN SPANISH

(4)

53

a. Un niño debe presentar el trabajo hasta el final de la semana A boy must turn.in the work until the end of the week “A boy must turn in the work until the end of the week.” b. Muchos hombre no se enamoraron de María Many men not CL fell.in.love of Mary “Many men didn't fall in love with Mary.”

1.2.

PS as A-constituents Goodall (1999) observes that the properties of PS and CLLD phrases do not completely overlap. For example, topics can be bare, but PS cannot. If PS are CLLD phrases (and topics), this is surprising. However, the impossibility of having bare NP subjects must be independent of whether PS are topics, since even topic subjects cannot be bare (cf. (5)). (5)

*Niños, con children, with

Marta, no Marta, not

juegan nunca en el parque play never in the park

Zubizarreta (1993, 1998) points out that CLLD phrases reconstruct, whereas as Suñer (2003) suggests, PS do not, contrary to A&A’s claim. In (6)a (Suñer’s example), the DP (Lea) inside the PS can be coreferential with the clitic, whereas that same coindexing is impossible when the subject is postverbal. If the subject is in an A-position, leaving no trace when moved, it cannot reconstruct in (6)a, so there will no Principle C violation. In (6)b, on the other hand, the DP inside the subject is lower than the coindexed clitic, hence Principle C is violated. (6)

a. [El primer novio de Leai] lai besó en la calle the first boyfriend of Lea CL kissed in the street “Lea's first boyfriend kissed her in the street.” b. *Lai besó en la calle [el primer novio de Leai] CL kissed in the street the first boyfriend of Lea

Along the same lines, a postverbal subject can be coreferential with a DP inside a CLLD constituent (cf. (7)), but if the subject is null (by assumption, preverbal), coindexing with a CLLD item is impossible. If the CLLD phrase reconstructs, to a Clitic Phrase position lower than the preverbal subject but higher than the postverbal one (as seen in b), these contrasts follow.

54 (7)

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a. [La primera página de las novelas de Cortázari] siempre the first page of the novels of Cortazar always la escribía éli en ayunas CL wrote he before.breakfast “The first page of Cortazar's novels, he always wrote before breakfast.” b. [CP ti …[CLP [DP la …de Cortázari] lai [escribía éli …]]] c. *[La primera página de las novelas de Cortázari] proi siempre the first page of the novels of Cortazar always la escribía en ayunas CL wrote before.breakfast “The first page of Cortazar's novels, he always wrote before breakfast.” d. [CP ti …[IP proi [CLP [DP la …de Cortázari] lai [escribía éli …]]]]

These data suggest differences in distribution for PS and CLLD, and different positions for them (A and A-bar respectively). On the other hand, A&A attributed the lack of scope interaction between PS/CLLD items and lower quantifiers (cf. (4) above) to the fact that they can’t reconstruct, and assumed that this is a function of their A-bar status. Notice, however, that in their own account, CLLD items are base-generated in the left-periphery, hence have nowhere to reconstruct to, regardless of what their A/A-bar status is. Thus, it seems that lack of ambiguity for quantifiers cannot be taken as an argument for an A-bar position of PS/CLLD items. One alternative consistent with both Suñer and A&A's conclusions would be to argue that CLLD items are base-generated in a high Clitic Phrase, from which they can move to the left-periphery and to which they reconstruct. Since this position is higher than that of objects, and presumably higher than NegP, we predict the lack of ambiguity between quantified CLLDs and lower quantifiers. Finally, Suñer (2003) shows that lexical subjects and strong pronouns (él, ella “he, she”) can be separated from the verb by a parenthetical, whereas expletive ello “it” in Dominican Spanish cannot (cf. (8)a-b), suggesting that ello is structurally closer to the verb than strong pronouns and lexical NPs, as in (8)c, following Cardenaletti and Starke (1999). (8)

a. Juan/Él, a mi parecer, es muy simpático Juan/He, according to me is very nice “Juan/He, according to me, is very nice.”

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55

b. Ello (*a mi parecer) no sería malo estudiar it according to me, not would.be bad to study “It (according to me) wouldn't hurt to study.” c. [YP {Juan/él} [XPparenth. [ZP {ello} V ]]] To summarize existing data, PS pattern with CLLD items in deletion contexts and cannot take narrow scope with respect to other quantifiers, but their behavior diverges with respect to reconstruction. Finally, expletives seem to have a different position than strong pronouns (and lexical PS). 2. 2.1.

New data Ellipsis and modals Recall that one of O&T's arguments for treating PS as CLLD elements stems from their similar behavior as remnants in ellipsis contexts (cf. (2) above). However, with an epistemic modal, CLLD phrases and PS diverge in those contexts: with the PS in (9)a, the missing part’s interpretation cannot include the modal. With the CLLD phrase in (9)b, the epistemic modal can be part of the missing constituent. If the PS is a CLLD item, this is unexpected. (9)

a. Los médicos pueden haber salido, pero Pedro dice the doctors can have left, but Pedro says que las enfermeras no [han salido] that the nurses not have left “Doctors may have left, but Pedro says that nurses haven't (left).” “*Doctors may have left, but Pedro says nurses may not.” b. A los médicos les puede haber dado permiso, pero Pedro to the doctors CL can have given permission, but Pedro dice que a las enfermeras no [pueden haber dado permiso] says that to the nurses not can have given permission “Doctors may have been granted permission, but Pedro says that nurses may not (have been granted permission).”

Assuming the deletion target remains constant (IP) in both cases, these data suggest first, that the epistemic modal verb raises higher with an overt PS than with a null subject and second, that subjects and CLLD items do not occupy the same position (see below for further details). 2.2.

Epistemic modals and PS subjects Preverbal, non-quantified subjects are ungrammatical with a CLLD constituent and an epistemic modal (cf. (10)a), as opposed to postverbal subjects (cf. (10)b) and to PS without the CLLD constituent (cf. (11)(13)a).

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This constraint resembles the one observed by A&A (cf. (4) above), but in this case the subject need not be quantified. As seen in (11), without a CLLD item, there is no word order asymmetry. A summary of the data appears in (12). (10)

Background: Full-time doctors have little time to devote to each individual patient, and sometimes, patients suffer on account of this, but in this hospital, all patients seem to be very well tended to… a. #Sí, a los pacientes, los médicos residentes los deben yes, to the patients, the doctors resident CL must atender, por eso están tan bien attend, for that are so good “Yes, patients must be taken care of by resident doctors, that's why they are so well cared for.” b. Sí, a los pacientes los deben atender los médicos yes, to the patients, CL must attend the doctors residentes, por eso están tan bien resident, for that are so good “Yes, patients must be taken care of by resident doctors, that's why they are so well cared for.”

(11)

Background: Full-time doctors have little time to devote to each individual patient, and sometimes, patients suffer on account of this, but in this hospital, all patients seem to be very well tended to … a. Sí, aquí los médicos residentes deben atender a yes, here the doctors resident must attend to los pacientes, por eso están tan bien the patients, for that are so good “Yes, resident doctors must take care of patients here, that's why they are so well cared for.” b. Sí, aquí deben atender a los pacientes los médicos yes, here must attend to the patients the doctors residentes, por eso están tan bien resident, for that are so good “Yes, resident doctors must take care of patients here, that's why they are so well cared for.”

(12)

a.  b. *

CLLD-modal-PS CLLD-PS-modal

SUBJECTS IN SPANISH

c.  d. 

57

PS-modal Modal-PS

These data argue against a unified treatment for preverbal subjects and CLLD elements as occupying the same structural position, on the one hand, and, on the other, as uniformly treating PS as A-bar elements. 2.3.

Subject adjacency effects In addition to the adjacency effects seen in (8)b above, preverbal negative quantifier subjects must be adjacent to the verb (cf. (13)a-b), by contrast to lexical subjects, postverbal quantifiers, and CLLD items (cf. (14)ac)). (13)

(14)

a. Nadie pudo avanzar 3 metros no-one could advance 3 meters “No one could advance 3 meters.” b. *Nadie casi pudo avanzar 3 metros no-one almost could advance 3 meters c. *Ninguno de ellos casi pudo avanzar none of them almost could advance

3 metros 3 meters

a. La tortuga casi pudo avanzar 3 metros the turtle almost could advance 3 meters “The turtle could almost advance 3 meters.” b. Casi no pudo avanzar 3 metros nadie almost not could advance 3 meters no-one “No one could almost advance 3 meters.” c. A ninguno de los culpables, casi lo descubrieron to none of the guilty almost CL discovered “None of the guilty, were almost discovered.”

(14)b does not become grammatical with a restricted quantifier, unlike CLLD phrases (cf. (13)c vs. (14)c, and Cinque 1990 and Goodall 1999), and other adverbs, but not other quantifiers, show the same intervention effects (cf. (15)) vs. (16)). These contrasts suggest that negative quantifier subjects and lexical subjects occupy different positions ((13)b vs. (14)a)), and once again, that PS and CLLD phrases occupy a different position (cf. (13)c) vs. (14)c)).1 Finally, parentheticals do not induce ungrammaticality in the way adverbs do, 1

The CLLD phrase in (13)c is interpreted as focused, showing that CLLD phrases have no unique interpretation.

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as seen in the contrast between (13)b above and(17), suggesting that negative quantifiers and Dominican expletives have different structural positions. (15)

a. Juan constantemente viaja a Portugal Juan constantly travels to Portugal “Juan constantly travels to Portugal.” b. *Nadie constantemente viaja a Portugal No-one constantly travels to Portugal

(16)

a. Todos (ellos) casi pudieron avanzar 3 metros all them almost could advance 3 meters “All (of them) could advance 3 meters.” b. Algunos casi pudieron avanzar 3 metros some almost could advance 3 meters “Some could almost advance 3 meters.”

(17)

Ninguno, a mi parecer, pudo avanzar 3 metros no-one, according to me, could advance 3 meters “No one, according to me, could advance 3 meters.”

All of these data suggests different preverbal subject positions depending on subject-type of subject (cf. (8)), verb position (cf. modals in (12)), and on locality constraints (cf. Domincan ello in (8)b, negative quantifiers in (13)). 3.

Extended target positions for subjects The assumptions of the analysis are presented in (18), most notably, 2) a given functional projection may be inert until it is activated by adjoining a head to it or filling its specifier, and 3) certain projections may agree locally only in certain derivational contexts. (18)

3.1.

1. Agree can be local (local agree, in Spec, head configuration) or unbound (unbound agree). 2. A projection becomes active for agreement (agreement-active) by adjoining a head to it or filling its specifier. 3. An agreement-active projection may require local agree.

Adjacency effects The adverb intervention cases described above (cf. (13)-(14), partially repeated below) derive from (18), with one further assumption. The quantifiers involved in (13) are NPIs and as such, they must be licensed by negation in the

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59

specifier of a neg-related projection (Haegeman and Zanuttini’s Neg-criterion), which is then not overtly realized as a head (due to some version of the doublyfilled COMP filter). In the case of post-verbal NPIs, they are licensed longdistance by negation. Within the assumptions in (21) the Neg-criterion is a manifestation of agree, movement of preverbal NPIs to the Spec of the relevant negative projection will render this projection agreement-active, and will also require local agree. The contrast in (13) follows from the fact that casi blocks Spec, head (local) agreement with the quantifier, leaving the NPI’s negative feature unchecked, as in (19). Since the feature checked is negative, one expects other non-negative quantifiers not to show the same pattern, as shown in (16) above. (13)

a. Nadie pudo avanzar 3 metros no-one could advance 3 meters “No one could advance 3 meters.” b. *Nadie casi pudo avanzar 3 metros no-one almost could advance 3 meters

(19)

a.

nadieneg

NegP

b.

Neg’ Neg0+ pudo

nadieneg IP

avanzar 3 metros

XP NegP casi

Neg’

Neg0+ pudo

IP

Extending this analysis to the Dominican expletive cases in (8) above, which must be adjacent to the verb, would entail that weak pronouns and expletives are required to undergo local agree with the verb, a configuration that does not obtain when the parenthetical intervenes. However, the adjacency requirement for weak pronouns and expletives may not be syntactic but morpho-phonological: on the one hand, parentheticals do not block negagreement with NPIs (cf. (17) above). On the other, the nature of the parenthetical seems to suggest that it is not selected, but rather adjoined, raising questions as to why it would block a syntactic configuration. On the other hand, if the requirement is morphological (i.e., weak pronouns, as clitics, require a certain type of host), the structural configuration of the parenthetical will no longer be relevant, only the fact that it linearly intervenes between the clitic and its host. Thus, although these data have been argued to be evidence in favor of different positions for the subject, a view I support in this paper, it is very likely that they derive from a different type of constraint.

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3.2.

Modals Recall that modals cannot be interpreted in the deleted portion of an ellipsis when there is a preverbal subject, but they can when there is a CLLD phrase (cf. (9) above). I argued that the modal raises higher with a PS than it does with a CLLD phrase. If we assume that the missing material in the second conjunct is interpreted by copying structure from the first conjunct, and that the copied structure is IP, then, the result would be (20), where the copied portion is inside the dash-box. In this structure, the lexical PS must be higher than IP (an observation consistent with O&T’s conclusions), otherwise the deleted material would include the first subject. (20)

a. [ModP los medicos [Mod no pueden [IP [haber salido]] ]] &…[XP las enferemeras ]] b. [CLLDP a los medicos [ModP [IP [les puede]] ]] & …[XP a las enferemeras ]]

Within the assumptions of (18), this means that in (20)a, ModP is agreement-active, since the modal has raised to Mod0 and the PS to Spec, ModP. This triggers local agree with the lexical PS. Why doesn’t the CLLD phrase attract the modal in (9)b? One possible answer is that it is not in ModP, but higher, as depicted in (20)b, hence ModP is not agreement-active. If the subject and the CLLD phrase are in the same projection, there is no obvious explanation for the observed interpretive contrast. The second observation regarding modals was the contrast between ungrammatical CLLD-PS-modal order (cf. (10)a) and the grammatical CLLDmodal-subject order (cf. (10)b). PS-modal and CLLD-PS-non-modal orders are also grammatical (cf.(11)). The analysis just developed would yield the partial derivation in 0 for (10)a: the lexical PS appears in the specifier of ModP, forcing the modal to move to the Mod0. For the CLLD-modal order in (10)b, the CLLD phrase appears in CLLDP, higher than ModP, hence ModP is not rendered agreement-active and the modal does not raise to Mod0. If this is correct, the ungrammaticality of (10)a can be seen in a different light: something blocks the CLLD phrase from merging with the structure in 0. I will propose that in that structure, the CLLD phrase cannot merge with ModP because ModP changes by virtue of becoming agreement active. Specifically, an agreement-active ModP becomes selected (or L-related), and an L-related projection cannot merge with a non-L-related projection within the same strong phase. These two generalizations are formalized in (22)-(23).

