Romance Perspective on Language Knowledge and Use (Current Issues in Linguistic Theory)

A ROMANCE PERSPECTIVE ON LANGUAGE KNOWLEDGE AND USE

AMSTERDAM STUDIES IN THE THEORY AND HISTORY OF LINGUISTIC SCIENCE General Editor E. F. KONRAD KOERNER (Zentrum für Allgemeine Sprachwissenschaft, Typologie und Universalienforschung, Berlin) Series IV – CURRENT ISSUES IN LINGUISTIC THEORY

Advisory Editorial Board Raimo Anttila (Los Angeles); Lyle Campbell (Christchurch, N.Z.) Sheila Embleton (Toronto); John E. Joseph (Edinburgh) Manfred Krifka (Berlin); Hans-Heinrich Lieb (Berlin) E. Wyn Roberts (Vancouver, B.C.); Hans-Jürgen Sasse (Köln)

Volume 238

Rafael Núñez-Cedeño, Luis López and Richard Cameron (eds) A Romance Perspective on Language Knowledge and Use. Selected papers from the 31st Linguistic Symposium on Romance Languages (LRSL), Chicago, 19–22 April 2001

A ROMANCE PERSPECTIVE ON LANGUAGE KNOWLEDGE AND USE SELECTED PAPERS FROM THE 31ST LINGUISTIC SYMPOSIUM ON ROMANCE LANGUAGES (LSRL), CHICAGO, 19–22 APRIL 2001 Edited by

RAFAEL NÚÑEZ-CEDEÑO LUIS LÓPEZ RICHARD CAMERON University of Illinois, Chicago

JOHN BENJAMINS PUBLISHING COMPANY AMSTERDAM/PHILADELPHIA

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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 Linguistic Symposium on Romance Languages (31st : 2001 : Chicago, Ill.) A Romance Perspective on Language Knowledge and Use : selected papers from the 31st Linguistic Symposium on Romance Languages (LSRL), Chicago, 19–22 April 2001 ; edited by Rafael NúñezCedeño, Luis López and Richard Cameron. p. cm. -- (Amsterdam studies in the theory and history of linguistic science. Series IV, Current issues in linguistic theory, ISSN 0304-0763 ; v. 238) Includes bibliographical references and index. 1. Romance languages--Congresses. I. Núñez, Rafael. II. López, Luis, 1965- III. Cameron, Richard, 1953- IV. Title. V. Series. PC11 .L53 2003 440--dc21 2003043713 ISBN 90 272 4750 1 (Eur.) / 1 58811 374 4 (US) (Hb; alk. paper) © 2003 – 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

Table of contents

Introduction and acknowledgment Rafael Núñez-Cedeño, Luis López, and Richard Cameron

vii

Phonology and morphology Pronominal clitics in Picard revisited Julie Auger Spanish /s/: A different story from beginning (initial) to end (final) Esther L. Brown and Rena Torres Cacoullos Consonant intrusion in heterosyllabic consonant-liquid clusters in Old Spanish and Old French: An Optimality theoretical account Fernando Martínez-Gil A constraint interaction theory of Italian raddoppiamento Mario Saltarelli

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Pragmatics and sociolinguistics Ground/Focus: A perspective from French Claire Beyssade, Jean-Marie Marandin, and Annie Rialland The subject clitics of Conversational European French: Morphologization, grammatical change, semantic change, and change in progress Bonnie Fonseca-Greber and Linda R. Waugh

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A scalar propositional negative polarity item in Spanish Javier Gutiérrez-Rexach and Scott A. Schwenter

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A pragmatic analysis of Imperfect Conditionals Michela Ippolito

133

Indirect objects in ditransitive constructions in Brazilian Portuguese Heloisa Maria M. Lima Salles and Maria Marta P. Scherre

151

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Table of contents

Pragmatic variation in Spanish: External request modifications in Peninsular and Uruguayan Spanish Rosina Márquez Reiter

167

Clitic simplification in a contact variety of Spanish: Third person accusative pronouns in the Mexican-American community of Houston N. Ariana Mrak

181

The expression of topic in spoken Spanish: An empirical study Francisco Ocampo

195

An adaptive approach to noun gender in New York contact Spanish Ricardo Otheguy and Naomi Lapidus

209

Syntax Properties of the double object construction in Spanish Tonia Bleam

233

Spanish perception verbs and sequence of tenses: Aktionsart effects Alicia Cipria

253

Defaults and competition in the acquisition of functional categories in Catalan and French Lisa Davidson and Géraldine Légendre

273

Constraints on the meanings of Bare Nouns Viviane Deprez

291

Null objects revisited Jon Franco and Alazne Landa

311

Auxiliary choice and pronominal verb constructions: The case of the passé surcomposé Kate Paesani

327

The lexical preverbal subject in a Romance Null Subject Language: Where are thou? Margarita Suñer

341

Intervention effects in the French wh-in-situ construction: Syntax or interpretation? María Luisa Zubizarreta

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Index

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Introduction and acknowledgment Rafael Núñez-Cedeño, Luis López, and Richard Cameron University of Illinois, Chicago

This book contains a collection of twenty-one articles presented at the 31st Linguistic Symposium on Romance Language which was hosted by the University of Illinois-Chicago on April 19–22 of 2001. The content has been organized thematically to cover a variety of theoretical issues ranging from phonology, morphology, and syntax to their contextual use in Romance linguistics as seen through pragmatics and sociolinguistics. We are thus capturing the essence of the sixty-one topics treated in the conference which are summarized next, ordered alphabetically by sections. In the section on phonology and morphology, Julie Auger examines the morpho-phonological status of pronominal clitics in Picard French. She questions whether these elements are independent syntactic elements or morphological affixes, thus echoing a previous hypothesis in which she suggested that subject clitics in Picard have been reanalyzed as affixal agreement markers. While her evidence for agreement marking was strong, the affixal analysis in that essay was supported by fewer arguments. In this article, Auger provides additional evidence showing that the affixal analysis was indeed the correct one. A comparison of the behavior of vowel epenthesis at word boundaries, inside clitic + verb clusters, and inside words, confirms that clitic + verb clusters behave more like morphological words than like syntactic phrases. While looking at the oftentimes researched topic of syllable-final /s/ in Spanish dialectology, Teresa Brown and Torres Cacoullos compare /s/ reduction in both initial and final word and syllable positions in data from northern Mexico. Contrary to the prevailing assumption that /s reduction diffuses from syllable final to syllable initial position, they find higher aspiration/deletion rates in syllable initial position (as in /e.se/) than in syllable final position (/es.te/) and, in contrast to wellstudied Caribbean dialects, higher reduction rates in prepausal and prevocalic than in preconsonantal contexts. Variable rule analyses reveal that preceding phonological environment is more important syllable initially, while following environment

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 Rafael Núñez-Cedeño, Luis López, and Richard Cameron

has a greater effect syllable finally. At the same time, lexical factors are involved in both syllable positions. The authors conclude that syllable initial aspiration will occur in those Spanish dialects in which syllable final /s/ reduction is favored more before a vowel than before a consonant and occurs at relatively low rates. Moving from synchronic analyses of Romance languages to a diachronically focused research, Fernando Martínez-Gil studies various phonological mechanisms involved in the emergence of the so-called intrusive consonants in Old Spanish and Old French. The addition of consonants involves a type of epenthesis that breaks up heterosyllabic consonant-liquid clusters of raising sonority, a process commonly described in terms of syllable phonotactics as a repair strategy that targets bad syllable contacts. His Optimality theoretical account, based on the framework of Correspondence Theory, shows that a formal analysis of this type of consonantal epenthesis enjoys several important advantages over standard serial accounts of the process. Also based on Optimality Theory is Mario Saltarelli’s essay on raddoppiamento. He re-examines this phenomenon, which has been considered an independent phono-syntactic rule, and proposes instead that it is an effect of the interaction of general quantity restrictions regulating the duration of vowels and consonants in word peripheral and medial contexts. Saltarelli shows that visibility of lexical stress contrasts at phonetic interface requires durational enhancement of the syllable lengthening of the vowel medially and of the consonant peripherally (radoppiamento). The lengthening asymmetry is favored by the location of geminate consonant contrast to word medial position. Next we turn to the section of this collection in which we have grouped research that may be identified as Pragmatic or Sociolinguistic in method and content. Pragmatics and Sociolinguistics are generally regarded as two different fields of inquiry. However, they interface at many different points. Both fields share similar objects and methods. Researchers from both fields are interested in structural and functional elements of language. By and large, data comes from language in use and, as such, researchers may share interests in issues such as acts, actions, ideologies, or significant categories of social experience such as gender, ethnicity, and class. Both fields of study may borrow techniques from one another, such as the use of statistics to resolve issues of syntactic analysis or the use of Speech Act categories to say something about cultural difference. Likewise, both fields may build upon or within neighboring theoretical frameworks in pursuit of saying something insightful about the relation of context to form or of form to the construction of identity. Therefore, when planning the conference parasession, we elected to include Pragmatics and Sociolinguistics under one heading so as to emphasize their interconnectedness and to provide for cross-fertilization. Having said this, we may now look briefly at various representatives of Pragmatics and Sociolinguistics. Beginning with the work of Claire Beyssade, Jean-

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Introduction and acknowledgment

Marie Marandin and Annie Rialland, we find a clear example of research in pragmatics which builds on neighboring theoretical frameworks. Specifically, they argue that “the lack of a conceptual framework within which pragmatic notions are given precise definitions has resulted in much confusion and contradiction in the literature”. They propose to overcome this situation by providing clear, operational, definitions of focus, ground, given and discourse topic within an Illocutionary Semantics framework. The work of Bonnie Fonseca-Greber and Linda Waugh is an illustration of cross-fertilization between sociolinguistics and pragmatics. Basing their work on tape-recorded conversations in everyday spoken Swiss French as well as on conversations, classroom discussions, and service encounters in Parisian French, the authors identify a complicated set of interrelated changes in progress which involve morphology, semantics, reference, and the syntax of pro-drop languages. These changes include the morphologization of first and second person clitics as inflectional prefixes with third person clitics lagging slightly behind. The indefinite on has replaced first person plural nouns as second person tu has come to replace indefinite on in the expression of indefinite or generic reference. Also, third person plural elles is being replaced by ils. As a result of the changes (and others which they also identify), two key points emerge. First, French is acquiring a sharp difference between spoken and written language. Second, unlike many other diachronic studies of pro-drop languages in which change appears to go from null to non-null subject status, their work indicates a change towards null subject status. The work of Javier Gutiérrez-Rexach and Scott Schwenter turns to a topic more clearly aligned with pragmatics, the relation between form and scalar inferences. They note that although most Spanish negative polarity items (NPIs) belong to the class of n-words (nada, nadie, ninguno, etc.), there is a small class characterized by the property of having a full propositional form. The members of this class are mostly parenthetical expressions headed by the negative particle ni (ni lo pienses, ni soñarlo, etc.). Their contribution to the content of the sentence they attach to is to strengthen the associated denial. In this paper, they analyze another propositional NPI, que digamos, which exhibits clearly differential behavior with respect to the other propositional NPIs mentioned above. The essential pragmatic property of this NPI is its scalar nature, but, unlike other well-known NPIs (e.g. en absoluto), it does not signal an ”extreme” point on a pragmatic scale. Rather, it invokes a pragmatic scale of expectations and indicates that the proposition it marks is less expected, or more unexpected, than some alternative proposition(s) located on the same scale. The resulting interpretation of the proposition marked by que digamos is an attenuated denial. Michela Ippolito’s paper, like that of Gutiérrez-Rexach and Schwenter, investigates syntactic forms, the interpretation of which necessarily involves implicature.

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Rafael Núñez-Cedeño, Luis López, and Richard Cameron

Like the work of Beyssade, Marandin and Rialland, discussion of these forms also entails reference to semantics. She discusses the modal uses of the Italian Imperfect both in main and embedded clauses. In particular, she offers an account of peculiar properties of Imperfect Conditionals, which distinguish them from both indicative and subjunctive conditionals. She provides an account of the modal uses of the Imperfect in main clauses based on the claim that past tense may not be interpreted inside the proposition where it superficially occurs. Cross-linguistic evidence is considered. Turkish conditionals offer syntactic and morphological support for the theory presented in this paper. As with the work of Fonseca-Greber and Waugh, in the article by Heloisa Maria Moreira Lima Salles and Maria Marta Pereira Scherre, we find the use of quantitative sociolinguistic methods in pursuit of a syntactic analysis. Specifically focusing on indirect objects variably headed by the prepositions a or para, the researchers find a clear effect of two pragmatic constraints: +/– (potentially) lightness of the verb and +/– referentiality of the DO nominal. Their statistical findings provide a basis for subsequent analysis of argument structure in general which leads to the discovery of a curious parallel with English dative constructions that do not permit dative alternation. The next article, by Rosina Márquez Reiter, shows the interaction of a classic topic in Pragmatics, speech act theory, with a sociolinguistic theme of dialect difference. This article examines the results of a contrastive empirical study of conventionally indirect requests in two varieties of Spanish: Uruguayan and Peninsular Spanish. The results reveal both pragmatic similarities and differences in the realization of conventionally indirect requests in these two language varieties. Most of the pragmatic similarities were found at the level of the linguistic mapping of utterances, with both Uruguayan and Peninsular Spanish speakers showing a negative correlation between (in)directness and social distance. The less familiar the interlocutors are with each other, the more likely it is for their requests to be realized indirectly. On the other hand, differences were found in terms of the tentativeness conveyed by the requests. More specifically, Uruguayan Spanish requests were more tentative than those in Peninsular Spanish. This tentativeness was achieved by a more frequent and more varied use of external modifications of the downgrading type. It is argued that differences in the tentativeness conveyed by those requests might form the basis of generalized perceptions by which Spaniards are seen as more a direct than Uruguayans. Dialect differences give way to a study of dialect formation in a context of language contact in the work of Ariana Mrak. Focusing on the Spanish spoken by the Mexican-American community in Houston, Texas, the researcher evokes arguments of simplification in attempting to determine if third person accusative clitics are undergoing a change in progress. If these accusative pronouns are progressively being lost from use, then a series of hypothesized consequences may follow. These

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Introduction and acknowledgment

include reiteration of the NP, use of the pronoun eso, expansion of dative clitics into accusative slots, duplication, reassignment of gender and/or number, and finally, omission of the clitic. Results indicate that of these various possibilities only three appear in the data. The most frequent, aside from use of the accusative clitics, is repetition of the NP. In turn, speakers may also express clitics that do not agree in number or gender and, finally, speakers may also substitute, though infrequently, dative clitics for the accusatives. Though also based in an extensive corpus of spoken language, the work of Francisco Ocampo on the expression of topic in the spoken Spanish of La Plata, Argentina, goes to a key topic in functional syntax: topic and word order. Evoking work on information status and the structure-building framework of the psycholinguist Morton Ann Gernsbacher, Ocampo provides a succinct analysis of the interaction of topic shift or continuity with information status, word order, and stress (primary, secondary, and tertiary). Yet, the correlations between these various elements prove to be strong statistical tendencies, not absolutes. Such a finding, of course, is very much in keeping with quantitative sociolinguistics which finds systematicity in statistical patterns of use. The final article from Pragmatics and Sociolinguistics is the contribution of Ricardo Otheguy and Naomi Lapidus. Their work utilizes and explores such methods and topics as quantitative analysis, issues of reference, change in progress, and simplification in contexts of language contact. Briefly, they note that the notion of simplification has often been proposed as an explanation for contact-induced change, a topic we see in Mrak’s work. In a modest but significant extension of the explanatory value of simplification, they suggest that contact-induced changes should additionally be understood in terms of the notion of adaptation. In turn, they apply the notion of adaptation to the study of that most common of all contact phenomena, namely cross-language loan lexical insertions. In this case these insertions are English nominal lexical insertions in the Spanish spoken in New York City. The use of adaptive reasoning permits tests of specific predictions regarding simplificatory changes involving these nouns. In particular, they focus on the nearly complete lack of applicability of the Spanish arbitrary gender system to this portion of their informants’ vocabulary. The data come from 33 sociolinguistic interviews conducted in New York City with speakers from a variety of age groups and of Latin American national origins. These speakers also differ with respect to whether they were born in New York or, if born in Latin America, in the length of time they have lived in the City. The new facts which are revealed by these predictions may be seen as useful expansions of our empirical knowledge regarding Spanish in the United States, and as support for the idea that contact-induced change is adaptive.