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(21)

61

Partial merge for (10)a ModP

los médicos residentes

Mod’

los debeni

IP ti

atender …

(22)

An agreement-active projection can become L-related/selected if its head is a selecting/L-relating head.

(23)

Phase Consistency Condition (PCC) a. Projections within a strong phase must be L-consistent. b. Two projections are L-consistent if they are both L-related or both non-L-related.

The PCC predicts that arguments will stack-up in the same strong phase, and context-related projections (focus, topic, etc.) will only be possible at strongphase edges, as suggested by Rizzi (1997) for the left-periphery, and by Ndayiragije (1999) and Belletti (2004) for the VP-phase. (22) allows for a strong phase to be extended: if the strong phase is composed of L-related categories, movement from within it may extend L-relatedness beyond that strong phase. This extension mechanism can be extended to other cases, such as A-scrambling (which extends the binding properties of scrambled elements, cf. McGinnis 1999), or clitic-climbing in restructuring contexts (where the clitic can climb out of the lower phase only if the lower verb incorporates to the higher one, rendering it L-related). These two principles rule out further merger of the CLLD phrase with ModP in (20), as shown in (24). (24)

Impossible merge of CLLD in (10)a CLLDPnon-L

a los pacientes

ModPL los médicosL

Mod’

los debenL

IPL

For the case of the CLLD-modal order in (10)a, no such problem arises, as shown in and (25) below (bold font indicates L-related projections).

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62 (25)

Structure for (10)b CLLDPnon-L

a los pacientes

ModPnon-L IPL los debenL

VPL

When the verb is not modal (cf. (26)), the order CLLD-PS-V is possible. In such cases, the verb only raises to I, the left-peripheral projections are non-L-related, and a CLLD and a PS can merge in the periphery, as in (27). Note that the crucial difference between (24) and (27) is the presence of a dedicated ModP phrase. In both cases the PS merges in the left-periphery, but only in former case does it render the projection agreement-active and attracts the modal to it, blocking further merger of left-peripheral material. (26)

(27)

a. A Marta, los niños la saludan todos los días to Marta, the children CL greet every the days “Marta, children greet her everyday.” b. A los pacientes, los libros, se los traen sus familiares to the pacients, the books CL CL bring their relatives “Patients, books, their relatives bring them.” CLLDPnon-L a Marta

CLLDnon-L

los niños la saludanL

IPL todos los días

The typology of possible and impossible left-peripheral configurations is presented in (28): either a single, left-peripheral, L-related position, derivationally determined by the position of the verb, or a set of possibly recursive, non-L-related positions when no verb movement takes place. (28)

a. V in I, recursive (or non-recursive) left-peripheral positions [CLLDP(-L) DP(-L) [IP(L) PS(L) I ] ] b. *V in left periphery, recursive left-pheripheral positions *[CLLDP(-L) DP(-L) [XP(L) DP(L) [X’ V+X IPL ]]]

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63

c. V in left-periphery, non-recursive left-peripheral positions [XP(L) PS(L) [X’ V+X IP]] 3.3.

The role of person (29) is argued by O&T to show that the binding/referential properties of the subject are located in inflection, not in the DP. Descriptively, a 3rd person, plural subject los estudiantes “the students” can appear with 1st, 2nd or 3rd person plural inflection on the verb. In such cases, a clitic in an adjunct clause can only match the verb's inflection, not the DP's person settings (cf. (29)). (29)

Los estudiantes salimos /salisteis /salieron del edificio the students(3pl.) exited(1pl.)/exited(2pl.)/exited(3pl.) of.the building “We/you/they, the students, left from there.”

(30)

a. Los amigosi salimos después de que nosi acusara the friends(3pl.) exited(1pl.) after of that CL(1pl.) accused “We, the friends, left after s/he accused us.” b. *Los amigosi salimos después de que losi acusara the friends(3pl.) exited(1pl.) after of that CL(3pl.) accused

Note, however, that both controlled and non-controlled infinitival verbs that do not show overt person marking, display the same distributional pattern than that observed for (30): in (31), the clitic attached to the infinitival can be 1st or 3rd person, even though the controller los amigos “the friends” is 3rd person. If inflectional morphology always hosts coreferential properties, we would not expect the clitic to be able to be coreferential with los amigos in (31), much less showing variable 1st or 3rd person. The same patterns hold for non-control infinitivals, as seen in (32). (31)

a. Permitió a los amigos [presentar-se al examen] allowed to the friends attend-CL(3p) to.the exam “S/he allowed his/her friends to take the test.” b. Permitió a los amigos [presentar-nos al examen] allowed to the friends attend-CL(1pl.) to.the exam “S/he allowed us, his/her friends to take the test.”

(32)

a. Presentar-se los amigos al examen sería un error attend.CL(3) the friends to.the exam would.be a mistake “For the friends to take the exam would be a mistake.”

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b. Presentar-nos los amigos al examen sería un error attend.CL(1pl.) the students to.the exam would.be a mistake “(For us the students) to take the exam would be a mistake.” As an alternative to O&P’s analysis, I will build on Poletto’s (2000) functional structure in (33). She proposes that the subject in Italian crosses a number of functional projections from vP to TopicP, including SpeakerP, HearerP, NumP, NegP and TopP. (33)

[TopPSubj DPi [NegP[NumP ti [Numinfl Vj ] [HearerPti[Hearertj [SpeakerPtj [TP]]]]]]

The proposal for (31) is outlined in (34). In (34)a, the speaker-oriented projection is absent (by economy of structure), and the 3rd person PRO is in IP. Conceptually, the lack of a speaker-oriented projection follows from the fact that the infinitival subject in (31)a does not include the speaker. In (31)b, on the other hand, PRO is in the speaker-oriented projection, which binds the clitic. For finite-verbs (cf. (30)), the structure in (35)a has pro in the specifier of SpeakerP for 1st person coreference, for Peninsular Spanish 2nd person (cf. (35)b), the subject is in HearerP and for 3rd person (cf. (35)c), in IP. (34)

a. Permitió a los amigos [IPPRO(3) presentar-se(3) al examen] b. Permitió a los amigos [SpkrPPRO(1pl.) presentar-nos(1pl.) al examen]

(35)

a. [Los amigos] [SpkrP pro(1pl.) salimos(1pl.)] b. [Los amigos] [HearerP pro(2pl.) salisteis(2pl.)] c. [Los amigos] [IP pro(3pl.) salieron(3pl.)]

4.

Conclusions I have argued for a number of positions for subjects in Spanish, some left-peripheral (lexical subjects), some within IP (pro, expletives). For the former, I have argued that subjects do not occupy the same position as CLLD elements, and that the L or non-L-related nature of subject positions is derivationally determined by verb movement. The principles that derive their distributions include agreement-active, (a given functional projection may be inert for agreement until activated by movement of a head to it or filling of its specifier) and the Phase Consistency Condition (all categories within a phase are consistent with respect to being selected or non-selected).

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65

References Alexiadou, Artemis and Elena Anagnostopoulou. 1998. “Parametrizing AGR: Word Order, V-movement and EPP-checking”. Natural Language and Linguistic Theory 16. 491-539. Belletti, Adriana. 2004. Aspects of the Low IP Area. The Structure of IP and CP. The Cartography of Syntactic Structures V. 2, ed. by Luigi Rizzi, 1651. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Cardenaletti, Anna and Michal Starke. 1999. “The Typology of Structural Deficiency”. Clitics in the Languages of Europe (Empirical Approaches to Language Typology), ed. by Henk Van Riemsdijk, 145-233. Berlin: Mouton. Cinque, Guigliemo. 1990. Types of A-bar Dependencies. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press. Contreras, Heles. 1991. “On the Position of Subjects”. Perspectives on Phrase Structure: Heads and Licensing. Syntax and Semantics 25, ed. by Ssusan Rothstein, 63-79. San Diego: Academic Press. Goodall, Grant. 1999. “On Preverbal Subjects in Spanish”. Current Issues in Romance Languages, ed. by Teresa Satterfield et al., 95-110. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Grimshaw, Jane. 2005. “Extended Projection”. Words and Structure, ed. by J. Grimshaw, 1-74. Stanford, Calif.: CSLI publications. Haegeman, Liliane and Raffaela Zanuttini. 1991. “Negative Heads and the Neg Criterion”. The Linguistic Review 8.233-251. McGinnis, Martha. 1999. “A-Scrambling Exists!”. Proceedings of the 23rd Annual Penn Linguistics Colloquium, ed. by Jim Alexander, Na-Rae Han and Michelle Minnick Fox, 283-297. Penn Working Papers in Linguistics. University of Pennsylvania. Ndayiragije, Juvenal. 1999 Checking Economy. Linguistic Inquiry 30.3, 399444. Ordóñez, Francisco and Estela Treviño. 1999. “Left Dislocated Subjects and the Pro-drop Parameter: A Case Study of Spanish”. Lingua 107.39-68. Poletto, Cecilia. 2000. The Higher Functional Field. Evidence from Northern Italian Dialects. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Rizzi, Luigi. 1997. “The Fine Structure of the Left Periphery”. Elements of Grammar, ed. by Liliane Haegeman, 281-337. Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers. Suñer, Margarita. 2003. “The Lexical Preverbal Subject in a Romance Null Subject Language: Where are Thou?” A Romance Perspective on Language Knowledge and Use. Selected Papers from the 31st Linguistic Symposiumon Romance Languages, ed. by Rafael Núñez-Cedeño et al., 341-358. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.

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Zubizarreta, María Luisa. 1993. “The grammatical representation of topic and focus: Implications for the structure of the clause” Cuadernos de Lingüística 2, 181-208. Instituto Universitario Ortega & Gasset, Madrid. ----------. 1998. Prosody, Focus, and Word Order. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press.

ON THE CONCEPTUAL ROLE OF NUMBER

VIVIANE DEPREZ Rutgers, ISC

0.

Introduction Bouchard (2002) proposes that the syntactic position of number (#)— on N or D—affects three aspects of nominal syntax: adjective-order, nounomission and Bare Argument Nominals (BAN). This paper shows that number position incorrectly predicts these nominal properties in some languages, i.e. the French-based Creoles, and argues that better results obtain if the conceptual role of number is taken into account. Number interacts with two distinct processes in language: Quantization and Individuation. Quantization, a ‘counting’ operation, is of little concern here. In Individuation, an operation that maps a nominal concept to the individual objects that materialize it, the role of number is to provide a criterion of division mapping given properties onto distinct instances. But Individuation, I argue, can also be achieved independently of number: contextual localization provides an alternative criterion of division. That is, just as objects can be individuated through their properties or their location in space (Xu and Carey 1996), so, I propose, can a kind be mapped onto its realizations through number division or spatial location. Languages opt for different modes of individuation and this choice has empirical consequences on nominal syntax. Number position, I show, matters only for languages with Number Individuation. Accordingly, not all languages that mark number primarily on D have equivalent properties and some are correctly predicted to freely allow BAN. The current paper has three parts. First Bouchard’s proposal, its empirical shortcomings, and the syntax of Haitian Creole (HC) number are discussed. Second, my proposal on the conceptual role of number is outlined. Third, my proposal is shown to predict the syntactic properties Bouchard noted and to remedy the shortcomings. I conclude with additional predictions for the syntax of HC-number.

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VIVIANE DEPREZ

1. 1.1

Position of # marking Bouchard 2002 Bouchard distinguishes two classes of languages. D-number languages (D-#) mark number primarily on D, have mostly post-nominal adjectives, allow N-omission and exclude BAN as (1a-d) illustrates for French, a characteristic D-# language. N-number languages (N-#) display opposite properties: number is primarily on N, adjectives are largely pre-nominal, Nomission is precluded and BAN are free, as (1a’-d’) illustrates for English. (1)

a. b. c. d.

la/les voiture(s) une voiture rouge Donnes-moi la rouge *Je mange pommes

a’. the car/s b’. a red car c’. Give me the red (*one). d’. I eat apples.

Bouchard accounts for these properties as follows. He argues that intersective adjectives—the largest class—must modify the noun itself. In D-# languages with head-dependent order (French), post-nominal adjectives can modify the noun itself and be intersective predicting that the largest adjective class is post-nominal. In N-# languages (English), post-nominal adjectives modify the cluster [N+#], not the noun itself and can thus not be intersective. To modify the N itself, adjectives must use an Elsewhere-strategy that counters the regular head-dependent order. As a result, intersective adjectives are prenominal. But subsective adjectives that modify less than the N itself are predicted to be pre-nominal in both language types. Contrasts as seen in (2) where French pre-nominal adjectives are only subsective (2a’) while English ones are ambiguous (2a’or b’) are expected. (2)

a. Un vieil ami b. An old friend

a’. long time friend b’. a friend who is old

For Bouchard, number encodes referentiality with consequences on both Nomission and BAN. In D-# languages, nouns can be omitted and referentiality still be achieved through D. In N-# languages, this is not possible, hence Nomission is precluded. The distribution of BAN mirrors N-omission. Nouns in D-# French having no number cannot be referential by themselves, excluding BAN. The reverse is true for N-# English. 1.2

Predictions for Haitian Creole Consider now Bouchard’s predictions for languages like Haitian Creole. As (3) shows, HC nouns are invariable. Number is marked strictly on determiners. Definite DPs encode singular with la (a/an/lan), plural with yo.

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ON THE CONCEPTURAL ROLE OF NUMBER

Indefinites can encode singular with yon, plural with numerals or quantifiers as shown in (3b). (3)

a. M achte liv la/yo “I bought the book.” b. M achte yon/twa/kek/anpil liv “I bought a/three/some/many book(s).”

HC is thus clearly a D-# language and, confirming Bouchard’s predictions, adjectives are predominantly post-nominal (4a), like French, and when prenominal, only allow a subsective reading (4b). N-omission is allowed (4c). (4)

a. yon liv chè “an expensive book” b. Vje zanmi nou “our long time friends/*our friends that are old” c. Ban mwen wouj la Give me red the “Give me the red one.”

In these respects, HC behaves as expected for a D-# language, but not so with BAN. While in D-# French BAN are excluded, they are, in contrast, freely allowed in HC. (5)

a. Moun koumanse ap pran baton “People started taking sticks.” b. Lè chat pa la, rat pran kay la “When the cat is not there, rats take over the house.” c. Elefan ap vin ra “Elephants are/the elephant is becoming rare.”

Existential Generic Kind

The distribution of HC BAN largely parallels that of an N-# language (Déprez 2005) raising a serious empirical challenge for Bouchard’s approach to number. Recall that for Bouchard, number is essential for referentiality, and it is this property that crucially licenses BAN. Since HC nouns do not carry number, they should fail to be referential arguments, contrary to facts.1 Should N-number hence be considered irrelevant for BAN licensing? I think not. That 1

The DP final position of HC determiners could not alone explain this distinction. First, HC determiners are not all DP-final. Some are DP-initial (yon, kek) with no discernable

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N-number matters for BAN is not a new idea (cf. Delfitto & Shroeten 1991, Longobardi 1994, Chierchia 1998) and convincing diachronic and crosslinguistic evidence strongly supports it. It is when N-number ceased to be pronounced that BAN became disallowed in French.2 And, while Walloon, like French both lacks N-number and BAN, other main Romance languages, both have N-number and BAN, a fairly clean-cut typological distinction. Nnumber is also demonstrably relevant for BAN even in N-# languages. Singular BAN are not possible in English, a fact naturally related to the lack of ‘overt’ singular morphology and also found in N-# Romance languages. In short, something does seem fundamentally right in the idea that N-number licenses BAN. If so, the interesting question is how French-like languages can be distinguished from HC-like languages while maintaining the idea that Nnumber matters for BAN. The suggestion advanced here is that number crucially plays a distinct conceptual role in the two language types. To articulate this view, a more in-depth study of HC number is needed, to which we now turn. 1.3

Number in HC Consider first this simple fact: in French and English #-marking is necessary to express plurality. Without a plural morpheme, count N cannot refer to more than one entity. Not so in HC. As (6) shows, HC count N can be plural even with no #-marking. Furthermore, #-marking is absent when a plural numeral co-occurs with a noun (6). Thus, #-marking appears optional in HC. (6)

Jan te achte (de) chwal “John bought (two) horse*(s).”

More specifically, HC count BAN are plural or singular without overt morphological differences, depending on contexts of use or lexical meanings as in (7). HC N manifests what Corbett (2000) refers to as ‘general number’. (7)

Jan achte liv/kay pou Pòl (Joseph 1989: 104) ”John bought books/a house for Paul.” That both options are possible is confirmed by HC pronominal reference. As (8) shows, HC BAN can be referred to with either the singular pronoun li, or the plural yo.

consequences. Second, if relevant at all, the position of determiners should also matter for adjective ordering or N-omission, not just for BAN, but this is plainly not the case. 2 These facts and correlations are presented in work in progress.

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Zwazo fè nich li/yo nan prentan “Bird(s) build its/their nest in the spring.”

Importantly, the fact that HC allows general number does not entail that HC N are default mass or lack a mass/count distinction.3 HC mass N, like English ones, are incompatible with plural, numerals and quantifiers like kek (some) restricted to count N. (9)

a. *dlo yo *“the waters” b. *twa /kek dlo *“three/some water”

HC mass N, contrasting with count N, only license singular, never plural, pronominal reference. (10)

Paske lò (se bagay ki) ra, li/*yo chè “Because gold is rare, it is expensive.”

Finally, HC mass N are incompatible with reciprocal predicates. As these facts suggest, minimal parts are accessible to syntax for HC count N, not mass N. (11)

a. Neg, se yon rayi lot “As for people, one hates the other.” b. *Diri, se yon sanble lot *“As for rice, one resembles the other.”

In contrast to French, HC lacks number agreement between N and adjectives or between subjects and verbs: (12)

Yon tifi/ Anpil tifi ap rele ou “One girl is/ Many girls are calling you.”

(13)

Mes anciens amis[me zansjE Zami] *est/sont gentils “My old friends *is/are nice.”

But HC nonetheless manifests an interesting #-agreement effect within nominals. In many languages, NP with plural numerals can be definite. For 3

See Déprez (2004) contra the predictions of Chierchia (1998) or Borer (2004).

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such NP, HC manifests a clear choice in how definiteness is marked: yo is required, la ungrammatical. (14)

Kat liv yo/*la four book the (PL)/*(Sing)

Given that four in (14) already signals plurality, la could have logically sufficed to mark definiteness. As its ungrammaticality demonstrates, agreement between a definite D and its NP is required in HC. Further effects of HC number are observed in contexts involving definites. Although indefinite BAN may remain unmarked for number, HC anaphoric definites must specify number. (15)

a. Gen twa liv ak yon magazin. Pran liv yo/*la. “There are three books and one magazine. Take the books.” b. Gwen liv ak magazin sou tab sa. Pran *liv /liv yo. “There are books and magazines on the table. Take the books.”

That is, number marking although optional for HC indefinites appears obligatory for HC definites. HC can thus be said to manifest a definiteness restriction on #-marking. Table 1 summarizes the properties of HC number as compared to those of French and English and shows that the HC number system is quite distinct. The rest of this paper explicates these contrasts.

# marking is optional # is general #Agreement outside DP #Agreement inside DP # Definiteness restriction Mass/count

HC yes yes no yes yes yes

FR no no yes yes no yes

Eng no no yes yes no yes

Table 1: Comparative properties of number marking

2. 2.1

Analysis Central ideas The key idea explored here is that languages can differ in the way they individuate kind terms. In some languages (i.e. French and English), individuation is done through number. In other languages (i.e. HC), individuation takes a distinct route that I term Spatial Individuation. As a consequence of these differing individuations, the role of number is distinct in

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the two sets of languages. This, I claim, has empirical consequences for NP syntax and the licensing of BAN. The proposed analysis draws on the following background hypotheses. I assume with Carlson (1977) that N denote names of kinds and with Geach (1962) that their central property is to provide a ‘criterion of identity’, i.e. a standard of sameness by which X can be judged to be the same as Y. Since discourse is most commonly about objects, Carlson proposed that a kind be ‘realized’, i.e. mapped to the set of possible objects that are its members. Borer (2004) argues that number plays a crucial role in this operation. Taking kinds to be undivided masses that must be broken into parts to map onto count nouns, she holds number to be the linguistic factor that operates this division. Reformulating this idea,4 I take number to provide a ‘criterion of individuation’ mapping a kind onto its realizations. The idea explored here is that number is not the only ‘criterion of individuation’ languages rely on: spatialization, i.e. location in discourse space/time, offers another viable option. Count N, I propose, are the syntactic association of a ‘criterion of identity’ (a standard of sameness, e.g. a set of features/properties) with a ‘criterion of individuation’ that serves to make minimal parts accessible to syntax. This ‘criterion of individuation’ is achieved either though morphological number or through contextual spatialization, an operation pairing individuals with unique location indices. These dual options are in my view the linguistic reflex of cognitive abilities at work in object recognition. In the object recognition literature, Xu and Carey (1996) drew attention to the difference between individuating objects on the basis of spatiotemporal information, ‘the WHERE path’, and individuating objects on the basis of property information (e.g. features) ‘the WHAT path’. Kadly and Leslie (2003) proposed the model below, which they describe as follows: Low-level vision provides the brain with information about edges, surfaces, reflectance and retinotopic coordinates. This information is further processed, and representations of features (shape, color, size, etc.) and locations in an allocentric (object-centered) reference frame are established. This information can be used merely to set up an object representation (OR) in working memory (WM) (individuation) or alternatively, it can be bound to the newly created representation and be available later to re-identify the object (identification). The two processes are independent, as are the two possible routes via features vs. locations. (Kadly & Leslie 2003).

4

In contrast to Borer (2004) and Chierchia (1998), Déprez (2004) does not assume that nouns are default mass. I take both mass and count to be distinct realizations of kind, which themselves are linguistically if not cognitively neutral with respect to this distinction.

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Object representation in WM

Features

Location

Individuation: signal establishes OR Identification: information is transferred into an already established OR

Low-level vision

Figure 1: Kadly and Leslie (2003) model of object recognition processing

Building on this view, I propose that there is a linguistic reflex of the WHAT and WHERE paths of object recognition that provides distinct ‘criteria of individuation’ for kind realization, i.e. distinct routes for mapping kinds onto individual instances. I take the linguistic reflex of the WHAT path to be associated with Number Individuation. The idea is that this type of individuation consists in replicating/copying the characteristic features of a kind several times, thereby creating distinct entities with the same features or properties. On this view, number signals the repeated binding of the feature bundle that constitutes a ‘criterion of sameness’ onto distinct individuals. In this sense, number individuation puts emphasis on property information. I take the linguistic WHERE path to be associated with Spatial Individuation and to merely signal the discourse presence of a new individual through the allocation of a unique space/time index (There is an x). Properties, i.e. the feature bundle that constitutes the relevant ‘criterion of identity’, may or may not be bound to this individual, partially or entirely. The point is that emphasis is here on location, not on properties. Section 3.2 offers an implementation of these ideas and details their linguistic consequences for the distribution of BAN. 2. 2

Implementation I propose that the WHAT and WHERE paths of linguistic individuation act as nominal aspects—i.e. Seins-arten—similar to verbal aspects or Aktions-

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arten. That is, individuation operations introduce ‘modes of presentation’ of a nominal concept, i.e. ways of representing nominal concepts for use by the syntax. Space is too limited here to detail my views on nominal aspect, but for concreteness, I assume that they are introduced in syntax by a little ‘n’ node similar to Chomsky’s proposed little ‘v’ node for verbal aspect. Little ‘n’ nodes come in distinct flavors, two of which are investigated here, the ‘WHATn’ flavor and the ‘WHEREn’ flavor. Each introduces a distinct individuation operation whose output is the realization of a kind into a count noun. Beginning with the WHAT path or Number Individuation, following Déprez (2004) I take WHATn to introduce a realization function R (cf. Carlson’s realization rule) augmented by a predicate requiring realizations to be minimal (Min) and a measure function. I follow here Krifka (1995) in assuming a measure function (OU = Object Unit), which, when applied to a kind and objects, returns a number. OU is a cardinality function that gives the number of objects x instantiating the kind in a given world. (16) presents the syntactic structure and semantic denotation of the WHATn node with an English gloss. (16)

a.

nP

n: WHAT n’

n

NP (kind)

b. [|n’WHAT|]: λwλx λn [Rw(x,K) & Min(x,K) & OUw(K)(x) = n] The x that are minimal realizations of a kind and that number in n An important point to note for our purpose here is that WHATn introduces a number variable. As dictated by Full Interpretation (FI), this number variable must be appropriately bound for the structure to be interpretable. Following Déprez (2004), I assume that the binding of this variable requires the presence of a morpheme or determiner with the correct interpretation. If such a morpheme or determiner is not merged in syntax, FI is violated, as the number variable remains unbound. Consequently, opting for the WHATn ‘mode’ of presentation has the result that number must necessarily be specified. It is in this sense that WHATn is understood as Number Individuation. To put it differently, WHATn introduces a call for a number value without which the resulting nominal expression cannot be interpreted. Without number specification, the nP in (16)—our proposed syntactic representation for count N—is uninterpretable. Turning now to WHEREn, the proposal is that it introduces the realization rule R, the Min predicate but instead of a measure

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function, it uses a localization function whose effect is to pair instances of a kind with a contextually determined spatiotemporal index: (17)

n’ WHERE c : λw λx [Rw(x,K’) & Min(x, K’)& Lc(x)] The set of x that are minimal realizations of a kind and have an individuating location. L is a function that associates x with a contextually specified location.

The important point for our purpose here is that WHEREn does not introduce a number variable. As a consequence, there is no requirement for number specification. Spatial Individuation does not require a morpheme to supply an appropriate binder for a variable. Such nP are thus directly interpretable. As Spatial Individuation relies on contextual index, the result can be singular or plural, depending on the state of the context: a noun individuated by Spatial Individuation remains underspecified for number. Finally, although strictly speaking, the WHEREnP of (17) and the WHATnP of (16) differ in their understanding and effects, they nevertheless share some properties. Both associate a ‘criterion of identification’ with a ‘criterion of individuation’ and both introduce a minimality predicate. This is sufficient to meet our definition of count N. Thus, both individuation types clearly produce count N, albeit by different routes. 2.3

Applications and extensions Consider now the consequences of the two modes of individuation for nominal syntax. Nominals with WHAT individuation require number specification to saturate the introduced number variable. This number specification can be provided in different ways, each with their own consequences. I examine here English and French count N showing that for these languages, the position of number actually matters. Consider English whose plural is an affix on N. I take the plural morpheme to head a NumP projection that provides both existential closure of the number variable and a requirement that it be distinct from 1. (18a) shows the structure of the bare plural ‘books’ and (18b) its semantic denotation. (18)

a. [NumP [Num s [nP … n:what [NP book]]]] b. λx ∃n[ R(x, book) & Min(book,x) & OU(book)(x)= n ≠1]

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When the x variable gets bound by an existential or generic operator,5 (19) correctly delivers the existential or generic readings of English BAN. Note here the crucial role of plural. Were this morpheme absent, the number variable would remain unbound and a violation of FI would ensue. This, I suggest, is exactly what happens with English singular BAN (*John reads book). As English has no singular morpheme, the number variable introduced by WHATn remains unbound. Such a count N is uninterpretable unless something is introduced in the derivation to provide saturation for the number variable. This role, I suggest is taken up by the indefinite determiner ‘a’ which provides the appropriate saturation by simultaneously giving the value 1 for the number (n) variable and existentially quantifying over the x variable. See (19): (19)

∃x [ R(BOOK,x) & Min(BOOK,x) & OU (BOOK) (x) = 1]

The generalization obtained about English is that the number variable can be saturated at the NumP level. For plurals, saturation is supplied by the presence of a morpheme in Numo to which the n+N head subsequently moves. For singulars, saturation is supplied by the determiner ‘a’. If the determiner is absent, a bare singular nP is uninterpretable and excluded by FI, as it contains an unbound variable. This analysis naturally explains the fact that English BAN must be plural. As for adjective modification, if adjectives never attach lower than Num0, Bouchard’s analysis can be recaptured straightforwardly. Since number is saturated and expressed at this level, English intersective adjectives have to resort to the Elsewhere strategy and be pre-nominal. Similarly, if what was previously assumed to be N-omission is now NumPomission, then in English the entire number chain is omitted, leaving only a numberless D to recapture the omitted nominal expression, a possibility excluded by FI. Turning to French, recall that there, plural morphology is traditionally regarded as too ‘weak’ to have any effect. My analysis allows a precise characterization of this ‘weakness’. Suppose the French plural simply lacks a semantic translation. Accordingly, it is unable to provide saturation for the number variable introduced by WHATn individuation. Thus French ‘morphologically plural’ BAN violate FI. Furthermore, since French lacks a singular morpheme, singular BAN are excluded for the same reasons. In sum, a simple and immediate consequence of the proposed analysis is that FrenchBAN are generally excluded by FI. Some determiner is always required to 5

For the purpose of this paper, which theory of bare noun phrases is ultimately chosen, i.e. the ambiguity approach or the neo-Carlsonnian kind approach, is irrelevant.