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 Rafael Núñez-Cedeño, Luis López, and Richard Cameron

The final section includes a selection of papers on syntax, semantics and their interfaces, as well as a paper on the acquisition of syntax. Each of them presents a significant contribution to current debates in linguistic theory. Tonia Bleam enters an old controversy from a Minimalist perspective: the structure of verbs that take two complements. Following intuitions that hark back to Juan Uriagereka’s dissertation, Bleam presents new arguments that a doubleobject type of structure obtains in Spanish when the indirect object is doubled by a dative clitic. Differences between English and Spanish double object constructions are explained by independent features of these languages. Alicia Cipria’s paper centers on the formal semantics of “sequence of tense”, which in the Spanish literature has been discussed mostly within the context of subjunctive complements. Perception verbs take indicative complements, yet the tense combinations (of main and complement) have certain restrictions, whose import is not as simple as previously claimed. The interaction of aspect/aktionsart and pragmatics with the lexical requirement of the main verb plays a role in the resultant temporal interpretations. Past tense complements are particularly interesting due to the different interpretations they receive when embedded under perception verbs. Advancing the theoretical underpinnings of Optimality Theory, Lisa Davidson and Géraldine Légendre compare acquisition of the Catalan and French verbs, departing from the observation that while children acquiring French exhibit an “optional infinitive” stage (see the earlier work of Amy Pierce and Ken Wexler) Catalan learners do not (as reported by J. Grinstead). An examination of 3 French and 3 Catalan learners revealed further differences: (1) Catalan children use 3rd singular present forms as defaults, not NRFs. (2) Catalan children develop AGR first, whereas French children exhibit TNS first. (3) While Catalan children show a linear increase in the acquisition of both TNS and AGR, French children exhibit a stage where there is competition for the realization of functional morphemes. Furthermore, both Catalan and French children show a gradual decrease in NRFs/defaults, which cannot be accounted for by traditional OT analyses. Such variation can be captured by an Optimality Theoretic account in which “floating” constraints prohibiting functional structure are balanced against constraints requiring faithfulness to inputs with TNS and AGR. Viviane Déprez’s article explores the syntax/semantics interface. She investigates the interpretations of bare nouns in several Creole languages. In earlier work, she argued that a Plural Parameter distinguishes two broad sets of languages according to whether or not their nominal projections necessarily contain a Num projection with a counter. In the present article she argues that this parameter, coupled with the observation that languages may have overt or covert determiners, provides an adequate account of the range of variation found among the bare nouns of Creole languages.

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Introduction and acknowledgment 

Jon Franco and Alazne Landa’s contribution discusses definite null objects, which have been documented in two Spanish contact varieties: Andean and Basque Spanish. After arguing that Liliana Sánchez’ earlier analysis for Andean Spanish cannot be imported into Basque Spanish, Jon Franco and Alazne Landa propose an analysis that suggests that Basque Spanish is a topic-oriented language, similar in some respects to Chinese, as analyzed by James Huang. Kate Paesani’s article proposes an analysis of auxiliary choice (avoir or être) in pronominal verb constructions in the French passé surcomposé. She hypothesizes that three key factors determine the Spell-Out form of the auxiliary compound in all syntactic contexts: (1) the presence or absence of an abstract D/P0 head in the syntax; (2) participial AGR; and (3) the have for be, parameter. A distinct advantage of this analysis is that dialectal forms of the passé surcomposé auxiliary compound are accounted for by a minor parametric variation of a type already motivated for Romance: Richard Kayne’s have for be parameter. Ever since Heles Contreras suggested that pre-verbal subjects in null-subject languages are in an A’-position, a rich literature has emerged with arguments pro and against this proposal. Margarita Suñer’s Minimalist article argues that, at least in Spanish, the evidence indicates that preverbal subjects can be found in an A-position, specifically Spec,T. She uses distributional, interpretational and binding sources of evidence to make her argument. She further argues that Spanish does not resemble Greek, as described by Artemis Alexiadou and Elena Anagnostopoulou, in this respect. María Luisa Zubizarreta’s contribution focuses on wh-in-situ in French. Cedric Boeckx has recently identified three properties of wh-in-situ in French (for some speakers): exhaustivity, intervention effects and locality. Zubizarreta discusses the first two and adds a fourth: lack of pair-list readings. She argues that the intervention effects cannot be considered a syntactic, minimality type, phenomenon. Instead, they lie in the syntax/semantics interface. Additionally, she relates intervention with exhaustivity and the absence of pair-list readings. Her analysis hinges on her approach to contrastive focus, based on a ‘A-not-A’ operator. The essays summarized above continue the tradition of offering a snapshot presentation in a book format of all talks given at LSRL conferences. It was difficult to make a selection for the present volume from among the many fine essays submitted. Nonetheless, to help us in that endeavor we counted on Marc Authier, Robert Bayley, Barbara Bullock, Iona Chitoran, Clancy Clements, Sylvie DuBois, Joseph Fontana, Jorge M. Guitart, Javier Gutiérrez-Rexach, José I. Hualde, Paula Kempchinsky, Knud Lambrecht, Fernando Martínez-Gil, Silvina Montrul, Naomi Nagy, Francisco Ordóñez, Ana T. Pérez-Leroux, Cecilia Poletto, Shana Poplack, Lisa Reed, Lori Repetti, María Isabel Romero, Mario Saltarelli, Liliana Sánchez, Gillian Sankoff, Christina Shmitt, Margarita Suñer, Dieter Wanner, and Karen Zagona. We thank them for contributing their expertise to the selection process.

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 Rafael Núñez-Cedeño, Luis López, and Richard Cameron

Highlighting the conference were the feature presentations given by Ricardo Otheguy (City University of New York), María Luisa Zubizarreta (University of Southern California), and W. Leo Wetzels (Free University of Amsterdam), to whom we are indebted for their challenging expositions. To organize a conference that attempts to approximate the success attained by previous LSRLs was no small task. It requires unbound commitment, sheer belief in the discipline and goals, and lots of sacrifice from many to bring it to successful completion. All of this is exemplified by the many contributors, session chairs, and participants that made LSRL31 a reality and, therefore, the printing of this book. Thus, we would like to thank Lucía Elías-Olivares, the former head of Spanish, French, Italian, and Portuguese, without whose initial thrust and support this anthology would have remained a chimeric project. Christopher Maurer, the current department head, worked extremely hard to secure financial resources from the department and other institutions, among which are: the Institute for the Humanities, departments of German Studies, Classics, and English, Latin American Recruitment and Educational Services, Rafael Cintrón Latino Cultural Center, Latin American Studies, and the Graduate College. Stanley Fish, Dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, gave us crucial financial support when needed. We are grateful to all. We were fortunate to count on Kim Potowski’s generous help, unbound enthusiasm, and good will in planning the conference and steering it (and us!) in good directions. Mark Overstreet quietly put us in the map, sorting out details to make the webpage operational. Maria Ripa, the Department’s business manager, stands out for handling the complex details of recording assets and disbursing funds. Not less can be said of the department’s undergraduate and graduate secretaries, Carla Plambeck, Sharon Carrillo, and Rocío García. Each of them gave valuable time to the Organizing Committee’s planning efforts. We also want to express our singular appreciation to the other members of the Organizing Committee, James Compton, Graciela Reyes, and Bill Van Patten. Their help in adding their wisdom to the final selection process was invaluable. Sean Morris, Claudia Fernández, and Dinorah Scott, graduate students in our program, graciously gave their time to the Organizing Committee. A special recognition goes to Elisa Baena, Marta Lacorte, and Danila Miranda, also graduate students, who responded timely to our call for help and worked diligently. Very special thanks go to Beth Jacobs for her superior help in proof-reading and editing abilities and to Konrad Koerner, editor of this series, and Anke de Looper, John Benjamin’s business manager, who supervised the typesetting and the final realization of this book. Lastly, but by all means not least, our gratitude goes to our families, in particular Rafael’s family Yulissa deLeón, Ysatris Allison, and Seihla María, and Richard’s

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Introduction and acknowledgment

Diana González-Cameron, Kyra, and Nina, for showing patience and taking up the slack with household chores, and especially for being understanding when things were going the snail way. Luis would like to thank Ms. E. for a certain candlelight dinner.

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Phonology and morphology

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Pronominal clitics in Picard revisited Julie Auger Indiana University

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Introduction1

Pronominal clitics have long been a major area of research in Romance linguistics. Recently, our curiosity about these notoriously difficult elements has been rekindled through a general interest in regional cultures and languages in Europe and a new research focus on closely related linguistic varieties. The “rediscovery” of many little-known Romance varieties has provided linguists with a wealth of new data on clitics which have allowed us to shed new light on this age-old question; cf., e.g., Brandi and Cordin (1989) on Trentino and Fiorentino subject clitics, Goria (1998) on Piedmontese subject clitics, Poletto (1993) for subject clitics in northern Italian dialects in general, Roberts (1991) for subject clitics in Valdôtain, and Parry (1997) on clitic ordering in northwestern Italian dialects. In an LSRL paper, Auger (1994a) expanded this line of research to a little known regional language of northern France: Picard. In that paper, I used literary data to determine whether Picard subject clitics are best analyzed as syntactic arguments which cliticize onto verbs in phonology or as morphological affixes that are generated on verbs prior to syntactic insertion, and concluded that these elements were affixal agreement markers on the verb. While the conclusion that subject clitics are agreement markers rather than arguments was based on sound reasons, the evidence presented in favor of their affixal status was weaker. In this paper, I return to this question and provide new morphophonological evidence which strengthens the conclusion that Picard’s weak subject pronouns (e.g., j’ [‘I’], il [‘he’]) and other preverbal clitics are affixes rather than syntactic clitics. Specifically, I will show that vowel epenthesis operates differently within clitic sequences than it does across word boundaries, which is compatible with the hypothesis that all Picard pronominal clitics are combined in morphology rather than in syntax. This paper is structured as follows. Section 2 summarizes the analysis of subject clitics presented in Auger (1994a) and its implications for non-subject clitics.

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Julie Auger

Section 3 introduces the general pattern which characterizes vowel epenthesis in the variety of Picard that is spoken in the Vimeu region and examines the behavior of vowel epenthesis in clitic sequences. Finally, Section 4 builds on previous analyses of vowel epenthesis across word boundaries in Vimeu Picard (Auger 2001) and proposes an OT analysis of epenthesis as it applies inside clitic + verb clusters.

. Auger’s (1994a) analysis of Picard subject clitics Pronominal clitics have been the object of intense debate and extensive research in Romance and general linguistics because these elements often do not quite fit into any of the categories that linguists normally recognize. For instance, many Romance object clitics play the same syntactic role as lexical objects, but they occur in preverbal position instead of the postverbal position that is normally reserved for objects. Yet, some object clitics which can stand for lexical objects also sometimes co-occur with overt NP or PP objects rather than in complementary distribution with them. Finally, even subject pronouns which occur in their “normal” preverbal position raise problems, as they often do not behave like full NP subjects (e.g., in French) and sometimes “double” lexical subjects (e.g., in colloquial French, Trentino, and Fiorentino), thus calling into question their role as syntactic subjects in such sentences. Most, if not all, of the problems posed by pronominal clitics can be summarized in two questions. (i) Are they verbal arguments or agreement markers? And, (ii) are they syntactically independent elements or verbal affixes generated as part of a verb’s morphology? Auger (1994b) proposes that these two questions are independent of each other, such that any combination of these two dimensions is possible, and that the criteria relevant to each dimension are of a completely different nature.2 The question of whether a clitic is an agreement marker or an argument is of a morphosyntactic nature, as it deals with the distribution of these elements in certain types of sentences. A clitic behaves like an argument if its presence in a sentence fills an argument position and thus prevents the non-clitic argument position from being filled with an overt argument. If there is no such complementary distribution between a clitic and an overt lexical argument, then the clitic is considered to behave like an agreement marker. The question of whether a clitic is an affix or a syntactically independent element belongs to the realm of morphophonology and can best be answered by examining the mobility of clitics with respect to their host and comparing the phonological processes which affect clitic sequences and clitic + host clusters with phonological phenomena which apply word-internally and those which apply across word boundaries. Clitics which can be handled (e.g., deleted or moved) by general syntactic rules and are affected only by phonologi-

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cal phenomena typical of word boundaries are best considered to be non-affixal in nature, while those that have no or reduced mobility and are affected by phonological processes that apply word internally or are idiosyncratic in nature behave like affixes and must attach to their hosts before lexical insertion takes place. Auger (1994a) examined the behavior of Picard subject clitics in literary texts in an attempt to determine the morphosyntactic and morphophonological status of these elements. As I was dealing with written data, most of the criteria which I considered were morphosyntactic in nature. Specifically, I established that in this language, subject clitics clearly are subject-agreement markers, as they appear any time a verb is expected to agree with its subject or with its antecedent. This distribution is illustrated in (1) below: (a) subject doubling is quasi-obligatory with all subjects, including bare quantified subjects; (b) subject clitics must be repeated before each finite verb in VP-conjunctions; (c) apparently resumptive subject pronouns are found in all subject relative clauses; and (d) a default 3masc.sg subject clitic is present in wh-questions in which the subject is extracted. (1) a.

parsonne i n’ l’ a vu déchénne aveuc és became nobody he neg him has seen to-go-down with his bike (Chl’autocar 49–50) “nobody saw him go down with his bike” (Chl’autocar 57) b. I rbéyoait’t étou pi i rioait’t “they looked too and they laughed” c. inne grosse féme éd Tours qu’ al étoait rouge . . . a fat woman from Tours that she was red (Chl’autocar 19) “a fat woman from Tours who was red . . . ” d. tchèche qu’ il a dit qu’ i folloait nin finir ? who that he has said that it had-to of-it to-finish (Chl’autocar 43) “who said we had to put an end to it?”