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saturate the number variable introduced by WHAT individuation deriving the often noted observation that French is a ‘determiner-obsessed’ language. Taking determiners to be merged into (or moved to) D, number saturation is determined at the D-level in French. On this view, Bouchard’s proposed analysis of adjective positioning and N-omission can be recast straightforwardly, taking Num, not N, as the relevant basis. At NumP in French, the number variable has not yet been saturated. Number has not yet been determined, with the consequences predicted by Bouchard following directly. Intersective adjectives can right adjoin to Num(P) and still only modify the N itself, number being yet undetermined. Similarly, NumPomission or lack of pronunciation does not matter since what ultimately determines number interpretation is overtly expressed at the top of the number chain, i.e. in D. Let us now turn to the WHERE path of individuation and discuss the results on HC. The central relevant distinction for our purpose here is that Spatial Individuation introduces no number variable that requires saturation. Individuation is established on the basis of contextual cues that furnish the basis for a localization index. As a result, a nominal expression like liv (“book(s)”) gets directly interpreted without the need of a number morpheme: (20)

a. [NumP [Num s [nP … n:where [NP liv]]]] b.[| nWHERE|]: λx [R(x,LIV’) & Min(x, LIV’)& L(x,i)]

Its interpretation, as singular or plural is contextually determined in ways that are yet to be fully understood. The point here is that BAN are correctly expected to be freely available in HC because FI is never violated; there is no number variable in need of saturation. Note furthermore that since number remains underspecified, there is no reason to believe that it ever would interfere with adjectival modification of the whole N. If so, post-nominal intersective adjectives are predicted to be possible. As for noun omission, expectedly, relevant cases call for a definite determiner in HC. The analysis Bouchard proposed for French extends to HC. The central consequence of my analysis is that BAN are now freely allowed in HC, a welcomed consequence that does not interfere with the importance N-number has for BAN elsewhere. Additionally, the fact that HC BAN are underspecified for number also naturally follows. There are yet further welcomed consequences I now briefly turn to. Since for WHERE individuation the ‘criterion of individuation’ is contextual, it follows that under context change, individuation is made anew. This is indeed what is observed in HC. (21a) features twice the same BAN, with each instance referring to distinct entities. As Spatial Individuation is made anew for each case, the individuated houses end up being distinct.

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a. Jan te achte kay. Mary te achte kay. “John bought a house. Mary bought a house.” b. Jan te achte kay ye. Kay la pat che. “John bought a house yesterday. The house was not expensive.”

To assert that the house under discussion is the same as the one previously mentioned, the use of a definite determiner la is required. Now recall that as noted in Section 3.3, definite noun phrases are always marked for number in HC. Although it is beyond the scope of this paper to offer a precise account of this definiteness restriction on #-marking, I briefly sketch here the original avenue that my proposed analysis allows. Recall that for Kadly and Leslie (2003), the WHERE path of object individuation entails the creation of an object representation (OR) but it does not guarantee the binding of characterizing features to a given OR. As a result, a spatially individuated OR could be specified for just ‘shape’ or ‘color’, or leave most of its features underspecified. Kadly and Leslie (2003) specifically distinguish ‘individuation’ (recognition) from ‘identification’ (tracking) with only the latter requiring that a given OR be associated with features uniquely characterizing it. For them, ‘individuation’ creates an OR while ‘identification’ represents the ability to assert that a given OR is the same as itself in a potentially changing environment. Correspondingly, I proposed that Spatial Individuation delivers a linguistic individual with a specific localizing index. It could be, however, that the particular features that characterize this individual are left partly underspecified. Suppose then that number serves as a linguistic pointer that signals the binding of characterizing features to a given individual. As in object recognition, linguistic feature binding through number may occur either for individuation or identification purpose, i.e. discourse tracking. This suggests that in languages with Number Individuation, the binding of features to given individuals is obtained at the individuation stage. In such languages then individuation and identification are simultaneous. In languages with Spatial Individuation, however, as context change induces individuation anew, commitment to properties, i.e. binding to features, occurs to allow re-identification of a same individual. For these languages, number signals re-identification not individuation. In short, property commitment or feature binding may arise at distinct stages: either when an entity is individuated (Number Individuation), or when an entity must be re-identified in a changing context. In this second situation, it is hardly surprising that number should be associated with definiteness or perhaps more generally with discourse-old entities. This, I suggest, is the source of the above noted ‘definiteness restriction’ on HC number. In languages like HC, number is used

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for re-identification, not for individuation, i.e. for tracking a same linguistic individual in changing contexts. It signals identity to a previously individuated entity. This view sheds light on both the definiteness restriction on number marking in HC and on its position. Since definiteness is marked with overt D in HC, number is marked there too. The syntactic position of HC number simply follows from the choice of Spatial Individuation. 3.

Conclusion Based on a comparative study of French, English and HC, this paper explores a novel approach to the role of number in language. Number has been argued to provide a ‘criterion of individuation’ that serves to map a kind to the individuals that realize it; it is not the only such criterion however. Spatial Individuation provides another option. Consequences in the use of these two different modes of individuation include distinctions in the licensing of BAN and more generally distinctions in why, how and when number marking arises. In French and English, number triggers individuation. Thus all NP must specify number and BAN are allowed only if a morpheme appropriately binds the number variable introduced by Number Individuation. Spatial Individuation imposes no such binding requirement on HC NP so BAN are freely available. In HC, number encodes re-identification in context-changing situations and need be specified only on discourse-old entities, i.e. on definites. I take these two modes of individuation to be the linguistic reflex of distinct cognitive routes in object recognition, the WHAT and the WHERE paths. If so, this paper suggests that number is the linguistic reflex of options instantiated elsewhere in human cognition and not directly linked to counting. References Borer, Hagit. 2004. Structuring Sense. In Name Only. Vol I. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Bouchard, Denis. 2002. Adjectives, Number and Interfaces: WhyLanguages Vary. Oxford: Elsevier Science. Carlson, Greg. 1977. “Reference to kinds in English”. Doctoral dissertation, University of Massachusetts-Amherst. Chierchia, Gennaro. 1998. “Reference to kinds across languages”. Natural Language Semantics 6 : 4. 339-400. Corbett, Greville. 2000. Number. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Delfitto, Denis. & J. Shroeten. 1991. “Bare plurals and the number affix in DP”. Probus 3:2. 15-185. Déprez, Viviane. 2005. “Morphological Number, Semantic Number and Bare Nouns”. Lingua. 115. 857-883

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Geach, Peter. 1962. Reference and generality. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Joseph, Frantz.L. 1989. “La determination nominale en créole haitien”. Thèse de doctorat 3ème cycle. Université de Paris VII. Kádly, Zsuza & Alan M. Leslie. 2003. “Identification of objects in 9-monthold infants: integrating ‘what’ and ‘where’ information”. Developmental Science 6:3. 360-373 Krifka, Manfred. 1995. “Common nouns: a contrastive analysis of Chinese and English”. The Generic Book. ed. by G. Carlson and F. Pelletier. Chicago: Chicago University Press. Longobardi, Guiseppe. 1994. “ Reference and proper nouns”. Linguistic Inquiry 25. 609-666. Xu, Fei., & Susan Carey. 1996. “Infants’ metaphysics: the case of numerical Identity”. Cognitive Psychology, 30. 111–153.

THE DIACHRONIC DEVELOPMENT OF A FRENCH INDEFINITE PRONOUN COMPARING CHACUN TO AUCUN

‫٭‬

AMANDA C. EDMONDS Indiana University

0.

Introduction In recent years, diachronic syntacticians have begun to consider single lexical items in great detail: Déprez and Martineau (2004) for aucun “none, not any”, Martineau and Déprez (2004) for rien “nothing”, Eguren and Sánchez (2004) for autre/otro “other”, and Longobardi (2001) for chez. In addition to providing insight into the development of single words, these studies have also revealed diachronic information on the general organization of the French DP. I contribute to this growing literature with a diachronic profile of the French universal quantifier chacun “each”. The study that I present draws on a new corpus of more than 4000 examples dating from the beginning of the 12th through the middle of the 20th century. These data allow for a detailed characterization of the diachronic development of chacun not available in previous literature (Section 1). In Section 2, the development of chacun is compared to Déprez and Martineau’s (hereafter D & M) diachronic discussion of the quantifier aucun. Although distributional similarities suggest that a unified analysis of these two lexical items might be possible, I demonstrate that the similarities are superficial and that there exists as yet no compelling evidence in favor of unification. Following this discussion, I advocate an alternative diachronic syntactic analysis of chacun (Section 3). 1.

Chacun: The 12th-20th centuries To construct the database for this project, three electronic collections of French texts — the Amsterdam Korpus, the ARTFL corpus, and the LFA ‫٭‬

I am grateful to Barbara Vance for the discussions, suggestions, and guidance that she generously offered and to Dorian Roehrs for his helpful comments on an earlier draft.

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corpus — were searched for examples of cha(s)cun(e).1 Because few texts from the 14th and 15th centuries are found in these collections, two additional texts were included.2 Given the large number of tokens found for the eight centuries under study, not all instances could be examined. Instead, only tokens from the first quarter of each century (12th-20th) were included. Exceptions were made in two cases: (a) the periods of 1100-1150, 1151-1200, and 1500-1599 were examined, due to a paucity of tokens and (b) an additional sampling period was added (1326-1400) both because of low token counts and because the transition from Old French (OF) to Middle French (MidF) is generally dated around 1325. No tokens were excluded unless questions about appropriate coding could not be resolved. Because chronological date was the sole criterion in selecting tokens, the database is comprised of examples from several geographic regions and includes both lyric and prose forms. The tokens in the final database—half of which are lyric and half of which were taken from prose—were drawn from approximately 300 different texts. The use of chronological date as the sole criterion also resulted in many more masculine examples (3502) than feminine examples (655). 1.1.

Chacun: OF and MidF During OF and MidF, the constructions available to chacun show greater variety than is found today: Whereas Modern French possesses two lexemes to express the distributive notion of ‘each’ (chacun is the pronoun and chaque is the modifier), in OF and MidF, chacun fulfilled both roles. This multiplicity of function can be seen in (1). In (1a-b), chacun is shown as a pronoun and (1c) illustrates the use of chacun as a noun modifier. Note that modifier chacun can be employed simultaneously with other adjectives, as in (1c), but that these adjectives follow the universal quantifier. (1) a. Chascun aime mex soi qu’autrui: “Each person loves himself better than he loves others” 1180, Béroul. Roman de Tristan: LFA b. …chascune de pitié commence a larmoier… “Each girl begins to shed tears out of pity” 1350, Anonymous, Beaudouin de Sebourc: LFA

1

Searches included variant spellings such as ca(s)cun(e), che(s)cun(e), and so forth. Electronic versions of Joinville’s Vie de Saint Louis (1306) and de la Sale’s Jehan de Saintré (1456) were provided by Barbara Vance. 2

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c. chascuns bons hom e chascune bone femme qui sent l amor de nostre seignor “each good man and each good woman who feels the love of our lord” 1200-1275, sully2: Amsterdam Korpus Even though chacun fulfilled two different roles, the modifier examples were always less numerous: Noun modifier examples only account for between 10% and 40% of tokens. Proportionally, modifier examples are most numerous between 1300 and 1325, which is followed by a steady decrease in the MidF texts. The changes in amount of modifier examples cannot be clearly imputed to the existence of another modifier form: A search of all OF and MidF texts consulted yielded only four examples of the modern modifier chaque. The distribution of modifier and pronominal uses of chacun is presented in Table 1. Modifier Date OF 1100-1150 1151-1199 1200-1225 1300-1325 MidF 1326-1399 1456

n

%

n

Pronominal %

12/90 96/593 231/869 114/310

13.3% 16.2% 26.6% 36.8%

78/90 497/593 638/869 195/310

86.7% 83.8% 73.4% 62.9%

62/424 6/62

14.6% 9.7%

362/424 56/62

85.4% 90.3%

Table 1: Distribution of chacun between 1100 and 1456

In addition to its use as a pronoun and noun modifier, chacun can be preceded by the indefinite article un within the same DP: un(e) chacun(e) “one each”.3 Buridant (2000) termed this construction the ‘emphatic construction’, potentially because un supports the distributive reading of chacun, a possibility suggested by Roehrs (2004) for the similar German construction ein jeder “one each”. Examples of the emphatic construction are given in (2a-c). (2) a.

3

…mes uns chascuns le despira… “but each and every one4 will scorn him” 1300-1325, contre: Amsterdam Korpus

The two constituents of this emphatic construction always show full agreement for Case, which suggests that the construction is not a compound, as each member of a compound generally receives Case in its original position. Thanks to Dorian Roehrs for this insight. 4 All instances of the emphatic constructions will be translated as “each and every” for the sake of consistency.

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b. il fut despolliez d une chascune “he was deprived of each and every one” OF, bern2: Amsterdam Korpus c. A un chascun couvent cent livres “To each and every convent, one hundred pounds 1378, Anonymous, Miracle de sainte Bautheuch, LFA In my database, there are 22 examples of this construction, including noun modifier (2c) and pronominal examples (2a-b) and examples in both genders (masculine: 2a and 2c; feminine: 2b). Although only three of the 22 examples are feminine, this number must be understood with respect to the overall relatively small number of feminine examples examined (145). Thus, collapsing across gender, the emphatic construction only appears infrequently during the OF and MidF periods, as it accounts for less than 1% of tokens examined (22/2348). 1.2.

Chacun: The 16th-18th centuries Although chacun of the 16th-18th centuries continues to be employed in the same constructions identified in 1.1, the distributional tendencies have changed and continue to change over the course of this time period. Modifier and pronominal examples are attested, although the latter are clearly dominant as the former never account for as much as 10% of all tokens. The distribution of chacun for this time period is given in Table 2. Modifier Date 1500-1599 1600-1625 1700-1725

n 5/63 24/400 1/400

% 7.9% 6% .3%

Pronominal n % 57/63 90.5% 375/400 93.8% 399/400 99.7%

Table 2: Distribution of chacun in the 16th-18th centuries

The original emphatic construction described in 1.1 continues to be attested during this time period and, in the 16th century, a second emphatic construction makes its first appearance in my database. This emphatic construction combines two universal quantifiers whose meanings are generally thought to be in conflict: tout chacun “all each”. An example of the new emphatic construction is given in (3).