In Auger (1994a), two arguments of a morphophonological nature were presented in favor of the affixal nature of subject clitics. First, I showed that most subject clitics are not inverted in forming questions; rather, yes/no questions are formed by leaving subject clitics in their preverbal positions and inserting a postverbal question marker ti. This construction, which is illustrated for 1sg and 3masc.sg subjects in (2) below, can be used with any subject and is the only overt interrogative strategy available for non-2nd person subjects in this language. (2) a.

éj coprai ti à travér camps ? I will-cut int at across fields “will I take a short cut across the fields?”

(Forni 48)

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b. Il est ti leu mn’honme ? he is int there my man “Is my husband here?”

(Chl’autocar 18)

Second, I showed that even though subject-clitic inversion is possible with 2nd person subjects, different forms of the subject clitic usually appear in preverbal and postverbal positions. In varieties of Picard where te is the 2sg preverbal clitic, tu appears in postverbal position. In all Picard varieties, the 2pl preverbal clitic is o(z), while the postverbal clitic is vous. This pattern is illustrated in (3) below. The existence of different preverbal and postverbal subject pronouns does not follow from an analysis which derives subject-verb inversion from verb movement. Instead, I proposed that morphology generates different subject markers in prefixal and suffixal positions and that no verb movement is involved. (Chl’autocar 18) O passez ti pér Boégny ? you.formal pass int by Buigny “Do you go through Buigny?” b. Éte vous seur qu’ o porons monter? are you.formal sure that we will-be-able to-get-aboard (Chl’autocar 18) “Are you sure we’ll be able to get aboard?”

(3) a.

Object clitics differ from subject clitics in their morphosyntactic status. Indeed, their distribution is much more restricted than that of subjects, as they do not normally co-occur with overt lexical objects. Furthermore, direct object clitics do not normally appear resumptively in relative clauses, and indirect object clitics are found only variably. This led Auger (1994a) to conclude that object clitics are arguments in Picard. Based on the fact that subject clitics are affixes and that object clitics intervene between the subject clitics and the verb, I concluded that they too were affixes, thus affixal arguments. The present paper provides independent evidence that this conclusion is correct.

. Vowel epenthesis in Vimeu Picard One of the most striking features of Vimeu Picard (VP) concerns the regular presence of a default [e] vowel in various positions within a sentence. The distribution of this vowel is summarized by the four instances of the grammatical morpheme d ‘of/from’ contained in (4) below.

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(4) O vnoéme éd déchénne dé chl’éspréss d’ Amiens, [o vnw˜em ed dew˜en de wlespres d ãmj˜e] we came of to-come-down of the express from Amiens “We had just gotten off the Amiens express” pi o no nn’ alloéme à Boégny, mon d’ mes gins. (Chl’autocar 17) [pi o no nn alw˜em a bwe\i m«f d me Š˜e] and we ourselves of-it went to Buigny, at of my parents “and we were on our way to my parents”’ As (4) shows, the d morpheme can be realized as a single consonant when it occurs next to at least one vowel, as in chl’éspréss d’Amiens and mon d’mes gins, it can be preceded by an [e] when it is surrounded by one consonant on each side, as in o vnoéme éd déchénne, and it can also be followed by an [e] when it is followed by two consonants, as in dé chl’éspréss. Steele and Auger (2002) and Auger (2001) propose an analysis in terms of epenthesis and attribute this pattern of vowel insertion to the need to syllabify consonants at the edges of words. For instance, if we have a cluster which is not a possible onset in VP but an adjacent syllabic nucleus is available, syllabification can take place across a word boundary, as in [dew lespresdãmj«7] and [m«fd.me.Š«7], and there is no need to insert an additional vowel. However, in instances where too many consonants appear in sequence, it is necessary to insert one (or more) epenthetic vowel(s) in order to syllabify all consonants. Syllabification across word boundaries proceeds from right to left in VP, resulting in a CeC.C pattern which accounts for both [ov.nw˜e.med.de.w˜en] and [dew.les.pres]. Many pronominal clitics consist of a single consonant: /Š/ ‘I’, /m/ ‘me’, /t/ ‘2sg.non-nom’, and /s/ ‘3sg.refl’. Others consist of geminate consonants: /ll/ ‘3sg.acc’, /nn/ ‘3sg.gen’, and /zz/ ‘3pl.acc’. Finally, negative /n/, which occurs between the subject clitic and the object clitics, also consists of a single consonant. As a result, many combinations of these clitics or of a clitic followed by a consonantinitial verb stem create environments in which some consonants cannot be licensed by the prosodic structure of Picard (cf. Auger & Steele 1998), thus forcing vowel epenthesis. If pronominal clitics are phonological clitics which are generated in syntax and cliticize to each other and to their hosts only at PF, we expect epenthesis in clitic sequences to follow the same pattern that characterizes epenthesis at word boundaries. If, however, the conclusion reached in Auger (1994a) is right and pronominal clitics are morphological affixes, we should not be surprised to see a different epenthesis pattern emerge from our analysis. Let us now examine the epenthesis patterns inside clitic + verb clusters in a corpus of Picard literary texts from the Vimeu region. An initial look at how epenthesis operates within clitic + verb clusters reveals a pattern essentially identical to that characteristic of word boundaries. As shown in (5) below, when a consonantal clitic precedes a verb stem which begins with two

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consonants that do not constitute a possible onset in VP, because a more sonorous consonant precedes a less sonorous one, the sonority distance between the two consonants is insufficient, or the two consonants share the same place of articulation (cf. Auger & Steele 1998), the typical CeC.C pattern obtains. Similarly, when a clitic and a verb stem combine and form a consonant cluster that is, again, not a possible onset, epenthesis takes place and creates a CeC.C pattern, as shown in (6). (5) a.

Éj viens tout juste éd m’ élveu [mel.vø] I come all just of me to-get-up “I just got up” b. Qu’ éj sus ti heureux d’ t’ érvir! [ter.vir] that I am excl happy of you to-see-again “I’m so happy to see you again!” à l’ ville d’ Eu [set.nwf] c. I s’ étnouot, li, he himself held, him, at the town of Eu “He lived, him, in Eu” d. quante éj l’ émnouos aveuc mi [l˜em.nwf] when I her brought with me “when I brought her with me”

(6) a.

j’ém débrouille pour I myself manage for “I find ways to eat” b. J ’él mingerai tout I it will-eat all “I’ll eat it on my own”

(Rinchétte 46)

(Rinchétte 20)

(Rinchétte 19)

(Rinchétte 33)

mingeu [Š˜em.de.bruj] to-eat

(Rinchétte 144)

seu [Šel.m«7.Šre] alone

(Rinchétte 114)

However, many instances of a different, C.CeC, pattern can also be found in the data. For instance, 2sg.acc/dat /t/ behaves differently than /m/ and /ll/3 after 1sg.nom /Š/, as we can see in (7). In addition, /m/ behaves differently after negative /n/ than it does after 1sg.nom /Š/; like /t/ and /s/, /m/ acquires a postconsonantal epenthetic vowel in this environment, as shown in (8). (7) mais conme éj té connouos [eŠ.te.ko.nwf] but as I you know “but as I know you” (8) a.

(Rinchétte 38)

a n’ mé sanne point naturél du tout [ãn.me.sãn] it neg to-me seems not natural of-the all (Rinchétte 69) “it doesn’t seem natural at all to me”

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b. o n’ té voét pu! [«fn.te.vwe] one neg you sees not “we don’t see you anymore” c. Mais a n’ sé peut mie. [ãn.se.pø] but it neg itself can not “But it’s not possible”

(Rinchétte 131)

(Rinchétte 28)

Based on a comparison of the data in (6) and (8) above, we might be tempted to consider the possibility that each clitic behaves idiosyncratically and that negative /n/, for instance, may never surface as né. However, additional data reveal that this approach cannot be on the right track, as numerous instances of n’él, such as that in (9), are found in the corpus. (9) Mais o n’ él dirouot mie. [o.nel.di.rwf] but one neg it would-say not “But one would never guess”

(Rinchétte 61)

Another possibility is that the different behavior of 1sg.acc /m/ after a subject clitic and a negative clitic (cf. (6a) and (8a)) might be attributed to the fact that subject and non-subject clitics attach to their hosts at different levels of structure. Following Kayne (1975: 95), who observes that the sequence object clitic + verb is treated as a single constituent by certain syntactic operations (e.g., subject-clitic inversion) and that subject clitics fall outside that constituent, we could propose that subject pronouns cliticize onto their hosts postsyntactically, i.e., at PF, while non-subject clitics and verbs form a single syntactic constituent. This proposal, which accounts for the CeC.C pattern in (6) above, is made even more plausible by the fact that epenthesis operates in these two cases identically to what is found when non-subject clitics occur in initial position in the clitic + verb cluster, as seen in (10): (10) a.

sin ju ch’est d’ ét foaire porter toute à dos his game it’s of you to-make to-carry all at back (Chl’autocar 107) “his goal is to put the responsibility on you” (Chl’autocar 81) b. él temps d’ és rapurer the time of self to-calm “the time to calm down” c. Il a attindu d’ én pu l’ vir du tout he has waited of neg more her to-see of-the all (Chl’autocar 53) “He waited until she was completely out of sight”

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d. Tu n’ es mie forchè d’ ém raconteu t’ vie you.sg neg are not forced of me to-tell your life (Chl’autocar 35) “You’re not obligated to tell me your life story” e. un rude coup d’ él vir su l’ seu d’ és porte a big shock of him to-see on the step of her door (Chl’autocar 101) “a big shock to see him on her doorstep” Unfortunately, this hypothesis cannot account for the fact that 2sg.non-nom /t/ behaves differently when it occurs after the subject clitic /z/ (cf. (7) above) and when it occurs in the initial position of the clitic + verb cluster (cf. (10a)). Another explanation must thus be sought. (11) below, which summarizes the epenthesis patterns found in different clitic combinations, reveals a very interesting pattern: in all instances of CeC.C, the second consonant is more sonorous than the first (cf., e.g., the Sonority Hierarchy proposed by Goldsmith 1990: 111). In all C.CeC patterns, the second consonant is either less sonorous than or as sonorous as the first consonant. As is well known, sequences of consonants are subject to many constraints which restrict which consonants can cooccur within a given structure. We have already seen that VP allows some branching onsets and excludes others which do not fit its syllable structure. Many researchers have observed that restrictions of this type can also affect sequences of consonants which are not tautosyllabic. Within OT, Davis and Shin (1999) propose a Syllable Contact (SyllCon) constraint which requires that the onset of a syllable not be of greater sonority than the last segment in the immediately preceding syllable. As we will see, this constraint allows us to account for the two epenthesis patterns on phonological grounds. (11) a. b.

CeC.C: ŠemC ŠenC ŠelC melC nelC C.CeC: ŠteC nmeC nteC nseC

Attributing all instances of the CeC.C pattern to the need to avoid bad syllable contacts is of great consequence, as it now appears that the CeC.C pattern that is found within clitic + verb clusters may not be the basic pattern – as it is in syntax – but rather an alternative pattern which is used only in contexts where the basic pattern is disallowed. In other words, epenthesis appears to follow a basic C.CeC pattern within clitic sequences which clearly differs from the CeC.C pattern characteristic of word boundaries. This constitutes a first piece of evidence that clitics do not attach to their hosts in syntax. A second piece of evidence comes from the fact that the role of SyllCon in VP is limited to the domain of clitic + verb clusters, as this constraint never modifies the epenthesis site in syntactic structures. (12) below, which presents different combinations of consonants at syntactic boundaries, establishes

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that the CeC.C pattern obtains at all syntactic boundaries, even when an alternative C.CeC pattern could avoid a violation of SyllCon. The data in (10) above confirm that the juncture between a preposition and a non-subject clitic exhibits the same pattern and can thus be considered to be syntactic in nature. (Chl’autocar 19) inne grosse féme éd Tours a fat woman from Tours (Chl’autocar 17) b. à cho‘g grimpètte éd Feuquerolle at the hill of Feuquerolle “at the Feuquerolle hill” (Chl’autocar 17) c. in attindant l’ oral éd nos éxamins in waiting-for the oral of our exams “while waiting for our oral exams” d. cho‘g granne ligne bleuse éd la Forêt d’ Eu (Chl’autocar 34) the long line blue of the forest of Eu “the long blue line of the Eu forest” e. J’éroais bél air éd rintrer conme o I would-have beautiful air from to-return like that (Chl’autocar 21) “I would look stupid if I returned like this” f. i leu rsannoait’t vraimint conme deux gouttes they themselves resembled really as two drops (Rinchétte 20) éd ieu of water “they were just like two peas in a pod”

(12) a.

What I have attempted to show in this section is that while epenthesis follows a regular pattern inside clitic + verb clusters, this pattern differs from that observed at word boundaries. Specifically, in both contexts, epenthesis provides a nucleus which licenses consonants which could not otherwise be syllabified. However, the two patterns differ in two respects. (i) The basic epenthesis patterns differ, with CeC.C characterizing syntactic boundaries and C.CeC being associated with clitic + verb clusters; and (ii) the effect of SyllCon on the site of epenthesis is limited to clitic + verb clusters. Before developing an OT analysis of vowel epenthesis inside clitic + verb clusters, it is necessary to note that even in this context, some bad syllable contacts are tolerated. (13) below illustrates some contexts in which bad syllable contacts occur in VP. The analysis which will be developed in the next section will have to account for these exceptions to SyllCon.

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(13) a.

si o n’ évnez point à l’ messe [o.n˜ev.ne] if you.formal neg come not to the mass (Réderies 45) “if you don’t come to mass” (Forni 28) b. chés gins qu’ i m’ l’ont racontè [im.l«f] the people that they to-me it have told “the people who told it to me” n’ l’ érouos pététe poé cru [tyn.le.rwf] c. Tu you.sg neg it would-have maybe not believed (Lette 1273) “You might not have believed it” (Forni 112) d. J’ém léve éd cho’b bantchétte [Š˜em.lev] I myself get-up from the seat “I get up from the seat” in voéche à Paris [keŠ.m«7.vwew] e. I feut qu’ éj m’ to Paris it is-necessary that I myself of-it go (Lette 1416) “I have to go to Paris”

. An OT analysis of vowel epenthesis in clitic + verb clusters In this paper, I follow Itô’s (1989) proposal that direction of syllabification plays an important role in the typology of epenthesis systems and Mester and Padgett’s (1994) suggestion that the alignment technique developed by McCarthy and Prince (1993) for accounting for directional foot parsing effects can be extended to deal with directional syllabification effects such as the ones described in this paper. Specifically, Mester and Padgett propose that Align-L (σ, PrWd), which requires every syllable to be aligned with the left edge of a prosodic word, is responsible for right-to-left syllabification, while Align-R (σ, PrWd), which requires that every syllable be aligned with the right edge of a prosodic word, syllabifies words from left-to-right. What I propose for VP is that the C.CeC epenthesis pattern reflects left-to-right syllabification inside clitic + verb groups. Tableau 1 shows how AlignR (σ, PrWd) correctly predicts this C.CeC epenthesis pattern. If we consider only the /anspø/ portion of this input, as this forms a prosodic word separate from negative mie, assume that epenthetic vowels and coda consonants are moraic (cf., e.g., Broselow 1992 concerning epenthetic vowels), and count the number of violations incurred by each output form in terms of moras, we see that the [ãn.se.pø] candidate has one fewer violation of Align-R (σ, PrWd) than the [ã.nes.pø] candidate and is thus selected as optimal.

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Tableau 1 Input: /a n s pø mi/ Align-R (σ, PrWd) it neg self is-possible not “it’s not possible” σ1 σ2 σ3 [ãn.se.pø] a n’sé peut (mie) µµ µ [ã.nes.pø] a n’és peut (mie) µµµ! µ While the basic epenthesis pattern in clitic + verb clusters can be attributed to Align-R (σ, PrWd), this constraint cannot be undominated in VP. Indeed, we saw in Section 3 that CeC.C replaces the basic pattern when the latter constitutes a bad syllable contact. This effect can be derived if we rank SyllCon higher than Align-R (σ, PrWd), as can be seen in Tableau 2. Tableau 2 Input: /o n l di pw«7/ SyllCon Align-R we neg it say not (σ, PrWd) “we don’t say it” [õn.le.di] o n’lé dit *! *** [õ.nel.di] o n’él dit **** We also saw at the end of Section 3 that even the effect of SyllCon is limited within clitic + verb clusters and that some bad syllable contacts are tolerated. (13)a above shows that two consonants which are part of the verb stem need not be separated, even if they form a bad syllable contact. We can account for this by proposing that Morpheme Contiguity, a constraint which prevents the insertion of moraic materials inside a morpheme (cf. Kenstowicz 1994), is ranked higher than SyllCon in VP. The effect of this ranking, which also accounts for all the data in (5) above, whether they involve a violation of SyllCon or not, is illustrated in Tableau 3. Tableau 3

In (13b) and (13c) above, we see that bad syllable contacts are also tolerated when they involve two non-subject clitics. What distinguishes these two examples from those in which SyllCon affects the epenthesis site in (5), (6), and (9) above, is the number of consonants present. In (13b) and (13c), only two consonants are involved, whereas in (5), (6), and (9), three consonants occur in sequence. In each of the latter examples, epenthesis is required in order to syllabify all three consonants,

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leaving it to SyllCon to decide where the epenthetic vowel is inserted. However, in (13b) and (13c), epenthesis is not required, as the first of the two consonants can be syllabified as the coda of the syllable headed by the preceding vowel, and the second consonant can be syllabified as an onset. Thus, it appears that SyllCon cannot trigger vowel epenthesis in order to break up a bad syllable contact and that its power is limited to determining the site in which an otherwise required epenthetic vowel will be inserted. This effect can be derived if we rank Dep-V, the constraint which prohibits the insertion of vowels not present in the input, higher than SyllCon, as seen in Tableau 4.4 Tableau 4

(13d) above illustrates yet another context in which bad syllable contacts are tolerated: when a clitic precedes a verb stem whose initial consonant is more sonorous than that of the clitic. Such exceptions to SyllCon follow from the constraint ranking proposed so far. If syllabification proceeds from left to right inside clitic + verb clusters, this is as if, when we have a sequence of two bad syllable contacts (e.g., in this case, /Šm/ and /ml/), the leftmost violation is encountered and handled first. In this instance, an epenthetic vowel is inserted between /Š/ and /m/. Thus, when we reach /ml/, this contact is tolerated because both consonants can be syllabified without inserting another epenthetic vowel. Thus, Align-R (σ, PrWd) and Dep-V correctly predict that only one epenthetic vowel is inserted in (13d) above and in (14) below and that this results in a CeC.C pattern. vu (14) Alors, non, j’én l’ai point so, no, I neg him have not seen “So, no, I haven’t seen him”

(Forni 33)

The last type of exception that remains to be accounted for actually constitutes a double violation, since it violates not only SyllCon, but also Align-R (σ, PrWd). Specifically, we must wonder why in (13e), which involves a subject clitic followed by a more sonorous consonant (whether this second consonant is part of a verb stem or another clitic), epenthesis systematically takes place at the edge of the clitic + verb group rather than inside it. In other words, why do we get I feut qu’éj m’in voéche ‘I have to go’ rather than *I feut qu’jé m’in voéche? I suggest that this pattern is characteristic of what is found at the edge of clitic + verb groups and that it reflects the CeC.C pattern that is typical of syntactic boundaries. Specifically, we can account for the fact that epenthesis operates differently at word boundaries and

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inside clitic + verb sequences if we assume that syllabification proceeds in different directions at the two levels of structure. If Align-R (σ, PrWd) produces left-toright syllabification in clitic + verb groups (and inside prosodic words in general), let me propose that Align-L (σ, PPhr) produces right-to-left syllabification across word boundaries within phonological phrases. If we rank Align-L (σ, PPhr) higher than Align-R (σ, PrWd), we ensure that consonant clusters located at the edges of prosodic clitic + verb groups are syllabified from right-to-left rather than left-toright and that the epenthesis pattern in this context is CeC.C. This effect, which is shown in Tableau 5, also accounts for all the data in (10) above. Tableau 5 Input: /k Š m «7 vwew/ Align-L Align-R that I myself of-there go-subjunctive (σ, PPhr) (σ, PrWd) “that I leave” [k.Še.m«7.vwew] qu’jé m’in voéche5 *! ***** [keŠ.m«7.vwew] qu’éj m’in voéche ***** We just saw that Align-L (σ, PPhr) is ranked higher than Align-R (σ, PrWd) in VP. If we also rank Align-L (σ, PPhr) higher than SyllCon, we can account for the fact that bad syllable contacts are always tolerated across word boundaries and that SyllCon never affects the placement of epenthetic vowels at this level of structure. This is shown in Tableau 6. Tableau 6 Input: /dø gut d jø/ Align-L SyllCon two drops of water (σ, PPhr) [dø.gu.ted.jø] deux gouttes éd ieu * [dø.gut.de.jø] deux gouttes dé ieu *! The grammar of vowel epenthesis inside clitic + verb clusters in VP is summarized in (15) below. Given that Morph-Cont is never violated inside clitic + verb clusters, it is considered to be undominated in this partial grammar and thus ranked at the same level as Align-L (σ, PPhr). (15) Align-L (σ, PPhr), Morph-Cont >> Dep-V >> SyllCon >> Align-R (σ, PrWd) The effect of the constraints listed in (15) is generally invisible in syntax due to the fact that all of them are ranked very low in the grammar of VP. In Auger’s (2001) analysis of word-initial epenthesis in VP, Dep-V is one of the lowest ranked constraints, as can be expected from the fact that epenthesis is such a common strategy for syllabifying unsyllabified consonants. Consequently, SyllCon and Align-R (σ, PrWd) are ranked lower than almost all other constraints relevant for the applica-

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tion of epenthesis at word boundaries, thus correctly predicting that their effect is invisible in syntax.

. Conclusion As I pointed out in the conclusion of Auger (1994a), the idea that subject clitics in Picard and other Romance languages are best analyzed as some type of affixal agreement marker is not a new one. However, relatively few researchers have recognized that even though agreement markers tend to be affixal and arguments nonaffixal, these two dimensions are independent and must be investigated separately. Auger (1994a) provided ample evidence concerning the morphosyntactic status of subject and non-subject clitics. The present paper focused on the morphophonology of clitic + verb clusters, using vowel epenthesis as a diagnosis for determining whether pronominal clitics combine with their hosts in syntax or in morphology and allowing for the possibility that some clitics might cliticize to their hosts in syntax while others are generated as affixes in morphology. It was concluded that all VP pronominal clitics are affixes. In this paper, no evidence was uncovered that would support two different levels of cliticization, as all epenthesis patterns were shown to result from a few low ranked constraints in the grammar of VP. Indeed, I attributed the basic C.CeC pattern that is characteristic of clitic + verb groups to the fact that syllabification takes place from left to right inside clitic + verb clusters, and I accounted for exceptions to this pattern by invoking a SyllCon constraint which rules out bad syllable contacts. Exceptions to SyllCon were shown to derive from an interaction with more highly ranked constraints. I argued that the fact that syllabification proceeds in opposite directions inside clitic + verb groups and across word boundaries and the fact that SyllCon is operative only inside clitic + verb groups constitute two pieces of evidence for treating all pronominal clitics as verbal affixes generated in morphology prior to lexical insertion rather than as elements which cliticize onto verbs at PF. This paper has also failed to uncover any evidence in favor of a distinct level of prosodic structure called the Clitic Group (cf., e.g., Hayes 1989 and Horne 1989). While I have not yet examined in detail epenthesis patterns inside words, there is some evidence that syllabification proceeds from left to right inside derived and compound words too, as can be seen in (16a) and (16b) below. There is even evidence that SyllCon may have, at some historical stage, governed the placement of epenthetic vowels, as shown in (16c). However, it must be noted that evidence for left to right syllabification and the effect of SyllCon inside words is sometimes blurred by competition between the requirement that epenthetic vowels not be in-

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serted inside morphemes and what I propose as the basic C.CeC word-internal pattern; this competition sometimes results in the coexistence of two possible outputs, as in (16d) and (16e). (16) a. b. c. d. e.

(é)dvant ‘in front of ’ vs. pér dévant ‘in front of ’ (é)tnir ‘to hold’ vs. rténir ‘to hold back’ and intérténir ‘to maintain’ (é)vnir ‘to come’ vs. rvénir ‘to come back’ vs. dévnir ‘to become’ récmandeu/rquémandeu ‘to recommend’ récmincheu/rquémincheu ‘to start over’

Even though underived words might cast doubt on the generality of the wordinternal C.CeC pattern, these words constitute only apparent counterexamples. We find in VP a number of words like guérnouille [‘frog’], which contain a [CerC] pattern found in unstressed positions. Initially, I thought that these words might lack an /e/ in their underlying forms (e.g., /grnuj/) and that epenthesis would occur as a means of syllabifying its interconsonantal /r/, thus constituting evidence that the general CeC.C pattern described for word-boundary contexts applied word internally, too. However, this analysis is inadequate for two reasons. First, as (17) below shows, pairs of words in which the initial syllable contains either [Cer] or [Cre] make it impossible to predict whether the vowel is inserted before or after /r/ if we posit underlying forms such as /grnuj/ and /grfø/. Thus, the [e]’s must be underlyingly present in these words. An alternative analysis which views some vowels, let’s say those in [Cre] syllables, as being underlying, and treats the others as epenthetic does not present much interest. (17) a. guérnouille [gernuj] “frog” vs. greffeu [grefø] “to graft” b. férdainne [ferd˜en] “mischief ” vs. frémir [fremir] “to shiver” c. quérveu [kervø] “to burst” vs. crétin [kret«7] “stupid” The most plausible analysis concerning /CerC/ words is that they have undergone historical metathesis (cf., e.g., Lyche 1995): (i) their etyma contain a vowel after /r/ (cf. Provençal granolha (Bourciez & Bourciez 1982), Provençal fradin (Robert 1996), and Latin crepare (Robert 1996)),6 and (ii) their French cognates, grenouille, fredaine, and crever, which contain an initial /Cre/ syllable. The conclusion reached in this paper concerning the morphophonological status of Picard pronominal clitics is not necessarily generalizable to other Romance languages. However, the methodology is. Thus, it should be possible to examine such phonological processes as affrication in Québec colloquial French (QCF) to determine whether pronominal clitics in this variety are affixes. Quite interestingly, variable affrication in sequences involving a pronominal clitic followed by a high front vowel as in ça t’irait [‘it would suit you’] and t’imagines [‘you imagine’] contrasts with categorical affrication inside words (e.g., tirer [ts ite] [‘to pull’]) and

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would appear to support a non-affixal analysis of these elements, thus calling into question this part of Auger’s (1994b) analysis. Given this observation, a fuller investigation of the morphophonological of pronominal clitics in QCF is definitely called for.