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(3) …que la vie de tout chacun puisse estre à tout moment ravie… “that the life of each and every one can be taken away at any moment” 1579; Robert Garnier. Antigone: ARTFL Both of the emphatic constructions appear only in the masculine beginning in the 16th century. Because of the relatively small number of feminine examples included in my database, I verified this observation with a search of all texts of this time period in the ARTFL collection: No examples of the emphatic construction in the feminine were found, with only two exceptions.5 The asymmetry between OF and MidF (feminine examples of the emphatic construction are attested, see example 2b) and the 16th-18th centuries (feminine examples are no longer attested, even when examples outside my database are considered) will be important in my analysis. Finally, whereas the emphatic construction accounted for less than 1% of all examples during OF and MidF, in the three centuries that follow, these constructions are more frequent and account for a little over 6% of all examples examined (54/862). 1.3.

Chacun: Modern French (19th-20th centuries) Modern French witnesses the specialization of chacun as a pronoun, and chaque — which begins to come into its own only in the 16th century (Pope 1934) — is established as the modifier counterpart. Thus, no examples of modifier chacun are found after 1800. However, even as its syntactic functions are restricted, the variety of emphatic constructions available to chacun increases: Between 1800 and 1925, un chacun, tout chacun, and the newcomer tout un chacun “all one each” (an apparent hybrid still attested today) are found. As was the case in the previous time period, these constructions are only attested in the masculine. However, unlike the distribution noted for the 16th-18th centuries, in Modern French these constructions are less common than previously: In my database, they account for only .25% of the tokens examined (2/800), although a search of all of the texts dated in this time period on ARTFL revealed examples of each type of construction. An example of the newest addition to the collection of emphatic constructions is given in (4). (4)

5

…révélé à tout un chacun par l’écartement d’une croisée… “revealed to each and every one by the gap of a window” 1900, Courteline. Gendarme. Art. 330. Boubouroche: ARTFL

One from Rabelais (1534), who is known for his archaisms and creativity with language, the second from Charron (1601). Finally, Palsgrave’s grammar (1530) mentions the possibility of une chacune.

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1.4.

Summary During OF and MidF, chacun was both a pronoun and a noun modifier, with modifier examples accounting for approximately 24% of tokens during OF. In the centuries that followed, examples of modifier chacun decreased: In MidF, only 14% of tokens are modifier examples, and this percentage drops to 3.5% during the 16th-18th centuries. In addition to distributional shifts, changes in the emphatic construction (in terms of agreement possibilities) as well as in the variety of these constructions available are apparent. More specifically, although OF and MidF un chacun is attested in the feminine, this possibility is gradually lost, leaving only the masculine version. Finally, data from the centuries following the end of MidF reveal the introduction of two additional emphatic constructions, both of which include two universal quantifiers. These tendencies are summarized in Table 3.

Time period OF

Modifier n %

Pronominal n %

453/1862

24.3%

1408/1862

75.6%

MidF

68/486

14%

410/486

86%

16th-18th centuries Modern French

30/862

3.5%

830/862

96.3%

0/800

0%

800/800

100%

Emphatic Description Un chacun (Pro and Mod), full agreement Un chacun (Pro and Mod), full agreement Un chacun (Pro), invariable Tout chacun (Pro), invariable Un chacun (Pro), invariable Tout chacun (Pro), invariable Tout un chacun (Pro), invariable

Table 3: Diachronic distribution of chacun

2.

Aucun: A microparametric variation analysis In their 2004 study, D & M offer a microparametric variation analysis of the diachronic development of aucun.6 Although perhaps not evident given their modern roles, parallels in both the past functions and forms of chacun and aucun hint at the possibility of a unified diachronic analysis of these two lexical items. First, both served simultaneously as pronoun and modifier during OF and MidF, only to later specialize. Second, as noted by D & M, these two 6

‘Microparametric variation’ is based on the idea of parameters: Whereas changes in major parameters will affect far-reaching and often superficially dissimilar aspects of a grammar, changes in the setting of small parameters may only affect single or a small group of lexical items. Major parameters are thought to be resistant to change, whereas minor parameters are susceptible to it. Microparametric variation generally refers to changes in small parameters.

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modern quantifiers (universal and negative, respectively) are superficially similar in terms of morphosyntax: The indefinite article un can be located at the end of both lexical items (but see Grévisse 1993 for differences in their histories). Given these similarities, this section will review the history of aucun and the analysis proposed by D & M with a view to determining whether or not a similar analysis can be fruitfully extended to the chacun data. 2.1.

Aucun: OF and MidF In their discussion of the diachronic development of aucun, D & M (2004) cite distributional and semantic changes in favor of their analysis. These authors find that aucun was both a pronoun and a noun modifier, and that it occurred in the plural and the singular during OF and MidF. They also note that aucun could appear preceded by the definite article (les aucuns “the any”), which resembles the emphatic construction un chacun in its composition (although not in its meaning). Finally, the authors indicate that modifier aucun can appear either pre- or postnominally. In terms of semantics, aucun of OF and MidF is a positive quantifier with a positive meaning, even in negative contexts (i.e., it takes scope over negation). Given these distributional and semantic clues, the authors propose that aucun is found high in the DP (either in D0 or Spec) during OF and MidF: [DP aucun [NP ∅ ]]. 2.2.

Aucun: The 16th-18th centuries The three centuries following the end of MidF witness important changes in the distribution and semantics of aucun. With regard to its distribution, aucun is used predominantly as a singular modifier, can still be preceded by the definite article, and its use as a postnominal modifier increases (postnominally, aucun is indisputably in a modifier position). Turning to the semantics, the authors find that aucun is used more in polarity and negative contexts, to the detriment of positive ones: The meaning of aucun becomes indeterminate and context-dependent (i.e., negation takes scope over aucun). D & M (2004) explain these changes by lowering aucun to an adjectival position within the NP. This lowering correlates with the increase in modifier examples, the increase in postnominal modification, and provides an explanation for the indeterminate interpretation of aucun. More specifically, they propose that a null element that must be licensed for interpretation is located in the upper layers of the DP: [DP ∅ [NP aucun ]]. 2.3.

Aucun: Modern French D & M (2004) note that plural and pronominal uses almost entirely disappear, leaving only singular determiner examples during the 19th and 20th

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centuries. The semantics of aucun have also changed, and this lexical item is now a negative quantifier. (Examples of aucun as a polarity item are almost entirely restricted to uses with sans “without.”) The authors contend that these changes are best accounted for syntactically if aucun has raised from a modifier position to the head of DP: [DP aucun [NP ∅ ]]. Although the authors acknowledge that this analysis leaves questions unanswered (e.g., What roles do number and negation play in this change?), the proposed analysis is generally supported by diachronic evidence, both distributional and semantic. In what follows, I question whether the diachronic history of chacun supports a similar microparametric variation analysis. 2.4.

Does chacun lower? As outlined previously, D & M’s (2004) analysis entails first a lowering of aucun (from high in the DP to an adjectival position within the NP) followed by a raising of aucun (from the adjectival position to D0). To determine whether evidence exists for a similar change in the history of chacun, I will consider the first half of this analysis: the lowering. I chose to examine the possibility of lowering because of chacun’s status as a universal quantifier: Following both literature on universal quantifiers (Giusti 1991; Zamparelli 2000) and observations of my data, I assume that chacun is located high in the DP. Thus, if chacun shows a development similar to the one proposed for aucun, evidence of lowering in its history will be found. On the basis of semantic and distributional evidence, D & M (2004) argue that aucun lowered to an adjectival position during the 16th-18th centuries. In terms of semantics, the authors interpreted the use of aucun in polarity and negative contexts as indicative of the existence of a null element in D0, forcing aucun to be low in the NP. Additionally, three pieces of distributional evidence were cited in support of a lowered, adjectival aucun: (a) modifier uses increased, (b) postnominal modifier examples increased, and (c) the co-occurrence of the definite article and aucun was possible. (However, note that postnominal modification as well as aucun’s co-occurrence with the definite article were both attested during OF and MidF as well.) These same potential sources of evidence—semantic and distributional—will be explored with regard to the diachronic data for chacun. As concerns the potential diachronic changes in the semantics of chacun, I have not yet undertaken a formal examination of all of the tokens in my database. Although I am therefore not able to comment on diachronic semantic changes, an examination of Modern French chacun is revealing. Modern French appears to have two different chacuns at its disposal: invariable chacun, which refers to all people without distinction, only occurs in

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the masculine, and is perhaps more accurately rendered in English as “everyone,” and pronominal referential chacun, which can refer to individuals and can be used in the masculine or in the feminine, as dictated by the referent. This distinction will be referred to in the final analysis. In assessing the possibility of the lowering of chacun, distributional evidence is telling and I start by considering the data from OF and MidF. Beginning with the proportion of modifier examples, the highest level was reached at the beginning of the 14th century, when modifier examples accounted for nearly 40% of tokens. Thus, if an increase in modifier examples is a correlate to the lowering of a lexical item to an adjectival position, then it would follow that chacun may have lowered around 1300. However, it must be pointed out that the value of this piece of evidence on its own is questionable. First, although the percentage of modifier examples is highest at this period, modifier chacun fails to account for the majority of tokens, which is perhaps unexpected if chacun is in an adjectival position. Second, I have purposely used the general term noun modifier to refer to examples in which chacun precedes a NP within the same DP, without advocating whether the universal quantifier is in an adjectival position (Spec, NP) or in a determiner or quantifier position (higher in the DP). The vast majority of modifier chacun examples are ambiguous between chacun as a determiner or quantifier and chacun as an adjective (e.g., chacun jour “each day”).7 As such, even the noun modifier examples do not provide clear evidence of the lowering of chacun to an adjectival position. D & M’s (2004) second distributional indicator of lowering can be disregarded with respect to chacun, as this quantifier never occurs as a postnominal modifier in my database. The final piece of evidence to consider is the co-occurrence of chacun and the indefinite article. Just as the linear ordering of les aucuns led D & M to suggest that les occupied D0, forcing aucuns to be placed low in the NP, the superficial ordering of un chacun seems to necessitate a similar analysis. Although this construction is consistent with an analysis in which chacun has lowered to an adjectival position of a NP that is either null or lexically filled (in either case, phi features would be specified in N0), other analyses are possible (see 3.1). Thus, evidence for lowering of chacun during OF and MidF is comprised of an elevated proportion of modifier examples (which cannot be verified as adjectival) and the existence of emphatic constructions that appear infrequently during this time period (accounting for less than 1% of tokens). As such, I do not believe that the evidence supports an analysis that places chacun low during OF and MidF. 7

Chacun can license an argument NP. According to Eguren and Sánchez (2004), this licensing capability implies that chacun was, or at least could be, a determiner.

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During the 16th-18th centuries, the distributional data seem to lead to conflicting conclusions: The decrease in modifier examples argues against the lowering of chacun, whereas the increase in emphatic constructions seems to argue for it. I propose that the increase in emphatic constructions spuriously implies the lowering of chacun, and that this apparent contradiction can be resolved with reference to the emphatic constructions’ agreement patterns. As noted in 1.4, all emphatic constructions from the 16th century through Modern French are masculine, whereas examples in both genders are found in OF and MidF. If the increase in emphatic constructions during the 16th-18th centuries is an indication that chacun is in an adjectival position, the lack of feminine emphatic construction examples is unexpected given the agreement relation that should obtain: Chacun in an adjectival position within a NP — be it null or lexical — should agree with the phi features specified in N0 and, logically, both genders should be possible. Thus, the agreement facts provide indirect evidence that chacun is not in an adjectival position, and I find no proof of lowering to the NP during the 12th-20th centuries. In the following Section, I propose an alternative account of the diachronic data for chacun. 3.

An alternative account for chacun In 2.4, I maintained that chacun and aucun follow different diachronic paths insofar as no compelling evidence for the lowering of chacun to the NP was found. Although the two lexical items follow separate diachronic developments, the syntactic analysis of chacun that I propose in this section entails a microparametric variation analysis. For this syntactic analysis, I assume an agreement relationship that follows from Panagiotidis (2003a, 2003b), who proposed that pronouns are not intransitive. As a result, pronouns select for a null NP and, importantly, the pronoun shows agreement with the phi features specified on the null NP. 3.1.

Analysis: OF and MidF As argued in 2.4, I do not find proof that chacun is located within the NP during OF and MidF. However, the existence of the emphatic construction — in both genders and as both noun modifier and pronoun — implies that chacun is not located as high as D0. This suggests that the universal quantifier is found in an intermediate position in the DP, as illustrated in (5). At present, I have simply labeled this position Functional Projection (FP), although it may be possible to conceive of this FP in terms of the Word Marker Projection of Bernstein (1993).

DIACHRONIC DEVELOPMENT OF CHACUN

(5)

93

DP D1

Spec D | (uni)

FP Spec F | chacuni

F1 NP | N1 | ei jouri

Chacun is located in the same intermediate position as a noun modifier (N0 is lexically filled), as a pronoun (N0 is null), and when part of the emphatic construction (the indefinite article is in D0). Because this analysis proposes that a NP — either null or lexically filled — is always projected, it follows that noun modifier, pronominal, and emphatic construction examples will be attested in both genders. The data support this expectation. 3.2.

Analysis: 16th century to Modern French I propose that the single syntactic structure in (5) evolved into two distinct structures around the 16th century. This evolution from a single structure into two different structures results in the differentiation of invariable uses of chacun (including the emphatic constructions) from pronominal referential uses. Building on Panagiotidis’ notion of agreement, I suggest that modern invariable chacun continues to be generated in the intermediate position of OF and MidF. This modern construction differs from (5) in two important ways: First, the FP no longer selects a NP, allowing only invariable uses and, second, a higher layer QP is projected, providing an explanation for the linearization tout (un) chacun. The structure is given in (6). (6) [QP (tout) [DP (un) [FP chacun ]]] In my account, pronominal referential chacun is distinct from (6) insofar as a NP continues to be selected (explaining the possibility of chacun and chacune) and, like other strong quantifiers, chacun is now found in Q0. (This proposal suggests a difference in the quantificational properties of

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invariable and referential chacun, a possibility that I have not yet examined). This structure is presented in (7). (7) [QP chacun [DP […[NP ]]]] 4.