Notes . This research is funded in part by NSF grant BCS-0091687. I thank Brian José and Kathryn Tippetts for their help collecting data, their contributions to the analysis, and their comments on a draft version of this paper. I also thank Iska Iskrova and Kathleen O’Connor for their comments on a draft version of this paper and Stuart Davis, Dan Dinnsen, and Kathleen O’Connor for very stimulating discussions on this topic. Finally, I thank the LSRL audience for their comments and suggestions. . Cf. Auger (1994b: 239) for examples confirming the independence of the morphosyntactic and morphophonological dimensions. . Degemination simplifies all geminate consonants that do not occur intervocalically in VP. . Clitic sequences involving geminate consonants raise issues that cannot be addressed in this paper due to space constraints. For instance, if we have /m/ followed by /ll/, both [iml] and [imell] are possible outputs. This language-internal variation can be accounted for if we propose that Dep-V and Max-Geminate are crucially unranked in VP (Anttila 1997 and Auger 2001): the Dep-V >> Max-Gem ranking selects [im.l] as its optimal output, and Max-Gem >> Dep-V selects [i.mel.l] as optimal. Because [i.me.l] violates both constraints, this candidate is never selected as optimal.

. The initial [k] can be syllabified in one of three ways, depending on the context in which it appears: it can be the coda of a syllable headed by the final vowel of the preceding word or by an epenthetic vowel, or it can be indirectly licensed by an Intonational Phrase or an Utterance (cf. Auger 2001). . French also has some examples of historical metathesis which applied in the other direction. E.g., Proto-Romance *berbicem became brebis ‘ewe’ in French. Note that in this case, VP retained the original order of vowel and liquid in its word bérbis ‘sheep’.

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References Anttila, Arto (1997). Deriving Variation from Grammar: A Study of Finnish Genitives. In Frans Hinskens, Roeland van Hout, & W. Leo Wetzels (Eds.), Variation, Change, and Phonological Theory (pp. 35–68). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Auger, Julie (1994a). On the nature of subject clitics in Picard. In Michael L. Mazzola (Ed.), Issues and Theory in Romance Linguistics (pp. 159–179). Washington, DC: Georgetown U. Press. Auger, Julie (1994b). Pronominal Clitics in Québec Colloquial French: A Morphological Approach. Ph.D. dissertation, University of Pennsylvania. Auger, Julie (2001). Phonological variation and Optimality Theory: Evidence from wordinitial vowel epenthesis in Picard. Language Variation and Change. Auger, Julie & Jeffrey Steele (1999). Vowel epenthesis in Vimeu Picard: A preliminary analysis. In Christine Moisset & Mimi Lipson (Eds.), Selected Papers from NWAV(E) 27 (pp. 1–15). Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania. Bourciez, É. & J. Bourciez (1982). Phonétique française: étude historique. Paris: Klinksieck. Brandi, Luciana & Patrizia Cordin (1989). Two Italian dialects and the null subject parameter. In Osvaldo Jaeggli & Ken J. Safir (Eds.), The Null Subject Parameter (pp. 111–142). Dordrecht: Kluwer. Broselow, Ellen (1992). Transfer and universals in second language epenthesis. In Susan M. Gass & Larry Selinker (Eds.), Language Transfer in Language Learning (pp. 71–86). Amsterdam: Benjamins. Davis, Stuart & Seung Hoon Shin (1999). The syllable contact constraint in Korean: An Optimality-Theoretic analysis. Journal of East Asian Linguistics, 8, 285–312. Goldsmith, John (1990). Autosegmental and Metrical Phonology. Oxford: Blackwell. Goria, Cecilia (1998). Subject clitics in Piedmontese: A minimalist analysis. Olga Fullana & Francesca Roca (Eds.), Studies on the Syntax of Central Romance Languages (pp. 101– 121). Universitat di Girona. Hayes, Bruce (1989). The prosodic hierarchy in meter. Phonetics and Phonology, Volume I: Rhythm and Meter, 201–260. Horne, Merle (1989). The clitic group as a prosodic category in Old French. Working Papers, 35, 99–111. Lund, Sweden. Itô, Junko (1989). A prosodic theory of epenthesis. Natural Language and Linguistic Theory, 7(2), 217–259. Kayne, Richard S. (1975). French Syntax. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Kenstowicz, Michael (1994). Syllabification in Chukchee: A constraints-based analysis. Proceedings of the Formal Linguistic Society of Midamerica IV, 160–181. Lyche, Chantal (1995). Schwa metathesis in Cajun French. Folia Linguistica, 29(3/4), 369– 393. McCarthy, John J. & Alan S. Prince (1993b). Generalized alignment. Ms., University of Massachusetts, Amherst & Rutgers University. (ROA-7-0000). Mester, Armin & Jaye Padgett (1994). Directional syllabification in generalized alignment. Phonology at Santa Cruz, 3, 79–85.

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Parry, M. Mair (1997). Preverbal negation and clitic ordering, with particular reference to a group of north-west Italian dialects. Zeitschrift für Romanische Philologie, 113(2), 243– 270. Poletto, Cecilia (1993). La sintassi del soggetto nei dialetti italiani settentrionali. Padova: Unipress. Robert, Paul (1996). Nouveau Petit Robert. Paris: Dictionnaires le Robert. Roberts, Ian G. (1991). The nature of subject clitics in Franco-provençal Valdôtain. Henk van Riemsdijk & Luigi Rizzi (Eds.), Clitics and their Hosts (pp. 303–330). Tilburg: Tilburg University. Steele, Jeffrey & Julie Auger (2002). A constraint-based analysis of intraspeaker variation: Vocalic epenthesis in Vimeu Picard. In Teresa Satterfield, Christina Tortora, & Diana Cresti (Eds.), Current Issues in Linguistic Theory (pp. 306–324). Amsterdam: Benjamins.

Sources [Chl’autocar] Leclercq, Jean (1996). Chl’autocar du Bourq-éd-Eut. Abbeville: Ch’Lanchron. [Forni] d’Dergny, A. D. [aka Armel Depoilly] (1998). Contes éd no forni et pi ramintuveries. Abbeville: Ch’Lanchron. [Létte] Vasseur, Gaston [aka Robert Mononque] (1938–1971). Létte à min cousin Polyte. Weekly chronicle published in Bresle et Vimeu. [Réderies] Lecat, Charles (1977). Réderies. Fressenneville: Imprimerie Carré. [Rinchétte] Chivot, Eugène (1993). Rinchétte. Abbeville: Ch’Lanchron.

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Spanish /s/ A different story from beginning (initial) to end (final)* Esther L. Brown and Rena Torres Cacoullos University of New Mexico

.

Introduction

Syllable final /s/ is perhaps the most studied phonological variable in Hispanic linguistics. The most frequent consonant in Spanish (Alarcos Llorach 1961: 13), /s/ participates in many widely discussed phonological processes and its patterns of variation have been used to distinguish geographic, social, and stylistic varieties, synchronically and diachronically, in countless studies. The overwhelming focus on syllable final /s/ is not surprising since phonetic reduction in this position is prevalent in many varieties and, word finally, intersects with morphology. In sharp contrast to the plethora of studies on /s/ in final position, there is a dearth of empirical studies on initial /s/, although syllable initial aspiration, as in nohotros, is mentioned anecdotally for parts of Spain, Colombia, northern New Mexico, and various other points between these geographic extremes (e.g. Espinosa 1930; Flórez 1951; Lipski 1984, 1994; Cotton & Sharp 1988; García & Tallon 1995). Syllable initial /s/ variation has been neglected as an object of study, not only because of the supposition that its occurrence is relatively limited, but more importantly we think, because of the prevailing assumption that it is a predictable extension of processes occurring in syllable final position and therefore merits little theoretical interest. Typologically the change [s] > [h] is implemented along two main pathways, labeled by Ferguson (1990) the Greek type and the Spanish type. The Greek type begins in intervocalic position and proceeds to word initial and then to preconsonantal positions. The Spanish type starts in syllable final positions, first word medially and then word finally before a consonant. Aspiration extends “last, if at all, to word initial position” (Ferguson 1990: 64).

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Esther L. Brown and Rena Torres Cacoullos i. Word medial and word final, syllable final: preconsonantal s > h / Vs$C ex.: [lah mohkas] las moscas ii. Word final: prepausal s > h / Vs## ex.: [lah mohkah] las moscas iii. Word final: prevocalic s > h / Vs##V ex.: [lah alah] las alas iv. Word medial, syllable initial: prevocalic s > h / VsV ex.: [ke paha] ¿qué pasa? v. Word initial: prevocalic s > h / ##sV ex.: [hi heñor] Sí señor

Figure 1. Diffusion pattern for /s/ aspiration (adapted from Méndez Dosuna 1996)

The syllable-final to initial pathway for Spanish has been explicitly articulated in the framework of Natural Phonology by Méndez Dosuna (1996), who argues that the phonetic change is a progression of the diachronic process illustrated in Figure 1. According to this model, the development of /s/ aspiration and deletion begins syllable finally before a consonant (stage i: las moscas), and, generalizing from there, may extend its phonetic context to absolute final (stage ii: las moscas). It may proceed from there to word final prevocalic position (stage iii: las alas), thence to syllable initial position word internally (stage iv: qué pasa), and lastly to word and utterance initial position (stage v: sí senor). Although he has not studied this empirically, Méndez Dosuna suggests that this is, indeed, the diachronic route for the s > h change and adds, “Stages iv and v occur only in most casual speech styles in most radical aspirating dialects (e.g. Andalusian, Extremeño, Caribbean Spanish) . . . ” (1996: 98). The reduction of /s/ in syllable initial position is thus hypothesized to be the last step in a diachronic weakening process that would be found in dialects where /s/ is pronounced overall the least. It is striking, in our view, therefore, that the aspiration and loss of syllable initial /s/ is documented in varieties of Mexican Spanish, a dialect typically characterized for its retention and articulation of consonants. In this paper we compare aspiration and deletion in syllable final and syllable initial positions in Spanish data from Chihuahua, Mexico. Contrary to the prevailing assumption that /s/ reduction diffuses from syllable final to syllable initial position, we find a higher frequency of aspiration/deletion word medially in syllable initial position (ese) than in syllable final position (este). In striking contrast to the familiar pattern in aspirating Caribbean, South American, and Andalusian dialects, in the Chihuahua data we find that the frequency of aspiration and deletion word finally is higher before a pause or a vowel than before a consonant. Given this nonconforming pattern, we compare constraint hierarchies for /s/ reduction syllable finally and initially and show that following phonological environment makes

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the greatest contribution syllable finally, while preceding environment is the most important linguistic constraint syllable initially. This pair of results, higher /s/ reduction prevocalically than preconsonantally and different phonetic conditioning for /s/ reduction syllable finally and initially, provides evidence against the model in Figure 1 and more generally, against a unitary process of aspiration extending from syllable final to syllable initial position in Spanish.

. Data and method For this study we analyze the realizations of both initial and final /s/ in data from Ascención, Chihuahua, in northern Mexico. Given the limited number of speakers and hours of speech in our data, we do not make claims about the representativeness of the findings. Speakers were recorded in conversations or sociolinguistic interviews conducted as part of research on an unrelated topic (Torres Cacoullos 2000). Although we do not discuss extralinguistic factors here, the speakers, four males ranging in age from 30 to 80 years, show significant differences in rates of aspiration and deletion; stylistic factors are also important (Brown 2000). 3839 occurrences of /s/ were extracted from approximately 150 minutes of transcribed material. The locus of variation, or variable context, is occurrences of standard Spanish orthographic s, z, c (before e or i), and x in words like experiencia. In delimiting the variable context we included sequences of orthographic s, z, c across word boundaries, because in the data this is an eligible context for variation, as in buenas tardes señora, realized tarde[s] [h]eñora. We coded a little over 1,000 tokens each of /s/ in word initial (señor), word medial – syllable initial (ese), and word final (vamos) position. For word medial – syllable final position (este) the total is substantially smaller, at a little over 500. We note that word medial syllable final /s/ is a context of considerably lower frequency than word final /s/ (occurring between 3.5 and 4 times less frequently).1 Since we are interested in s > h > Ø as a process of phonetic reduction (lenition, weakening) in this study, we contrast sibilant realizations of /s/ with any reduced variants. Sibilant realizations include the voiced allophone [z], while considered together as reduced variants are aspirated and deleted tokens. With respect to aspiration, we did not distinguish phonetically between syllable initial and syllable final realizations, although acoustic (e.g. Mann & Soli 1991) and perceptual (e.g. Widdison 1991) studies suggest that /s/ has two very distinct sets of characteristics in onset versus coda position.2 With respect to deletion, we counted word final tokens in disambiguating contexts but excluded unclear cases, where we could not tell whether or not a plural

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was intended. For example, in lo[Ø] dia[s] festivo[s] si lo[s] trabajas, tienen que pagártelo[Ø] doble[s], y si, si no lo[Ø] trabajas, te lo[Ø] tienen que pagar sencillo, we coded the first two zeroes as plurals (los días and pagártelos dobles) but did not count the last two (lo trabajas te lo tienen que pagar, or los trabajas te los tienen que pagar). We recognize that these might well be cases of what Labov (1994: 561–566) calls “missing zeroes”, which give the appearance of lower reduction rates. Particularly apt for evaluating the proposed syllable final to syllable initial reduction model outlined above in Figure 1 is variable rule analysis. Variable rule analysis is a type of multivariate analysis that considers different environmental factors simultaneously and measures their effects on the choice of variants (Rand & Sankoff 1990), in this case, reduced versus sibilant realizations. Factor groups considered in this study are phonological context, stress, and lexical frequency. Variable rule analyses provide evidence on (1) statistical significance of effect (i.e., the regularities observed are not due to random fluctuation, at the .05 level); (2) magnitude of effect (i.e., which conditioning factor group is most responsible for reduction); and (3) hierarchy of constraints (i.e., ordering of factor weights within a group, e.g., following voiced consonants are more favorable than voiceless stops to /s/ reduction) (Poplack & Tagliamonte 2001: 92–93). The hierarchy of constraints yields “the detailed structure of the relationship between variant and context, or the “grammar” [or phonology] underlying the variable surface manifestations (Poplack & Tagliamonte 2001: 94). The comparison of constraint hierarchies across positions allows us to examine the claim that Spanish /s/ reduction is a unitary process extending predictably from syllable final to syllable initial positions.