Conclusions To begin this chapter, I detailed the diachronic development of the French indefinite pronoun chacun. I then examined an existing diachronic analysis for a different French lexical item and determined that it could not be justifiably extended to the data for chacun. Finally, I presented a diachronic syntactic analysis of chacun that assumed one underlying structure during OF and MidF that developed into two separate structures after the 16th century. Despite the advantages of this analysis, certain tendencies — such as the increase in emphatic constructions during the 16th-18th centuries — are left unaccounted for. Additionally, this analysis makes predictions that need to be tested. For instance, it is assumed that all examples of chacun during OF and MidF selected a NP. This assumption implies that invariable uses of chacun, as defined syntactically in 3.2, were not attested before the 16th century. Finally, although both chacun and aucun are quantifiers in Modern French, the presence versus the absence of negation clearly distinguishes these two lexical items; thus, this comparative study points to the possible crucial role of negation in diachronic changes. In addition to these tendencies and predictions deserving of further attention, this project points to several areas that might be explored and subsequently brought to bear both on the development of chacun and on diachronic changes in the French DP. Specifically, this chapter would be complemented by similar studies on the developments of other universal quantifiers in the history of French (e.g., tout “all”) as well as on the development of the modern adjective chaque “each”. References Bernstein, Judy. 1993. “The syntactic role of word markers in null nominal constructions”. Probus 5.5-38. Buridant, Claude. 2000. Grammaire nouvelle de l’ancien français. Paris: SEDES/HER. Déprez, Viviane, & France Martineau. 2004. “Micro-parametric variation and negative concord”. Contemporary approaches to Romance linguistics, ed. by Julie Auger, J. Clancy Clements, & Barbara Vance, 139-158. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Eguren, Luis, & Cristina Sánchez. 2004. “Contrast and addition in Romance: A case study in microvariation”. Contemporary approaches to Romance

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linguistics, ed. by Julie Auger, J. Clancy Clements, & Barbara Vance, 159176. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Grévisse, Maurice. 1993. André Goosse (Ed.) Le Bon Usage (13th ed.). Paris: Duculot. Giusti, Guiliana. 1991. “The categorical status of quantified nominals”. Linguistische Berichte 138.438-454. Longobardi, Guiseppe. 2001. “Formal syntax, diachronic minimalism, and etymology: The history of French chez”. Linguistic Inquiry 32.275-301. Martineau, France, & Viviane Déprez. 2004. “Pas Aucun/Pas Rien en français classique: Variation dialectale et historique”. Langue française 143.33-47. Palsgrave, John. 1530. Lesclaircissement de la langue francoyse. Menston: Facsimile (Reprinted by Scolar Press, 1969) Panagiotidis, Phoevos. 2003a. “Empty nouns”. Natural Language & Linguistic Theory 21.381-432. ----------. 2003b. “One, empty nouns, and (theta)-assignment”. Linguistic Inquiry 34.281-292. Pope, M. K. 1934. From Latin to Modern French with especial consideration of Anglo-Norman. Manchester: Manchester University Press. Roehrs, Dorian. 2004. “German ein jeder as a ‘late’ compound”. Ms, Indiana University. Zamparelli, Roberto. 2000. Layers in the determiner phrase. New York: Garland Publishing. Data Sources Amsterdam Literary Corpus, established by Anthonij Dees and associates, Free University Amsterdam, and made available to the University of Stuttgart by Piet van Reenen. Tagged version made available by Achim Stein, University of Stuttgart. The Project for American and French Research on the Treasury of the French Language (ARTFL), the University of Chicago http://humanities.uchicago.edu/orgs/ARTFL/. Laboratoire de Français Ancien (LFA), the University of Ottawa. http://www.uottawa.ca/academic/arts/lfa/.

A SYNTACTIC ANALYSIS OF ITALIAN DE-VERBAL NOUNS

FRANCA FERRARI-BRIDGERS Princeton University, Department of French and Italian

0.

Theoretical Framework and Proposal In the spirit of recent minimalist works on word formation processes (see Josefsson 1997, Marantz 1997, Lacarme 2001, Julien 2002, among others) I assume that Merge and Move are the primary operations involved in the derivation of Italian de-verbal nouns. Specifically, I argue that de-verbal noun formation is a syntactic process that consists of the merger of a nominal feature [n] with either a verbal stem, an AspectP or a VoiceP. As illustrated in (1), [n] is morphologically represented either by a derivational morpheme or by a null nominal head [henceforth NØ]. 1 (1) [nP [n (NØ/derivational morpheme)[XP (v-stem/AspP/VoiceP)]]] Because more than one aspectual projection is involved in the derivation of deverbal nouns, I adopt Cinque’s IP-representation (1999:106) as adequate underlying structure. However, given the incompatibility of the feature Tense with de-verbal noun formations (see Alexiadou (2001) and Ferrari-Bridgers (2005a & b), the projections relevant for my analysis are those located below Cinque’s TP-anterior and printed in boldface in (2).

1

It goes beyond the scope of this paper to show how Move is implemented in the derivation of de-verbal nouns. For a step-by-step derivation of Italian de-verbal nouns see Ferrari-Bridgers (2005b), where, following Kayne (1994, 2005), Koopman and Szabolcsi (2000) and Roeper (1999) it is assumed that Move is leftward, phrasal and not necessarily feature-driven. Following Kayne’s constraints on movement (2005:331), in fact, movement can be “blind” to “categorial (and other) features” and “what is moved where is entirely determined by what is merged (in a given derivation) and in what order.” In other words, movement can also be “closeness driven.”

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(2) Mood speech act >…XP…> aspect repetitive (I)> aspect frequentative (I)>… XP… >T-anterior > XP > aspect continuative> aspect perfect (?)> XP >aspect durative> aspect generic/progressive> XP > aspect completive (I)> (well) Voice P> (fast/early) aspect celerative (II)> aspect repetitive (II)> aspect frequentative (II)> aspect completive (II). In table 1, I list the most productive Italian de-verbal nouns with their proposed place of syntactic formation. Place of formation Aspect Perfect (?) Aspect Continuative Aspect Generic Voice P Aspect Repetitive (II) Below VP (verbal stem)

De-verbal noun type Feminine Past Participle Nominalizations Infinitive Nominalizations VN compound and nouns in –tore/mento/zione/tura Masculine Past Participle Nominalizations Nouns in –ìo Zero Derived nominals Table 1: De-verbal Nouns

As the analysis of each de-verbal noun type will show in section (2), the main goal of this paper is to demonstrate that semantic and morphological differences across the large variety of Italian de-verbal nouns are reducible to syntactic differences, i.e., the meaning of each de-verbal noun and the morphological properties of its verbal base determine the nature of XP 2.

De-verbal nouns formed on Aspect Generic In table (2) I provide a complete sample of Aspect Generic derived nominals divided according to their verbal theme, i.e., verbal stem+thematic vowel. In Italian there are three thematic vowels, e.g., [-a,-e,-i], each of them representing one of the three verbal conjugations, whose infinitive endings are respectively -are, -ere, -ire. Verbal theme VN compound -tore(trice) -tura -mento -zione

2

Trit-a-(re) Vend-e-(re) Serv-i-(re) trit-a-carne vend-i-fumo apr-i-bottiglia “meatgrinder” “smoke seller” “bottle opener” mangi-a-tore “eater” vend-i-tore “seller” serv-i-tore “servant” spacc-a-tura “split” fend-i-tura (cleft) vest-i-tura “dressing” pag-a-mento sparg-i-mento invest-i-mento “payment” “spreading” “investment” vener-a-zione“worship” perd-i-zione “ruin” eboll-i-zione “boiling” 2 Table 2: De-verbal nouns formed on Aspect Generic

As the anonymous reviewer indicates derived nouns such as scrittore/scrivere (“writer/to write”), produttore/produrre (“manufacturer/to produce”), etc. lack GA morphology. These

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99 99

All the nouns showed in table (2) have an identical verbal base that is characterized by a verbal stem followed by the vocalic segments [-a,-i,-i]. In section (2.1), I argue that [-a,-i,-i] are aspect generic morphemes and that the generic nature of VPs lacking tense and agreement features justifies the merger of [n] in the IP. 2.1.

Aspect (habitual) Generic I will first analyze VN-compound nouns and de-verbal nouns in -tore. The analysis of de-verbal nouns in –mento/-zione/-tura will be given in section (2.2). I argue that the hypothesis that [-a,-i,-i] are aspect generic morphemes is motivated semantically, syntactically and morphologically. The proposed initial underlying structure for this de-verbal noun type is given in (3). (3) [nP [n [Asp GenericP [XP… [VP]]]]]3 Semantically, as demonstrated in Ferrari-Bridgers (2005b), the assumption that [-a,-i,-i] are aspect generic morphemes accounts (i) for the fact that in VN compounds4 and in nouns in -tore the verb has a habitual generic and not an episodic reading and (ii) for the bare object condition of the complement of these two de-verbal nouns. With regards to the generic reading, I argue that VN compounds and nouns in -tore are types of generic expressions showing many similarities with sentences marked by the presence of a (habitual) generic aspect. According to Dahl (1985: 95-97), (habitual) generic aspect is used in generic sentences to describe “the typical or characteristic properties of a kind” and according to Cinque (1999:99) “a Generic Aspect sentence seems to refer to some inherent characteristic (of an Object) that may not yet have had realization.”

nouns are considered exceptions, because they are derived from a close set of verbs with irregular paradigms. 3 The structure in (3) represents the initial underlying structure of a deverbal noun; its final output is obtained through movement as showed below for the VN compound apri scatole (“can opener”). Merger of GA with VP: [GAP [GA–i [VP [XP scatole] [VP [V apr-]]]]] Move VP to spec of GAP: [GAP [VP apr-]i [GA-i][VP [XP scatole][ti]]] Merger of NØ: [NP [NØ [GAP [VP apr-]i[GA i][VP [XP scatole][ti]]]]] (Ferrari-Bridgers 2005:97) 4

Prati (1931) and Tollemache (1945) observed the habitual reading of VN compound nouns in Italian.

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Carlson et al.’s (1995:7) genericity test, i.e., the paraphrases of VN compound nouns and nouns in -tore into generic expressions with characterizing constructions such as is used to and the adverb usually, reveals the generic nature of these nouns. As the examples in (4) and (5) suggest, VN compound nouns and nouns in –tore describe the typical properties of a kind (X). (4) a. apriscatole open cans “can-opener” b. X usualmente apre scatole X “usually opens cans” c. X si usa per aprire scatole X “is used to open cans” (5) a. bevitore (di birra) drinker (of beer) “beer-drinker” b. X usualmente beve birra X “usually drinks beer “ c. X é solito bere birra X “is used to drink beer” (Ferrari-Bridgers 2005a: 98) In addition, as Carlson et al. (1995:7) suggest for English, agentive nouns such as ‘pipe smoker’ have a generic meaning. These nouns describe an agent actually or potentially performing a habitual action. Normally, if they are used as predicates in a sentence, the sentence acquires a generic meaning. Similarly, many Italian VN compound nouns and nouns in –tore correspond to English agentive nouns e.g., fumatore di pipa “pipe smoker” and portalettere “mail carrier”. With regards to the bare condition of the object, the examples in (6) and (7) show that the object of VN compound nouns and nouns in –tore must be bare. For nouns in –tore, however, the contrast occurs in an out-of-the blue context and with an object that is not further modified.

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(6) apri (*le/delle) scatole5 “open (*the/some)cans” (7)

il venditore di (*dei) giornali the seller of (*the) newspapers “the newspaper seller”

According to Dahl (1985, 1975: 108) verbs in (habitual) generic aspect can select for generic noun phrases, i.e., a NP that quantifies “over possible objects rather than over actual ones.” According to Chierchia (1998), in Italian bare nouns can be generic NPs, and for Longobardi (2001: 353), “bare nouns are generic objects only when the predicate selecting them has a habitual and not episodic reading.” For Longobardi, the habitual aspect feature is one of the operators providing the characterizing environment necessary for the licensing of bare nouns. It follows that the presence of [-a,-i,-i] as expression of habitual aspect becomes necessary for the licensing of bare generic objects in compound nouns and derived nouns. Morphologically, following Ferrari-Bridgers (2005b), I claim that habitual generic aspect morphology has double derivational and inflectional nature. Such a nature justifies the syntactic merger of nominal feature [n] with Aspect GenericP. According to Bergstand (1994:329-330), in the Eskimo language, Aleut, habitual generic aspect morphology appears in the general, i.e., a finite form of the verb that is tenseless and moodless. Bergstand claims that “being a zero tense, and a zero mood, the general may also be nominal depending on the syntactic construction.” Similarly, it is possible to assume that, in Italian, the presence of (habitual) generic aspect morphology indicates a zero tense and zero mood verbal form, whose derivation depends on the syntactic environment. This predicts that a verb marked by a habitual generic aspect can acquire (i) a nominal reading, if it merges with a nominal element, or (ii) can have a verbal reading, if it merges with other inflectional verbal features. This prediction is borne out. The derivational nature of the habitual generic aspect is confirmed by the fact verbal bases marked for the generic aspect morpheme serve as bases for all the derived nominals given in table (1); whereas, the inflectional nature 5

The anonymous reviewer notes that in French there are nominal compounds with an internal determiner, e.g., coupe-(la)-soif, trompe-la-mort. According to Kampers-Manhe (PC), this type of compounds is unproductive in French. Like Italian compounds, productive French VN compound nouns do not have an internal determiner, e.g., *ouvre la boite “bottle opener”.

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of habitual generic aspect is confirmed by the formal similarity of aspect generic forms with the 2nd person imperatives [trita, vendi, apri], which, according to Zanuttini (1997:114), are “bare verbal forms with zero tense and mood.” This suggests that a verb in a Aspect Generic form can acquire a verbal reading, for instance an imperative one, if it is in a verbal environment, i.e., if the habitual generic aspect form can be embedded under a null imperative mood head (Kayne PC). The imperative force is structurally determined by the position the bare verbal form occupies into CP. But it can also acquire a nominal reading if it merges with a nominal head. 2.2.

De-verbal nouns in mento/zione/tura and nominalized infinitives Syntactically, I argue that de-verbal nouns in -mento/-zione/-tura are built also on Aspect GenericP. However, to account for their semantic properties, I propose that their verbal structure contains an additional Aspect Completive Projection as represented in (8). (8) [nP [n [Asp Generic P [Asp Completive [VP]]]]] In order to fully understand the complexity of the structure in (8), it is necessary to set a morphological and semantic comparison with the derivation of nominalized infinitives. I assume that infinitive formation and its nominalization occurs at a higher aspectual projection than Aspect GenericP. My assumption is based on semantic and morphological differences between infinitive nominalizations and nouns in -mento/-zione/-tura. I argue that the derivation of nominalized infinitives is due to the merger of a null nominal head, i.e., [NØ] with Aspect ContinuativeP, as represented in (9). (9) [nP [NØ [Asp ContinuativeP [VP]]]]. Morphologically, the verbal base of nominalized infinitives differs from the verbal bases of nouns in -mento/-zione/-tura. Nominalized infinitives, in fact, are built on a verbal theme, e.g., verb stem + thematic vowel [-a,-e,-i], and not on an Aspect Generic base, as showed in table (2) above. Semantically, the choice of Aspect Continuative for nominalized infinitives is motivated by the following observations. Firstly, according to Gaeta (2002:121) and to Bartsch (1986:17-8) nominalized infinitives refer to temporally unbound situations representing a process/event without focusing on its completion. Nominalized forms of the infinitive denote a process without representing the act of that process as necessarily completed as demonstrated by Gaeta’s (2002:122-123) examples in (10).

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(10) a. il gocciolare del lavandino dura già da due ore “the dripping of the sink has been going on for the past two hours” b. *il gocciolare del lavandino è teminato “the dripping of the sink has ended” c. lo sciogliere del ghiaccio da parte del Fohn dura già da molti giorni “the melting of the ice by the Fohn has been going for several days” d. *lo sciogliere del ghiaccio da parte del fohn è stato completato “the melting of the ice by the Fohn has been completed” The examples show that nominalized infinitives are compatible with predicates and temporal expressions that do not focus on the final completion of the action (10a-10c), but they are incompatible with predicate or temporal expression indicating the completion/end of the action/event (10b-10d). Syntactically, looking at the array of AspPs in Cinque’s IP-CP, it is interesting to note that the semantic values associated with nominalized infinitives correspond to the semantic values of Aspect Continuative that according to Cinque (1999:95) refers to actions extending their course over a period of time. Interestingly, in the IP Aspect Continuative is syntactically higher than Aspect Generic. This implies that infinitives, whose bases are verbal themes, are formed and nominalized in a different position than Aspect Generic and it correctly predicts that verbal themes cannot be the bases for the derived nominals of table (2). 2.2.1. Nouns in -mento /-zione/-tura. According to Gaeta (2002:123), contrary to nominalized infinitives, de-verbal in –mento/-zione/-tura semantically represent a situation arrived to its final point. As the contrastive examples between de-verbal in -mento and nominalized infinitive in (11) show, nouns in -mento/-zione/-tura impose a closure effect to the action/event expressed by the predicate. (11) a. l’affondamento della nave si compì in mezz’ora “the sinking of the ship was achieved in half of an hour” b. *l’affondare della nave si compi in mezz’ora *“the sinking of the ship was achieved in half of an hour” c. l’insegnamento del latino é stato completato “the teaching of Latin has been completed” d. *l’insegnare del latino è stato completato “the teaching of Latin has been completed” (Gaeta 2002:123) I attribute the semantic difference between nominalized infinitives and de-verbal in -mento/-zione/-tura to their different aspectual structures. I assume

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that the ‘closure effect’ expressed by these nouns is due to presence of an Aspect Completive feature in their underlying structure. Looking at Cinque’s arrays of aspectual projections in (2), syntactically, Aspect CompletiveP is located below Aspect GenericP. One can infer that the closure effect is related to the movement of VP through Aspect CompletiveP before landing to Aspect GenericP to complete the morphological derivation. 6 The presence of Aspect Generic morphology on these nouns, however, is still motivated by the following observations. Firstly, semantically some nouns in mento, zione and tura do not show any ‘closure effect’, but simply are agentive/instrumental nouns like VN compound nouns and nouns in –tore, e.g., the agentive noun accompagnamento “accompaniment” or the instrumental noun nutrimento “nourishment” with the meaning of “the person/thing that V” (Gaeta 2002:218). Secondly, Aspect Generic is semantically neutral with respect to a closure effect, therefore, its presence does not deny the existence of an additional aspectual projection in the underlying structure of these nouns. 2.3.

De-verbal nouns formed on VoiceP De-verbal nouns formed on VoiceP correspond to feminine and masculine past participle nominalizations illustrated respectively in table (3). As the data show, the morphological structure of past participle nominalization consists of a verbal stem followed by past participial morphology [-at,-ut,-it]. Infinitives Feminine Masculine

-ARE -ERE -IRE nuot-at-a bev-ut-a cuc-it-a single act of swimming single act of drinking single act of sewing spacc-at-o dov-ut-o what is due cuc-it-o what is broken what is sewn (ext. vertical section) (ext. the art of sewing) Table 3: Feminine and Masculine past participle nominalizations

Semantically, morphologically and syntactically nouns built on a past participle base can be divided in two sub-classes on the base of their gender. I argue that both sub-classes contain a VoiceP. However, in order to account for the semantic differences between the two noun types, I propose that masculine past participles are formed by the direct merger of a nominal feature [n] with VoiceP, whereas for feminine past participles the merger of [n] occurs in an higher section of the IP as represented in (12).

6

The aspect feature Completive is not overtly marked in these nouns, but its presence is assumed necessary to understand their meaning and the selection of their specific n-heads.

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(12) a. [nP [n [VoiceP [VP]]]] b. [nP [n [Aspect XP [VoiceP [VP]]]]] 2.3.1. Feminine past participle nominalizations. Semantically, according to Mayo et al. (1995:912), these nouns cannot be interpreted as types of actions, but rather as individual instantiations of events and according to Gaeta (2002:154), their meaning is “the single act of V”, as indicated by the contrast in (13). (13) a. Il nuoto rilassa i muscoli “Swimming relaxes the muscles.” b. *La nuotata rilassa i muscoli (Gaeta 2002:154) “The (single) act of swimming relaxes the muscles.“ According to Gaeta (2002:156), semantically, the feminine nominalization of past participles has the effect of bounding predicates imposing a closure on the action/event, even onto predicates that are not necessarily unbound such as ‘nuotare’. Such a closure effect, however, differ from the closure effect seen for nouns in -mento/-zione/-tura. In (14), the comparison between de-verbal nouns in –tura and feminine past participle nominalizations reveals their semantic differences. (14) a. La sgrassatura della pentole é durata tre ore *La sgrassata delle pentole é durata tre ore “The removing of the grease from the pans lasted three hours.” b. Ho dato una bella sgrassata alla pentole *Ho dato una bella sgrassatura alle pentole “I gave a nice (single) act of removing of the grease from the pans.“ The examples in (14) show that, although both types of de-verbal impose a closure to the predicate, de-verbals in –tura mark a process that takes place in a X period of time, whereas feminine past participles indicate a one-time event that is not compatible with the idea of a duration. Syntactically, such a semantic difference suggests that both nominals are generated under different projections. As seen above, de-verbal nouns in – tura have a complex aspectual structure comprising Aspect CompletiveP and Aspect GenericP; whereas following Cinque (1999), Italian past participles are generated under VoiceP. Nevertheless, a comparison between feminine and masculine past participle nominalizations reveals that VoiceP alone is not sufficiently representative for the derivation of these feminine nouns.

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2.3.2. Masculine Past Participle Nominalizations. The existence of epicene masculine nouns such as il pulito, il cucito with corresponding feminine nouns such as pulita, cucita, is relevant for understanding the different semantics of the two past participle nominalizations. Whereas feminine nouns indicate a process, there is no aspectual meaning for masculine nouns. Masculine past participles are passivization of an event, i.e., they can be paraphrased as “what/who is/or has been V-ed”, as indicated in the semantic contrast between these pairs of nouns, e.g., il pulito “what is cleaned” vs. una pulita “a single act of cleaning”. Syntactically, following Cinque’s (1999: 101-103) all past participles of active and passive verbs are initially generated under VoiceP and then in case of active participle, the verb raises to PerfectP to realize its perfect feature. The adverb indicating the different positions for the different past participle types is bene “well”. Bene is assumed to be found in the spec of Voice P. It follows that the active past participle must be found on the left of bene, whereas bene is found at the left of a passive participle as the examples in (15) indicate. (15) a. Hanno accolto bene il suo spettacolo solo loro Have-aux received well his show only they “Only they have received well his show.” (Cinque 1999:101-103) b. *Hanno bene accolto il suo spettacolo solo loro Have-aux well received his show only they 7 c. Questo genere di spettacoli é sempre stato bene accolto da tutti “This kind of shows are always been received well from everybody.” In addition, Cinque (1999:46) suggests that the active past participle needs to move to the left of the head hosting ‘tutto’(all), syntactically related to the Aspect Completive (I) P, but it must be found to the right of the adverb rapidamente “rapidl”) located under Aspect Celerative (I)P, as indicated by the following examples. (16) a. Hai trovato tutto? (Cinque 1999:100-101) “Have you found all?” b. Gianni ha di nuovo rapidamente cambiato opinione (Cinque 1999:93) “Gianni has again rapidly changed opinion.” 7

The anonymous reviewer points out that, contrary to Italian, in French (15a) is out and (15b) is perfect. According to Cinque (1999:ft.71, p.211), the differences between French and Italian are due to the fact that in French active past participle does not move in the overt syntax; whereas it does it in Italian.

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From the above examples, one can conclude that active and passive past participle do not have the same landing site and that active past participles are located in between Aspect Celerative(I) and Aspect Completive (I). Similarly to the derivation of verbal past participles, two IP’s sites are also necessary to explain the semantic differences between masculine and feminine past participle nominalizations. The purely passive nature of masculine past participles and the lack of aspectual content lead to the conclusion that these nouns are formed via merger of the n-feature with VoiceP. Contrarily, feminine past participles, though generated under VoiceP, need to move to a higher AspP to add their aspectual meaning. Under which specific aspectual projection feminine past participle nouns are found is not clear at the moment, but, like active past participles, their landing site cannot be above Aspect Celerative (I), as demonstrated by the following examples where the adjective rapida “rapid/quick” is used instead of the adverb rapidamente “rapidly/quickly”. (17) a. Dai una rapida stirata ai pantalon8, 9 “Give a rapid/quick ironing to the pants.” b. *dai una stirata rapida ai pantaloni. c. Fammi fare una rapida scappata al supermercato. Let me do a rapid/quick run to.the supermarket. “Let me go quickly to the supermarket.” d. *Fammi fara una scappata rapida al supermecato. From the above data one can conclude that feminine past participle nominalizations occur above VoiceP and possibly under an aspectual projection found below Aspect Celerative (I). 2.4.

De-verbal in [ì] I assume that De-verbal nouns in [-ì-], e.g., ronz-ì-o “continuous buzzing” are formed below VoiceP, more precisely under Aspect 8

For Cinzia Russi (PC) the sentences in 17a/b are both fine, especially considering rapido synonymous of veloce (“fast”). According to Cinque (1999:93/103), in Italian the adverb rapidamente can appear in two different positions, one higher associated with Aspect Celerative (I) that quantifies over an event and one lower associated with Aspect Celerative (II) that apparently quantifies over a process. In my Italian, rapida quantifying only over an event; whereas veloce “fast” quantifies over a process, e.g., dai una stirata veloce ai pantaloni. But, interestingly, in Italian, feminine past participle nominalizations cannot be found on the right of veloce, e.g., *dai una veloce stirata ai pantaloni’. 9 As the anonymous reviewer indicates, contrary to Italian, in French (17a-c) are ungrammatical, whereas (17b-d) are grammatical. Similarly to what said in ft.8, I attribute these differences to the lack of overt movement for French past participles.

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Repetitive/Frequentative (II)P. Syntactically, the stressed vowel [-ì] is an aspectual head, as indicated morphologically by the fact that in the plural the aspectual marker [-ì-] does not fuse with the plural morpheme [-i], e.g. (sg.) ronz-ì-o > (pl) ronz-ì-i, and semantically by the contrastive examples with deverbal nouns built on the same verbal base, e.g., gorgolio “gurgling”– gorgoglìo “constant gurgling”, scricchiolo “creaking”–scricchiolìo “constant creaking”. Because aspect projections select a VP and not a simple verbal stem, I derive that the verbal base of these derived nominals must be a VP. Given the aspectual nature of the morpheme [ì], I propose that the derivation of de-verbal in [ìo] consists in the merger of a nominal feature [n], expressed by the gender masculine marker ‘o’, with Aspect Repetitive/Frequentative (II)P as illustrated in (18).10 (18) [nP[n [Aspect Repetitive/Frequentative (II)P [-ì [VP]]]]] The repetitive aspectual nature of the de-verbal [ìo] is also suggested by Castelli’s (1988:336) and Gaeta’s (2002:114-116) observation that the marker [ìo] is incompatible with expressions of time that do not mark duration, as indicated by the following contrastive examples. (19) a. Il dondolìo della culla é durato a lungo “The rocking of the cradle lasted a long time.” b. *Il dondolìo della culla é stato improvviso “The rocking of the cradle was sudden.” (Gaeta 2002:114) In (19b), the impossibility of combining the semantics of the predicate (essere improvviso “to be sudden”) with the semantics of de-verbal nouns in [ìo] is taken as an evidence that de-verbal nouns reveal information about how an action designated by the verb is performed. The above contrast is also 10

As the anonymous reviewer points out in Italian there exists also the ‘repetitive’ prefix ‘ri’. With the exception of few lexicalized forms, e.g., ri-sciaquìo (“re-swish”), the repetitive morphemes ri and ì do not co-occur because they are semantically incompatible. According to Di Sciullo (2005:85), in fact, ri may only modify events that have an end point, i.e., accomplishments and achievements; whereas as seen above the morpheme ì modifies a process indicating an unbound activity. Syntactically, in Cinque’s IP (1999:92), there are two Repetitive AspectP, i.e., Repetitive (I) located above T(anterior) and used to quantify over events and Repetitive (II) located below TP and used to quantify over processes. Given the different natures of the two repetitive heads, it is possible to assume that ri is associated with Repetitive Aspect I; whereas ì is associated with Repetitive Aspect II. Because events can reoccur, ri can be stacked; but stacking of ì is not possible given that process modification cannot be recursive.

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interesting because it reveals the special semantic values of the aspectual morpheme [-ì-]. Specifically, it indicates an action that is performed continuously and progressively over an unbound period of time. The attention is focalized on the process rather than its end and the action is defined as open and unbound. This explains the incompatibility noticed by Gaeta (2002:115) of de-verbal nouns in [ío] with adverbials of time of the type in X time and for X time that indicate that an action has been (or will be) concluded or accomplished in a specific time frame as in the following examples. (20) a. *Il tintinnìo delle campane si completò in due ore “The tinkling of the bells was completed in two hours.” b. Il tintinnìo delle campane durò tutta la mattina “The tinkling of the bells lasted all morning.” Looking at Cinque’s IP/CP representation and it is plausible to conclude that [ì] is an aspectual marker that semantically corresponds to the Aspect Repetitive (II). This aspectual feature is characterized by the repetitive adverb again and it is located below TP anterior. 2.5.