. Does the final to initial continuum hold? As a first step in evaluating the hypothesis that syllable initial reduction is an extension of syllable final processes, we compared /s/ reduction in four positions: word initially (señor), word medially/syllable initially (dicen), word medially/syllable finally (mismo), and word finally (una vez). The frequency of reduced variants, combining aspiration and deletion, is summarized in Table 1. The prediction consistent with the hypothesis of a unitary syllable-final-to-syllable-initial reduction process is that reduction will be higher in syllable final than syllable initial positions. The right and left extremes of the table show the predicted result, with 21% and 45% for word initial and word final position respectively. Matters are complicated in the middle two columns, however, since in medial position reduction is higher in syllable initial (prevocalic) than syllable final (preconsonantal) position, with 34% and 22%.

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Table 1. Distribution of reduced /s/ in all positions (N = 3839) Word initial

Medial(syl.init.)

Medial(syl.fin.)

Word final

218/1044 = 21% Hí, heñor

380/1110 = 34% dihen

125/569 = 22% lo mihmo

504/1116 = 45% una veh

The ordering of positions in Table 1 goes against the suggested diachronic path of development outlined by Méndez Dosuna (1996). If the Chihuahua data were a reflection of the hierarchy for /s/ reduction drawn in Figure 1, which we think fair to say is assumed by most linguists, there should have been a higher occurrence of reduced variants in word medial/syllable final position than in either of the syllable initial positions. What we find instead is that the rate of reduction is virtually the same in word initial and word medial/syllable final position (Chi-square = .259968, p = .6101). Moreover, reduction rates are significantly higher word medially in syllable initial (e.g., ese) than syllable final (e.g., este) position (Chi-square = 26.91058, p = .0000). It is notable that word final position shows higher reduction rates than word medial/syllable final position, since the former constitutes an alternating environment, where changes have been found to be retarded (Timberlake 1978; Bybee 2001: 145–148). Several linguists explicitly place word internal preconsonantal ahead of word final preconsonantal position in the Spanish s > h pathway (e.g., Ferguson 1990: 64). In word medial/syllable final position, following (and preceding) phonological environment for /s/ is constant in a given word, e.g. word medial /s/ in any token of estar is followed by /t/. Word finally, in contrast, following phonological context is in theory as variable as the number of different phonemes with which the following word types may begin. In the present corpus, following consonants make up 59%, pauses 21%, and vowels 20%, of the word final data. Thus, not only is word final an alternating environment, but this word final alternating environment includes following vowels and pauses, which presumably are less favorable to reduction than consonants. The higher frequency of reduction in word final than word medial/syllable final position, which is always a preconsonantal context, points to a pattern of phonetic conditioning for aspiration and deletion that is different from those of other well-studied varieties of Spanish. Table 2 compares syllable final /s/ reduction in the Chihuahua data and two extensively studied regions, Cuba and Argentina, in four phonetic contexts: word internal preconsonantal, word final preconsonantal, word final prevocalic, and word final before a pause. The data in the columns labeled Cuba and Argentina, summarized from Terrell (1977, 1978, 1979), show a good fit with the generally accepted hierarchy for /s/ reduction (Figure 1). That is, in Cuba and Argentina, reduction rates are highest before a consonant, word medially or finally (stage i, Figure 1). The Argentina data, in fact, exactly fit Méndez Dosuna’s (1996) proposed model of

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Table 2. Comparison syllable final /s/ reduction in Chihuahua vs. Cuba, Argentina* Phonetic context

Chihuahua, Mexico

Cuba

Argentina

___C ___##C ___##V ___//

22% (569) 42% (656) 47% (221) 54% (230)

97% (1714) 98% (3265) 82% (1500) 39% (1776)

88% (4150) 89% (5475) 12% (2649) 22% (2407)

*Cuba, Argentina data taken from Terrell (1977, 1978, 1979); as summarized in Bybee (2001: 140)

the reduction process, with reduction rates following the order preconsonantal > prepausal > prevocalic position (in the Cuban data prevocalic and prepausal are reversed). Chihuahua syllable final /s/ reduction differs strikingly from Cuban and Argentine patterns. The environments with the most reduction in Cuba and Argentina (before a consonant word medially and finally), are those precisely in which we find the least reduction in the Chihuahua data, at 22% and 42%. Conversely, where the sibilant is most retained in other dialects (before a vowel or pause), it tends to be reduced in this corpus, at rates of 47% and 54%. The Chihuahua data are more similar to those reported by Brown (1993) for Sahuaripa, Sonora, also in northern Mexico. Higher reduction rates before a pause (29%) than before a consonant (14.5%) are similarly found here (1993: 173–174, Tables 7 & 10). The Sonoran Spanish also shows syllable initial /s/ aspiration and deletion, at a combined rate of 12% between vowels word medially and at word boundary (1993: 167, Table 4). Since the northern Mexican varieties that in fact aspirate initial /s/ do not seem to conform to either the proposed syllable-final to syllable-initial pathway (Figure 1), or the reduction pattern found in the Caribbean and South America, we need to take a more detailed look at regularities and tendencies in the Chihuahua data. What environmental factors condition /s/ reduction and how? In the following tables we show the results of four independent variable rule analyses, one for each of the four positions into which we classified occurrences of /s/: word final and word medial/syllable final, depicted in Table 3, and word initial and word medial/syllable initial, depicted in Table 5. Separate analyses were done because the positions involve different possible phonetic environments. Each analysis opposes reduced variants [h] and [Ø] to sibilant realizations. The analysis includes the following five factor groups: following and preceding phonological environment, relationship to stress in the word, word frequency, morphemic status (for word final /s/), and speaker differences.3 Within each factor group, individual factors are listed in descending order of factor weights; the higher weights are more favorable to /s/ reduction, while lower weights disfavor. The magnitude of the effect is measured by the range, the difference between the highest and lowest weight. The

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greater the range, the greater the contribution of the factor group to the probability of /s/ reduction.

. Final /s/ reduction: Following phonological environment and frequency/lexical effects We begin with syllable final /s/ (Table 3). As a first observation, following phonological environment is the most important constraint on /s/ aspiration and deletion, with a range of 46 word finally and 66 word medially. The direction of effect is the same for both positions, with reduction most favored by a following liquid, as in Israel and es lo, a nasal, as in mismo, and by other voiced consonants, as in vamos de.4 A following /s/ is least favorable, though aspiration does occur, for example, e[h] cierto. It is notable that voiceless stops disfavor reduction, since their conserving effect helps explain the lower rates of reduction word medially/syllable finally. On the other hand, word finally aspiration and deletion are favored by a following /a/, pause, and other vowels. The ordering of factors in preceding phonological environment is different in each position, with preceding /a/ most favorable to reduction word finally and preceding /e/ most favorable word medially. We note, though, that the word medial syllable final environment is heavily skewed. /e/ is the preceding phonological environment in 71% of our sample cases, while voiceless stops, overwhelmingly /t/, make up 94% of the following contexts. It turns out that half of the medial syllable final data is from two word types with the /est/ sequence, estar and este/a/o, a point to which we return shortly. Stress also shows differences between the two positions, with word final reduction favored in unstressed syllables, as in the articles los, las and object clitic nos, and post-tonic syllables, as in entonces, Juárez, todos. Word medially, reduction is favored in pre-tonic syllables, as in está. For word final /s/, we also considered morphemic status. The relationship of rates of reduction, deletion in particular, to the status of /s/ as a plural marker has been much debated, with consensus yet to be reached. (See Labov 1994: 556–568 for a summary of functional and counterfunctional accounts.) In the present data, the plural marker makes up 45% of the word final data and shows a reduction rate of 44%. This compares with 45% reduction for non-morphemic final /s/. On the other hand, the 2nd person singular marker apparently favors reduction more than either plural or non-morphemic /s/. We do not, however, interpret these results as evidence for morphemic status as a predictor of final /s/ behavior, since verbal /s/ makes up a scarce 4% of the data. Furthermore, 42% of the reduced variants come from the verb or discourse marker ves, verás ‘you see’, which aspirates or deletes in all but one occurrence.

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Table 3. Variable rule analysis of the contribution of phonological and lexical factors to the probability of syllable-final /s/ reduction, in word-final and word medial position (factors selected as significant within enclosed column)

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We hypothesized that lexical frequency would be an important factor in the reduction of /s/, both syllable initially and finally. In the usage-based model of phonology developed by Bybee (2001), high frequency lexical items tend to undergo articulatorily motivated reductive changes at faster rates than low frequency words. Sound change occurs in real time as language is used, and the instances of use are registered in memory. Words or phrases that are more frequently used have more of an opportunity to be altered, having the effect of accelerating the phonological reduction. Such is the case in studies of English schwa-deletion (Hooper 1976), historical sound changes (Phillips 1984), and t/d deletion (Bybee 2000). We find a small but significant frequency effect for word final /s/, in the direction predicted. Higher token frequency words favor aspiration or deletion more than lower frequency words. Although not selected as statistically significant, the direction of effect word medially is the same.5 The word medial data is highly skewed lexically. The six most frequent word types make up 69% of the data and 87% of reduced tokens. However, they do not behave uniformly. Estar [‘to be (located)’] alone makes up 39% of all the medial data and 61% – close to two-thirds – of all reduced tokens. Forms of estar have an overall reduction rate of 34%. In contrast, tokens of este/-a/-o, which is the second most frequent word type with 12% of the data and has the same /est/ sequence, show only 11% reduction. This may be because /s/ invariably occurs in a stressed syllable in this word. On the other hand, in an earlier variable rule analysis including individual word types, high frequency words mismo [‘same’] and después [‘after’] highly favored reduction, with rates of 80% and 46% respectively, while hasta [‘until, including’] and usted [‘you’] were less favorable, with 18% and 13%. Here stress does not provide an obvious explanation for the differences in reduction rates, since both mismo and hasta have a tonic /s/, while después and usted are pretonic, which should favor reduction (Table 3). What low reducers hasta, usted, and este have in common is a following /t/. Note, though, that despite the following /t/, estar has a relatively high reduction rate, in accord with its exceptionally high token frequency. In summary, we have seen that final /s/ reduction is not conditioned the same way in the present Chihuahua data as in the Caribbean and other well-studied dialects. Voiceless stops are the least favorable following phonological environment (excepting following /s/). Following pauses and vowels, as well as sonorants and voiced obstruents, favor aspiration and deletion in word final position. Reduction is less frequent overall word medially, and is also lexically restricted.6

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. Initial /s/ reduction: Preceding phonological environment, frequency/lexical effects and productivity Let us now turn to syllable initial /s/. Table 4 summarizes the distribution of the three variants, sibilant, aspirated, and zero, between word initial and word medial positions. The distribution of variants is similar in both positions. Nevertheless, reduction rates are higher word medially (Chi-square = 47.83179, p = .0000). This contrasts with syllable final /s/, where medial position showed restricted reduction rates. Table 5 shows the results of separate variable rule analyses for word initial and word medial syllable initial /s/. The linguistic factor group with the greatest effect on initial /s/ variation in both positions is the preceding phonological environment. This contrasts with syllable final /s/, where following phonological environment showed the greatest range. Following phonological environment was not selected as significant for word initial /s/, and shows a relatively smaller range for medials than preceding environment. It appears that syllable initial /s/ looks more to its preceding phonological environment, whereas syllable final /s/ looks to the following. The former is looking back, as it were, and the latter is looking forward. The direction of effect in all factor groups is similar, both word initially and medially. Preceding low and mid vowels are more favorable to aspiration and deletion than high vowels, though /a/ is ordered above /e/ in word initial position. For following environment, reduction is more favored by following /o/ and /e/ than following /a/ and /i/. In the stress factor group, unstressed and pre-tonic syllables are more favorable than stressed syllables, and also post-tonic ones in word medial position. With respect to lexical frequency, higher frequency words show higher reduction rates than low frequency items. Nevertheless, this factor group has the smallest range in word medial position and was not selected for word initial /s/ (but see Note 5). Frequency effects may be related to the productivity of phonological processes. If initial /s/ aspiration were a non-productive, entirely lexicalized phenomenon, we might not expect to see a frequency effect. Indeed, reading the limited bibliography on initial /s/ aspiration, one cannot help but notice that certain examples are repeated: nohotros, heñor, hí. Is Chihuahua initial /s/ aspiration a non-productive phenomenon applying to a small, closed set of words? Table 4. Distribution of syllable-initial /s/ variants by word position (N = 2154)

Initial Medial Totals

s

H

0

Totals

79% 66% 72%

19% 28% 24%

2% 6% 4%

48% 52%

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Table 5. Variable rule analyses of the contribution of phonological and lexical factors to the probability of syllable-initial (s) reduction, in word-initial and word-medial position (factors selected as significant within enclosed column)

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Table 6. Productivity of syllable initial variants by word position (Number and proportion of all word types appearing with variant; total types = 258)

Initial Medial

s

h

0

Total types

69 (88%) 148 (90%)

22 (28%) 43 (26%)

6 (8%) 18 (11%)

78 165

To measure the productivity of syllable initial /s/ aspiration and deletion, we counted the number of different word types that occurred at least once with a reduced variant. If reduction applied only to words such as no[h]otros and [h]eñor, the type frequency of the reduced variants would be a small proportion of the total number of word types in the corpus. However, as shown in Table 6, aspiration occurs in over 25% and deletion in about 10% of the types, in both words with an initial /s/ and words with a medial /s/. This spread suggests that aspiration of initial /s/ is not restricted to just a handful of words and is, at least partially, a productive variant, occurring in roughly one fourth of all word types. The relationship between lexical frequency and initial /s/ aspiration is not completely straightforward. In looking more closely at rates of aspiration in individual word types, we find evidence that the regular mention of nohotros in the literature is no accident. In the Chihuahua data, /s/ was aspirated in 81% of the occurrences of this word, the highest aspiration rate for a single lexical type in the data.7 Yet nosotros does not figure among the words with the highest token frequency. Table 7 lists in descending order the 13 word types with the highest token frequency in the combined word initial and word medial/syllable initial /s/ data. Also listed in Table 7 are the 13 word types with the highest aspiration rates, including verbs pasar [‘to pass’], conocer [‘to know’], decir [‘say’], and sacar [‘to take out’]; nouns veces [‘times’] and señor [‘mister, man’]; distal demonstrative ese; and adverb casi [‘nearly’]. There is some overlap between the two lists, for example, hacer [‘to do’] is a high aspirating word and a highly frequent verb, as well. Nevertheless, there is not a one to one correspondence between token frequency and rate of aspiration. Sí [‘yes’], the single most frequent word, is last on the list of aspirating words. At least half of the most highly aspirating words are not even on the list of the most frequently used words. While frequency effects appear to apply to /s/ reduction, as indicated by the direction of effect in all four variable rule analyses (Tables 3 and 5), when words are taken individually it is not the case that the highest frequency words show the highest reduction rates (Table 7). Thus, the aggregate frequency result may be due to the skewing effects of certain lexical items. These findings may be related to those of Poplack (2001) in her study of variation in the irrealis domain of French, which suggest a highly correlated relationship between frequency and lexical identity (and morphological irregularity) in the determination of productivity. On the

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Table 7. Syllable-initial /s/: Most frequent word types and word types with highest aspiration rates 13 most frequent words

Tokens

13 highest aspiration rates

Tokens

sí se ese, esa, esos, esas hacer* sea así entonces si decir* pasar* casa(s) salir* ser*

306 227 141 102 77 72 53 45 44 43 43 35 30

nosotros suffix -cito pasar casi veces hacer conocer señor empezar ese/a(s) decir sacar sí

27 15 43 10 21 102 18 26 14 141 44 27 306

81% 73% 58% 56% 52% 40% 39% 38% 36% 34% 34% 30% 29%

*Types with different inflected forms; bolded words are common to both lists.

other hand, a complicating facet in evaluating lexical frequency-based explanations is that not all word types are of a single form. This is especially the case for verbs, in which the phonetic environment for medial /s/ may not be uniform. For example, pasar has /aso/, /asa/, and /ase/ sequences as well as stress in different places in different conjugated forms. Thus, disentangling general frequency and particular lexical effects in initial /s/ aspiration is an issue for further study. Finally, the present data suggest another promising avenue of inquiry, looking beyond syllable and word boundaries to explore the effects of phonotactic patterns. A close examination of the weights for preceding phonological environment in Tables 3 and 5 reveals that, in all four positions, we have a common preceding vowel hierarchy, with low and central vowels more favorable to reduction than high vowels. Combining preceding and following phonological environment could yield illuminating results. Table 8 shows reduction rates in the /asa/ sequence in three positions. This phonotactic sequence occurs word medially in words like casa [‘house’] and pasar [‘to pass’]; word finally in frequent phrases such as gracias a [‘thanks to’] and vas a [‘you’re going to’]; and word initially in combinations such as ya sabía [‘he already knew’] and había sacado [‘he had already removed’]. We find that aspiration and deletion occur at higher rates between two /a/’s than average for the respective positions. In a usage based phonology it makes sense to analyze the data in larger units. While the majority of studies on Spanish /s/, including this one, specify the locus of weakening through a discussion of strictly defined syllable position, phonotactic

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Table 8. Phonotactic factor: /s/ reduction in /a/_–_/a/ context

Word initial (e.g. ya sabía, había sacado) Word-medial, syllable initial (e.g., pasar, casa) Word final (e.g., gracias a, vas a ver)

N

% aspiration/ deletion

Average aspiration/ deletion

17

59%

21%

80

46%

34%

20

60%

45%

sequences may provide insights not obtainable when separating the data by syllable position and word boundary (cf. Lipski 1994: 271–272). As Bybee (2001) convincingly argues, the basic unit of mental storage and the domain of application for sound change is the word and frequent constructions or phrases. The /s/ of vamos, for example, is usually categorized as syllable final. But if in actual linguistic usage vamos is frequently followed by a in the phrase vamos a ‘we’re going to, let’s’, we may not be justified in viewing this /s/ as syllable final. Similarly, certain frequent article – noun combinations (una/la señora ‘a /the lady, woman’) and routinized expressions (Bendito sea Dios) are likely stored in the lexicon as single chunks. Frequent collocations such as these may lead to the emergence of phonotactic patterns that may be favorable to /s/ reduction.8

. Conclusion In summary, in comparing syllable final and syllable initial /s/ reduction in data from Chihuahua, Mexico, variable rule analyses reveal that following phonological environment makes the greatest contribution to final /s/ variation, while syllable initial /s/ looks backward to the preceding phonological environment. On the other hand, lexical frequency effects appear to apply to /s/ reduction in any position, with higher frequency words favoring aspiration and deletion. Nevertheless, words with the highest initial /s/ aspiration rates are not all among the words with the highest token frequency. We find that while initial /s/ reduction is, at least partially, productive, lexical factors are clearly involved. Another question inviting further research is the role of frequent phonotactic patterns (such as the /asa/ sequence) in /s/ reduction. We conclude that the Chihuahua data provide evidence that the proposed continuum from syllable final to syllable initial position in /s/ reduction does not hold. Against the assumption that /s/ reduction diffuses from syllable final to syllable ini-

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tial position, we find a higher frequency of aspiration and deletion word medially in syllable initial position (for example, ese with 34%) than in syllable final position (este with 11%). The Chihuahua data show a different ordering of favorable contexts for final /s/ reduction than the familiar Caribbean pattern, as the frequency of aspiration and deletion is higher before a pause or a vowel than before a consonant word finally, and higher word finally overall than word medially before a consonant. Furthermore, overall rates of syllable final and word final reduction are relatively low. Recall Méndez Dosuna’s (1996: 98) prediction that initial /s/ aspiration will appear as an extension of final /s/ reduction in the “most radical aspirating dialects.” The Chihuahua data (and other northern Mexican patterns), however, suggest a different generalization. We propose the following two-part hypothesis, which can be empirically tested in dialects in which word and syllable initial aspiration have been noted, including Colombia, El Salvador, and Honduras. Syllable initial /s/ reduction will occur in Spanish varieties where: (1) word final /s/ reduction is greater before a pause and a vowel than before a consonant, and (2) overall final /s/ reduction rates are relatively low. This prediction is a generalization from patterns observed in the Chihuahua data and indications from Latin American dialect studies that initial /s/-aspirating Spanish varieties show syllable final aspiration rates that are either lower than in highly reducing Caribbean and coastal Central/South American dialects, or nil. The first appears to be the case in El Salvador and Honduras, the second in the highland regions of Colombia (cf. Lipski 1994: 209, 258, 271–272; Zamora & Guitart 1982: 119–120). Beyond generalization from the available data, independent motivation for this prediction is the affinity of the Chihuahua patterns with the Greek type of s > h change, in which the “crucial phonetic condition is the presence of a following vowel” (Ferguson 1990: 72). Since word medial syllable final /s/ is always preconsonantal, in the “Greek type” of Spanish varieties this will be the position with the lowest reduction rate. And since word final /s/ is preconsonantal about half the time, reduction rates in this position will be lower in these varieties than in classic Spanish type dialects.9 We thus predict that it is Spanish varieties with word final reduction rates higher in prepausal and prevocalic than preconsonantal contexts, and also relatively low overall syllable final reduction rates, that will manifest syllable initial reduction. In sum, the data and analyses presented here suggest a different story for Spanish /s/ reduction, one that is different from beginning (initial) to end (final).

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Notes * We are extremely grateful to Shana Poplack and Joan Bybee, as well as the LSRL referees, for questions and suggestions that improved the final version of this paper and will stimulate our continuing work. Both authors are responsible for shortcomings. . The 569 word medial syllable final tokens correspond to more recorded material than the other /s/ positions. . The distribution of reduced variants is different syllable finally versus initially. In syllable final position, both word finally (vamos) and word medially (este), the deletions and aspirations are roughly equal. In syllable initial position, in contrast, aspiration predominates over deletion with 92% of reduced tokens word initially (señor) and 82% word medially (ese). . Speaker differences showed a range of 36 in word final, 49 in word medial /syllable final, 47 in word initial, and 65 in word medial /syllable initial position. However, the ordering of the speakers by reduction rates was the same in all positions. . In Table 3, following /l/ appears to disfavor reduction word internally. Most occurrences in this data base were in tokens of trasladar, where /s/ was mostly maintained. . In this study we classified as high frequency those words with more than two tokens in the corpus; different cut-off points may well yield stronger frequency effects. . We do not know if lexical effects on word medial/syllable final /s/ reduction such as those found here have been studied in the Caribbean or other varieties. . It is not at all evident that aspiration in nosotros is due to morphological analysis (nos + otros). In an expanded data base, we found lower reduction rates for nos overall (72%) [including in prevocalic contexts (82%)] than for nosotros (89%). Perhaps more telling, if we separate out deletion, aspiration rates are 36% nos overall, 59% nos prevocalically, and 79% nosotros. . The effect of frequent phonotactic patterns could be measured by combining preceding and following phonological environment as a single conditioning factor in the variable rule analysis. . In a count of 141,295 word final /s/ tokens in an oral corpus of over one million words (Marcos Marín 1992), we found 52% followed by a word beginning with a consonant, and 24% each followed by a pause and a vowel.

References Alarcos Llorach, Emilio (1961). Fonología española. Madrid: Gredos. Brown, Dolores (1993). El polimorfismo de la /s/ explosiva en el noroeste de México. Nueva Revista de Filología Hispánica, 41(1), 159–176. Brown, Esther L. (2000). La reducción de la /s/ inicial en el habla de Chihuahua, México. Paper presented at 29th Meeting of the Linguistic Association of the Southwest, Puebla, Mexico.

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Bybee, Joan (2000). The Phonology of the Lexicon: Evidence from Lexical Diffusion. In Michael Barlow & Suzanne Kemmer (Eds.), Usage Based Models of Language (pp. 65– 85). Stanford, CA: CSLI Publications. Bybee, Joan (2001). Phonology and Language Use. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Cotton, Eleanor & John M. Sharp (1988). Spanish in the Americas. Washington: Georgetown University Press. Espinosa, A. M. (1930). Estudios sobre el español de Nuevo Méjico. Buenos Aires: Universidad de Buenos Aires. Ferguson, Charles A. (1990). From esses to aitches: identifying pathways of diachronic change. In William Croft, Keith Denning, & Suzanne Kemmer (Eds.), Studies in typology and diachrony for Joseph H. Greenberg (pp. 59–78). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Flórez, Luis (1951). La pronunciación del español en Bogotá. Bogotá: Publicaciones del Instituto Caro y Cuervo. García, MaryEllen, & Michael Tallon (1995). Postnuclear /s/ in San Antonio Spanish: Nohotros no aspiramos. Georgetown Journal of Languages & Linguistics, 3(2–4), 139– 162. Hooper, Joan B. (1976). Word Frequency in Lexical Diffusion and the Source of Morphophonological Change. In W. Christie (Ed.), Current Progress in Historical Linguistics (pp. 95–105). Amsterdam: North Holland. Labov, William (1994). Principles of Linguistic Change: Internal Factors. Oxford: Blackwell. Lipski, John M. (1984). On the Weakening of /s/ in Latin American Spanish. Zeitschrift fur Dialektologie und Linguistik, 51, 31–43. Lipski, John M. (1994). Latin American Spanish. London: Longman. López Chávez, Juan (1977). El fonema /s/ en el habla de La Cruz, Sinaloa. Nueva Revista de Filología Hispánica, 26, 332–340. Mann, Virginia & Sigfried D. Soli (1991). Perceptual Order and the Effect of Vocalic Context on Fricative Perception. Perception & Psychophysics, 49, 399–411. Marcos Marín, Francisco, director (1992). Corpus oral de referencia del español contemporáneo. Textual corpus, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid. Http://elvira.lllf.uam.es./ docs_es/corpus/corpus.html Méndez Dosuna, Julián (1996). Can Weakening Processes Start in Initial Position? In Bernhard Hurch & Richard Rhodes (Eds.), Natural Phonology: The State of the Art (pp. 97–106). New York: Mouton de Gruyter. Phillips, Betty S. (1984). Word Frequency and the Actuation of Sound Change. Language, 60, 320–342. Poplack, Shana (2001). Variability, frequency, and productivity in the irrealis domain of French. In Joan Bybee & Paul Hopper (Eds.), Frequency and the Emergence of Linguistic Structure (pp. 405–428). Amsterdam: Benjamins. Poplack, Shana & Sali Tagliamonte (2001). African American English in the diaspora. Oxford: Blackwell. Rand, D. & D. Sankoff (1990). GoldVarb. A Variable Rule Application for the Macintosh, Version 2. Montreal: Centre de researches mathématiques, Université de Montréal. Terrell, Tracy (1977). Constraints on the Aspiration and Deletion of Final /s/ in Cuban and Puerto Rican Spanish. The Bilingual Review, 4, 35–51.

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Terrell, Tracy (1978). La aspiración y elisión de /s/ en el español porteño. Anuario de Letras, 16, 41–66. Terrell, Tracy (1979). Final /s/ in Cuban Spanish. Hispania, 62, 599–612. Timberlake, Alan (1978). Uniform and Alternating Environments in Phonological Change. Folia Slavica, 2, 312–328. Torres Cacoullos, Rena (2000). Grammaticization, Synchronic Variation, and Language Contact. Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Widdison, Kirk Allen (1991). The Phonetic Basis for the s- Aspiration in Spanish. Berkeley, CA: University of California dissertation. Zamora, Juan C. & Jorge M. Guitart (1982). Dialectología hispanoamericana. Salamanca: Ediciones Almar.

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Consonant intrusion in heterosyllabic consonant-liquid clusters in Old Spanish and Old French An Optimality theoretical account* Fernando Martínez-Gil The Ohio State University

.

Introduction

The phonological properties of intrusive consonants have commanded a great deal of attention from generative phonologists during the last 30 years. The focus of this paper is a familiar type of consonant intrusion, one in which the epenthetic consonant breaks up heterosyllabic clusters of rising sonority. The process is traditionally described in terms of syllable phonotactics as a strategy for repairing bad syllable contacts. In this paper, I provide an Optimality theoretical account of this phenomenon framed within Correspondence Theory, illustrated with data from Old Spanish and Old French. I will show that a formal analysis of consonant intrusion of the kind found in these languages is more amenable to a constraint-based approach, and that such an approach enjoys several important advantages over standard serial accounts of the phenomenon proposed in the past, such as those of Wetzels (1985) or Clements (1987).