De-verbal nouns built on a verbal stem In Italian not all types of de-verbal nouns are formed on an aspectual base. Several verbs form the corresponding de-verbal nouns by merging the verbal stem with a nominal feature [n] that is morphologically expressed either by a masculine or by a feminine gender marker, e.g., urlare “to scream” > deverbal: urlo “the scream”, danzare “to dance” > de-verbal: danza “the dance”. In (21) I propose the underlying structure for these nouns. (21) [np [n [√url + (v)]]] The assumption that these nouns are built on a lexical stem rather than on a VP is semantically, morphologically and syntactically motivated. Semantically, these nouns refer solely to the action/event/state implicit in the meaning of the verbal stem. The merger of the masculine or feminine nominal feature simply transforms a verbal base into a noun without adding any aspectual meaning regarding how the action expressed by the verb is performed. Morphologically, the absence of aspectual morphology on the base and the non-aspectual nature of the feature gender suggests that these de-verbal nouns are built on a lexical stem, (e.g., √L+(v)), rather than on VP or on a AspectP. Also, syntactically, these nouns do not necessarily surface with an

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obligatory object, which confirms the hypothesis that their verbal base is a stem and not a VP. 3.

Conclusion In this paper, I have argued that in Italian de-verbal noun formation is a syntactic process due to the merger of a nominal head with a specific set of IP’s functional projections. Looking at the semantic and morphological properties of derived nominals, I identified a large array of functional projections involved in the derivation of each de-verbal noun types. The analysis shows that semantic and morphological variations across de-verbal noun types can be reduced to syntactically structural differences. References Alexiadou, Artemidis. 2001. Functional Structure in Nominals. Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Bartsch, Renate. 1986. “On the Aspectual Properties of Dutch and German Nominalization”. Temporal Structure in Sentence and Discourse, ed. by Vincenzo Lo Cascio, Co Vet, 1-28. Dordrecht: Foris. Bergsland, Klaus. 1994. “Aleut Tenses and Aspects”, Tense, Aspect and Action, ed. by Carl Bache, Hans Basboll & Cari Erik Lindber, 323- 367. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. Carlson, Gregory, N. & Pelletier, Frances Jeffrey. 1995. The Generic Book. Chicago & London: Chicago University Press Castelli, Margherita. 1988. “La nominalizzazione”. Grande grammatica italiana di consultazione, ed. by Lorenzo Renzi, 333-356, Bologna: Il Mulino. Chierchia, Gennaro. 1998. “Plurality of Mass Nouns and the Notion of "Semantic Parameter"”. Events and Grammar, ed. by Susan Rothstein, 53103. Dordrecht: Kluwer. Cinque, Guglielmo. 1999. Adverbial and Functional Heads. Oxford: Oxford University Press Dahl, Östen. 1975. “On Generics”. Formal Semantics of Natural Language, ed. by Edward L. Keenan. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Dahl, Östen. 1985. Tense and Aspect Systems. Oxford: Basil Blackwell. Di Sciullo, Annamaria, 2005. Asymmetry in Morphology, Cambridge, Mass.: MIT press Ferrari-Bridgers, Franca. 2005a. “Italian [VN] compound nouns: A case for a syntactic approach to word formation”. Romance Languages and Linguistic Theory 2003: Selected papers from 'Going Romance 2003', Nijmegen, 20-22 November, ed. by Twan Greerts, Ivo van Ginneken & Haike Jacobs, 63-79. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.

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Ferrari-Bridgers, Franca. 2005b. A Syntactic Analysis of the Nominal Systems of Italian and Luganda. How Nouns Can Be Formed in the Syntax. Doctorate dissertation, New York University. Gaeta, Livio. 2002. Quando i Verbi Compaiono come Nomi. Pavia: Francoangeli. Kayne, Richard. 1994. The Antisymmetry of Syntax. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press. Kayne, Richard. 2005. Movement and Silence. Oxford: Oxford University Press Koopman, H., Szabolcsi A.. 2000. Verbal Complexes. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press. Josefsson, Gunlong. 1998. Minimal Words in a Minimal Syntax. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Julien, Marit. 2000. Syntactic Heads and Word Formation: a Study of Verbal Inflection. PhD dissertation, Universitet i Tromsø. Lacarme, Jaqueline., 2002, “Gender Polarity Theoretical Aspect of Somali Nominal Morphology”. Many Morphologies ed. by Paul Boucher, 109-141. Sommerville: Cascadilla Press. Longobardi, Giuseppe. 2001. “How Comparative is Semantics? A Unified Parametric Theory of Bare Nouns and Proper Names”. Natural Language Semantics 9:4.335-369. Marantz, Alec. 1997. “No Escape from Syntax”. U.Penn Working Papers in Linguistics volume 4.2., ed. by Alexis Dimitriadis, Laura Siegel, Clarissa Surek-Clark, and Alexandra Williams, 201-224. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania. Mayo, Bruce, Marie-Theres Schepping, Christopher Schwarze, Angela Zaffanella. 1995. “Semantics in the derivational morphology of Italian: implication for the structure of the Lexicon”. Linguistics 33:883-938. Prati, Antonio. 1931. “Composti Imperativali Quali Casati e Soprannomi” Revue de Linguistique Romane 7: 250-264. Roeper, Thomas. 1999. “Leftward Movement in Morphology”. MIT Working papers in Linguistics 34.35-66, ed, by Karlos Arregi, Benjamin Bruening, Cornelia Krause & Vivian Lin. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT. Tollemache, Federico. 1945. Le Parole composte nella lingua Italiana. Roma: Rores. Zanuttini, Raffaella. 1997. Negation and Clausal Structure. New York: Oxford University Press.

V-N COMPOUNDS IN ITALIAN A CASE OF AGREEMENT IN WORD FORMATION

*

MARTINA GRAČANIN-YUKSEK Massachusetts Institute of Technology

0.

Introduction Compounds of the type verb-noun (V-N) in Italian have been studied for their argument structure (Di Sciullo & Ralli 1994), exocentricity (Bisetto 1999) and the prosodic status of their component parts (Nespor & Vogel 1986; Pepperkamp 1997). In this paper I explore Italian V-N compounds in the context of the gender and number morphology they bear, with an emphasis on gender marking in the plural. V-N compounds can denote instruments (‘instrument compounds’), shown in (2), or people (‘agent compounds’), illustrated in (3). Instrument compounds are masculine regardless of the gender of the noun contained in the compound.1 This is visible in their masculine agreement with associated determiners and adjectives: the noun mano (“hand”) is feminine in isolation, as shown in (1), but the compound asciugamano (“towel”) is masculine. (1) una mano a-F.SG hand “a hand” (2) a. un piccolo asciuga-mano a-M.SG small-M.SG dry-hand “a small towel” *

I am very grateful to Alec Marantz, David Pesetsky and Donca Steriade for their invaluable comments and discussion. This paper was presented at LSRL 35 at the University of Texas at Austin (February 2005). I would like to thank the audience for their useful questions and comments. All inadequacies are my own. 1 Some compounds, like lavapiatti/lavastoviglie (“dishwasher”) and portaaerei (“aircraft carrier”) are feminine, but they are very few in number and can be regarded as exceptions.

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b. *una a-F.SG

piccola asciuga-mano small-F.SG dry-hand

Agent compounds, on the other hand, show natural gender agreement: their gender depends on the gender of their referent. (3) un /una a-M.SG /a-F.SG “busybody”

ficca-naso thrust-nose

According to prescriptive grammars of Italian, V-N compounds do not inflect in the plural, i.e. they are invariant. Native speakers, however, seem to be quite willing to violate this rule. If plural is overtly marked on the compound, it is reflected in the change of the final vowel of its nominal part, as in (4). (4) a. un asciuga-mano a-M.SG dry-hand “a towel” b. degli asciuga-mani some-M.PL dry-hands “some towels” The surprising fact is that when a compound contains a feminine noun of the first declension (casa, –e, “house”), the plural morphology which appears on the noun is feminine in form (–e), despite the masculine agreement of the compound with adjectives and determiners. For example, the feminine noun testa (“head”) belongs to the first declension and forms plural with –e: teste “heads”. In isolation, it requires a feminine determiner, as in (5). The compound poggiatesta (“headrest”), in the plural also acquires the ending –e, but it agrees with a masculine determiner. This is shown in (6). (5) a. una /*un testa a-F.SG / a-M.SG head “a head” b. delle /*dei some-F.PL some-M.PL “some heads” (6) a. un /*una a- M.SG / a- F.SG “a headrest”

teste/ *testi heads

poggia-testa rest-head

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b. dei /*delle some- M.PL / some- F.PL “some headrests”

poggia-teste/*poggia-testi rest-heads

The morphology that the masculine compound poggiatesta (“headrest”) shows in the plural manifests the feminine gender of the embedded noun (testa, “head”). Striking is the fact that the ending –e is otherwise reserved exclusively for the plural of feminine nouns of class –a (is not found on masculine nouns of any nominal class). Table 1 shows Italian noun endings in different classes in both numbers. The plural ending of masculine nouns of all classes is –i.

Masculine Gloss Feminine Gloss

Class 1 (-a) Class 2 (-o) Class 3 (-e) Stem Sg. Pl. Stem Sg. Pl. Stem Problem -a -i Libr -o -i fulmin problem(s) book(s) lightning(s) Test -a -e Man -o -i vit head(s) hand(s) screw(s) Table 1: Italian nominal classes – Singular & Plural

Sg. -e

Pl. -i

-e

-i

I propose that the phenomenon of ‘gender mismatch’ between the morphological shape of the compound and its syntactic agreement, illustrated in (6b), is the result of agreement between different pieces of the complex structure of V-N compounds. The view of agreement I adopt relies on the notion of ‘feature sharing’ (Pollard & Sag 1994; Frampton & Guttman 2000; Pesetsky & Torrego 2004). It is the very same mechanism that lies at the heart of the convergence of a syntactic derivation. Here is how the process of agreement as feature sharing is defined in Pesetsky & Torrego (2004): (7)

(i) An unvalued feature F (‘a probe’) on a head H at a syntactic location α (Fα) scans its c-command domain for another instance of F (‘a goal’) at a location β (Fβ), with which to agree. (ii) Replace Fα with Fβ, so that the same feature is present at both locations.

What is meant by ‘an unvalued feature’ is a feature that is not specified in the lexicon. The crucial aspect of this definition of agreement is the lack of the reference to a value. Agreement is not seen as a process that happens iff a value can be assigned to a previously unvalued feature. Instead, agreement is a mechanism that applies blindly, as soon as two matching features find themselves in the appropriate syntactic configuration. Suppose that α is an

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unvalued number feature (NumF). If β is also a NumF, and is accessible to α, α can agree with β even though β might also be unvalued. If either α or β later agrees with a valued NumF γ, the value of γ spreads to both α and β by virtue of the previously established agreement relation between the two. In the next section I illustrate how agreement works in the formation of simple nouns. 1.

Agreement in the formation of simple nouns It has been proposed in the literature that in the lexicon, a noun stem is associated with a matrix of features such as category, gender and class (Lieber 1992; Müller 2002). Suppose that a nominal feature matrix also contains the feature ‘number’. Category, class and gender features are valued, while number is unvalued.2 Here are some examples of Italian nominal stems, as they are listed in the lexicon: (8)

a. cas[num: ] [gend: f] [class: 1] [cat: N] “house”

b. libr[num: ] [gend: m] [class: 2] [cat: N] “book”

c. croc[num: ] [gend: f] [class: 3] [cat: N] “cross”

Chomsky (1995, 2000, 2001) claims that unvalued features are not usable at the interfaces. Therefore, all unvalued NumFs must agree with a valued instance of the matching feature for the derivation to converge. I suggest that the source of the number information for nominal structures in Italian is a separate lexical item, ‘inflection’ (Infl0), which is merged with the nominal stem. Infl0 is phonologically null. It comes from the lexicon either as singular or as plural. Under agreement with Infl0, the unvalued NumF on a nominal element acquires value. I propose that the final vowel on a noun, which I will be referring to as the ‘theme vowel’, is a spell-out of the values of features that make up the feature matrix associated with the noun. For concreteness, I assume that category, class and gender feature are also present on Infl0 head, but are unvalued and acquire values through agreement 2

A possible argument for the presence of NumF on nominal stems comes from the nouns that have only singular/plural forms (singularia/pluralia tantum). Grammatical number of such nouns does not depend on their syntactic environment, but is presumably specified in the lexicon. Positing the same feature on all nouns makes singularia/pluralia tantum nouns formally identical to regular nouns.

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with the stem. This mechanism is illustrated in Figure 1.3 a.

N2

b. Infl0

N1 N ThV cas[num: ] [gen: f ] [class: 1] [cat: N]

∅ [num: sg.] [gen: ] [class: ] [cat: ]

N2 N1

⇒

N ThV cas-a [num: sg] [gen: f ] [class: 1] [cat: N]

Infl0

∅ [num: sg.] [gen: f ] [class: 1] [cat: N]

Figure 1: Agreement between the stem and Infl0 in number, gender, class and category features

Once the nominal stem, cas- is valued for number, all its features are valued and its theme vowel can be spelled-out with singular morphology: cas-a (“house”). A note is needed here about the conditions under which agreement happens. The standard conditions on agreement in syntax are the following: -

The unvalued feature that triggers agreement (‘the probe’) is always located on a head (not on a phrase). The probe must c-command the goal.

In Figure 1, the nominal stem cas- (“house”) does not c-command Infl0, under the standard definition of c-command: (9) α c-commands β iff β is not contained in α and every γ that dominates α also dominates β. (Chomsky 1986) However, the projection of N (N1) does c-command Infl0. Chomsky (1995) states that following the merger of two elements, α and β, the label of the newly formed node is either α or β. In the domain of morphology, the elements merged together are heads. It can be maintained then that in word-formation, all the elements created through the merger of two morphemes are also heads, and can as such act as probes. Thus, N1 can probe Infl0, since it c-commands it. According to this proposal, the theme vowel of a simple noun is the expression of the features present on the nominal stem. It is not a phonological expression of the inflection itself. On the other hand, Infl0, following agreement, possesses all the features that N1 possesses, and crucially, N1’s 3

The direction of the arrow is from the probe to the goal; ThV stands for ‘theme vowel’.

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category feature. This enables us to say that in Italian noun-formation, Infl0 always projects, passing the category information of its sister up the tree. I