. Intrusive consonants in Old Spanish and Old French: The basic data An illustration of the process of consonant epenthesis that concerns us here is provided by the Old Spanish data in (1). At some point during the early Middle ages, Old Spanish underwent a well-known historical change triggered indirectly by vowel syncope, whereby an epenthetic consonant was inserted between the two members of a heterosyllabic cluster; usually, these are clusters of increasing sonor-

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ity, consisting of a sonorant or a continuant obstruent followed by a liquid. As shown in (1) and subsequent examples, the intrusive segment is an oral stop which takes on the voicing and point of articulation features from the first (coda) member of the cluster. Examples in (1) are classified according to the different types of clusters that triggered consonant epenthesis in Old Spanish, namely, /-mr-/, as in (1a–b), /-ml-/ in (1c), /-nr-/ in (1d), /-lr-/ in (1e), and /-zr-/ in (1f). (For clarity, here and in subsequent examples, the intrusive consonant is shown in boldface; OSp. = Old Spanish; MSp. = Modern Spanish.):1 (1) Intrusive consonants in Old Spanish heterosyllabic consonant-liquid clusters: a. /-mV.n-/ > /-m.n-/ > /-m.r-/ > /-m.br-/ (‘.’ = a syllable boundary): Latin OSp. fem(i)na (f)embra ‘female’ hom(i)ne ombre ‘man’ colum(i)nare columbrar ‘to see in the distance’ adlum(i)nare alumbrar ‘to lighten’ b. /-mV.r-/ > /m.r/ > /m.br/: hum(e)ru hombro ‘shoulder’ mem(o)rare membrar ‘to remember’ cam(e)ra cambra ‘(bath)room’ cucum(e)re cogombro ‘cucumber’ c. /-mV.l-/ > /m.l/ > /m.bl/: trem(u)lare tremblar ‘to shake, shiver’ Flamm(u)la Llambla (name) mam(u)las Mamblas (name) d. /-nV.r-/ > /n.r/ > /n.dr/: ingen(e)rare engendrar ‘to engender, beget’ pign(o)ra (> *peinra >) pe(i)ndra ‘pledge, token’ cin(e)ra çendra ‘hot ash’ (also acendrar ‘to purifie (metals)’) hon(o)ra ondra ‘honor’ (MSp. hon[ ¯r ]a) e. /-lV.r-/ > /l.r/ > /l.dr/: Latin OSp. mel(io)rare me(l)drar ‘to grow’ (MSp. medrar) mel(io)rantia me(l)drança ‘growth’ f. /- dz V.r-/ > /dz .r/ > /z.dr/ ( > /-dr-/): sic(e)ra (> sizra >) sizdra ‘cider’ (MSp. sidra) It should be noted that in (1a) the second member of the cluster is a rothic that derives historically by dissimilation of the second member of the secondary Romance

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group /-mn-/, created by syncope of the intertonic (pre- or postonic) vowel. The three historical stages traditionally assumed for this change are shown schematically in (2), where the forms that result from both vowel syncope and nasal dissimilation are amply attested in Old Spanish. (2) a.

/-mV.n-/ > /-m.n-/ (= vowel syncope): homine > omne (attested in OSp.) b. /-m.n-/ > /-m.r-/ (= nasal dissimilation): omne > omre (attested in OSp.) c. /-m.r-/ > /-m.br-/ (= consonant intrusion): omre > (h)ombre

That consonant intrusion was a synchronic phonological process, and not simply a historical change, is strongly suggested by the data in (3). In Old Spanish there was a regular process of pretonic syncope that deleted non-low theme vowels (i.e., those of the 2nd and 3rd conjugation verbs) in future and conditional forms. Typically, the Romance future and conditional are formed by taking the infinitive as the stem and the shortened forms of the verb haber ‘to have’ as desinence. Stress in these two tenses invariably falls on the desinence. When the consonant preceding the theme vowel in these cases is a sonorant, a fricative, or an affricate, and syncope of this vowel leaves a heterosyllabic consonant cluster of rising sonority as a result of the deletion, the insertion of an epenthetic consonant is set off. As a result, the stressed non-low theme vowel found in infinitives in isolation alternates with an intrusive consonant when the infinitive is incorporated as the stem of the future and conditional forms, as shown in (3):2 (3) Consonant intrusion in the Old Spanish future and conditional forms: a. /mV.r/ > /m.br/: Infinitive comer ‘to eat’ b. /lV.r/ > /l.dr/: doler ‘to hurt’ moler ‘togrind’ salir ‘toleave’ fallir ‘tofail’ c. /nV.r/ > /n.dr/: remaner ‘tostay’ poner ‘toput’ tener ‘tohave’ venir ‘tocome’ d. /dz V.r/>/z.dr/: Infinitive yazer ‘tolie’

Future 3 sg. com(e)-rá→combr-á

Conditional 3 sg. com(e)r-ía→combr-ía

dol(e)r-á→doldr-á mol(e)r-á→moldr-á sal(i)r-á→saldr-á fall(i)r-á→faldr-á

dol(e)r-ía→doldr-ía mol(e)r-ía→moldr-ía sal(i)r-ía→saldr-ía fall(i)r-ía→faldr-ía

reman(e)r-á→remandr-á pon(e)r-á→pondr-á ten(e)r-á→tendr-á ven(i)r-á→vendr-á

reman(e)ría→remandr-ía pon(e)r-ía→pondr-ía ten(e)r-ía→tendr-ía ven(i)r-ía→vendr-ía

Future 3sg. yaz(e)r-á→yazdr-á

Conditional 3sg. yaz(e)r-ía→yazdr-ía

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lazerar ‘towound’ laz(e)rar-á→lazdrar-á bendezir ‘tobless’ bendiz(i)r-á→bendizdr-á s e. /t V.r/ > /s.tr/ (spelled ztr) conosçer ‘to know’ conosç(e)r-á→cono[st]r-á fallesçer ‘to die’ fallesç(e)r-á→falle[st]r-á paresçer ‘to seem’ paresç(e)r-á→pare[st]r-á

laz(e)rar-ía→lazdrar-ía bendiz(i)r-ía→bendizdr-ía conosç(e)-ría→ cono[st]r-ía fallesç(e)r-ía→falle[st]r-ía paresç(e)r-ía→pare[st]r-ía

Further evidence for the synchronic status of intrusive consonants in Old Spanish is illustrated by data such as (4), from the Cantar de Mío Cid (c. 12th century).3 In medieval Spanish, word-final /e/ could be optionally deleted, a process traditionally known as apocope. Particularly prone to apocope were clitic words within the phonological phrase, especially object pronouns, whether proclitic, as in (4a), or enclitic, as in (4b). Significantly, when apocope yields a nasal-liquid sequence, an intrusive consonant could optionally emerge to break up the offending cluster, as illustrated in (4c) with the clitic group ni me la ‘neither+to me+it (fem.)’. (4) a.

Apocope of final /e/ in proclitics: que me → quem: A lo quem’ semeia, de lo mío avredes algo (v. 157) ‘It seems to me that you will get part of my belongings.’ ese logar → es logar: Grandes son los gozos que van por és’ logar (v. 1211) ‘Great is the rejoicing that spreads around that place.’ b. Apocope of final /e/ in enclitics: dio te → diot: Diot’ con la lança en el costado, dont ixió la sangre (v. 353) ‘He struck your side with his spear, whence blood ran out.’ levantose → levantós: Levantós’ en pie el buen rrey don Alfonso (v. 3108) ‘The good King don Alfonso rose to his feet.’ c. /-mV.l-/ → (m.l →) /-m.bl-/ ni me la (→ nimla) → nimbla: Ca non me priso a ella fijo de mugier nada, nimbla messó fijo de mora nin de cristiana (v. 3285–3286) ‘Since no son of woman has ever dared seize it, nor has any son of Moor or Christian ever plucked it from me’.

Old French exhibited a process of consonant intrusion which is entirely analogous (though seemingly independent as a historical development) to that found in Old Spanish. Interestingly, such epenthesis phenomena in Old French shared with Old Spanish both their historical source and their phonological conditioning, namely, heterosyllabic clusters of rising sonority created by syncope of intertonic vowels,

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as illustrated in (5) (cf., among others, Walker 1978; Morin 1980; Wetzels 1985; Picard 1987). (5) Consonant intrusion in Old French (OFr.): a. /mV.r/ > /m.br/: Lat. OFr. cam(e)ra (> chamre >) chambre ‘room’ num(e)ru (> nomre >) nombre ‘number’ b. /mV.l/ > /m.bl/: sim(u)lare (> semler >) sembler ‘to resemble’ cum(u)lu (> comle >) comble ‘summit’ c. /nV.r/ > /n.dr/: ten(e)ru (> tenre >) tendre ‘tender’ cin(e)re (> cenre >) cendre ‘ash’ gen(e)ru (> genre >) gendre ‘son-in-law’ d. /lV.r/ > /l.dr/: mol(e)re (> molre >) molder ‘to grind’ pol(ve)re (> polre >) poldre ‘powder’ mel(io)re (> mielre >) mieldre ‘better’ e. /zV.r/ > /z.dr/: laz(a)ru (> lazre >) la(z)dre ‘beggar’ cons(ue)re (> cozre >) cozdre ‘to sew’ f. /sV.n/ > /s.tr/: ess(e)re (> esre >) estre ‘to be’ g. /nV.l/ > /n.gl/: spin(u)la (> espinle >) espingle ‘pin’ As it was the case in Old Spanish, there is robust evidence that demonstrates the synchronic nature of consonant intrusion in Old French, as can be seen by the root alternations involving zero and an intrusive consonant illustrated in (6). (6) Old French root alternations (cf. Walker 1978; Morin 1980): a. oblique sg. nom. sg. ancess-our ancest-re ‘ancestor’ men-our mend-re ‘smaller’ graign-our graind-re ‘larger’ joign-our joind-re ‘younger’ noaill-our noald-re ‘worse’ meill-our mield-re ‘better’ b. 1 pl.-pres. ind. infinitive raem-ons raiemb-re ‘to buy back’

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crem-ons attaign-ons cous-ons naiss-ons paroiss-ons c. infinitive coill-ir dol-eir fail-ir iss-ir val-eir

creimb-re attaind-re cosd-re naist-re paroist-re 3 sg.-future cold-ra dold-ra fald-ra ist-ra vald-ra

‘to fear’ ‘to attain’ ‘to sow’ (s = /z/) ‘to be born’ ‘to appear, seem’ ‘to gather’ ‘to hurt’ ‘to fail, lack’ ‘to go out’ ‘to be worth’

. Intrusive consonants in a rule-based approach Recall that the most significant property of consonant intrusion in heterosyllabic consonant-liquid sequences, as illustrated by the Old Spanish and Old French data in (1)–(6), is that the epenthetic consonant is invariably an oral stop which takes on the voicing and place of articulation from the preceding consonant, so that a voiced stop is inserted after a sonorant or a voiced obstruent, but a voiceless one after a voiceless consonant. Let us briefly review now how serial phonological theories have attempted to capture the formal properties of the phenomenon under consideration. The nature of consonant intrusion, and how it should be expressed in formal (rule-based) phonological notation, has been a topic of much debate by generative phonologists in the late 1970’s, and especially during the 1980’s (cf., among others, Walker 1978; Morin 1980, 1987; Singh 1980; Piggot & Singh 1985; Wetzels 1985; Clements 1987; and Picard 1987). To take probably the most influential of these accounts, (Clements 1987: 41– 42), elaborating on an earlier proposal by Wetzels (1985), proposes to formalize the type of consonant intrusion under discussion by means of the following five independent mechanisms, ordered in the sequence given: (i) the insertion of a (C)onsonantal slot between the two members of a cluster of increasing sonority; (ii)–(iii) two universal default rules that assign the inserted C-slot, respectively, the major class features [–sonorant, –continuant], and the orality features [–nasal, –lateral]; and finally (iv)–(v), two further independent operations which spread laryngeal and point of articulation features from the preceding consonant. The insertion of a consonantal slot into the prosodic skeleton, as formulated by Clements (1987: 41), is given in (7):

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(7) 0 → C´ / Cm σ [ ___ Cn ] (C´ = an empty C-slot) (where Cm and Cn have a rising sonority profile) In Clements’ proposal, the introduction of the empty C-slot into the prosodic skeleton triggers the application of two universal redundancy rules, which he formulates as in (8) and (9) (Clements 1987: 41). Rule (8) specifies the syllable-initial C-position inserted by (7) as a noncontinuant obstruent. At this precise point, rule (9) applies ensuring that such noncontinuant obstruent is specified as oral and non-lateral. (8) Supralaryngeal tier: C → [–son, –cont] / σ [ ___ (9) [–son, –cont] → [–nas, –lat] Clements’ motivation for rule (7) crucially rests on a universal phonotactic constraint on the sonority profile of adjacent syllables, the so-called Syllable Contact Law (SCC) (Murray 1982; Murray & Vennemann 1982, 1983; Vennemann 1988), stated in (10), which prohibits syllable contacts with a rising sonority slope, hence the condition on rule (7). (10) The Syllable Contact Law (SCC) Adjacent syllable margins (i.e., coda-onset sequences) are of equal or falling sonority. Sonority is generally defined in reference to a Universal Sonority Hierarchy, a relatively simplified version of which is shown in (11) (cf. Clements 1990 and references therein): (11) The Universal Sonority Hierarchy lower sonority Obstruents stops fricatives 1 2

higher sonority Sonorants nasals liquids vocoids 3 4 5

← Sonority index

Finally, in order to account for the fact that the intrusive consonant acquires the voicing and point of articulation features of the first member of the cluster, Clements appeals to the phonological principle that governs assimilation and which he states as follows: “When an element of type P assimilates to an adjacent element of type Q rather than to another adjacent element of type R, types P and Q share more major class features than types P and R” (Clements 1987: 41). The formal implementation of such principle minimally requires two autosegmental mechanisms, which I have formulated in (12) and (13). That is, a rule that copies the laryngeal features of the coda sonorant onto the inserted consonant, as in (12),

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and another rule that spreads the place of articulation of the coda sonorant onto the inserted consonant, as in (13) (cf. Wetzels 1985). Importantly, the two operations cannot be formally collapsed, since the spreading features or set of features in each case do not form a node in the feature hierarchy (X’s = prosodic positions; R = Root; L = Laryngeal; SL = Supralaryngeal; PA = Place of Articulation).4 (12)

X]ó

R [+cons]

L

. .

ó[X

. .

X

[–son]

[–cont]

(13)

X]ó

R [+cons] SL

. .

PA

[–cont]

[+son] [+cons]

[–nas]

ó[X

. .

. . X

[–son]

. .

[+son] [+cons]

[–nas]

While such complex rule-based account essentially captures the facts of consonant intrusion, it fails to go beyond the level of description, and thus lacks explanatory power. Notice, for example, that the insertion of a consonant by (7) is simply stipulated. To be sure, epenthesis is not the only logically possible way to avoid a violation of the SCC. An equally simple and natural solution would be, for example, to delete one of the offending consonants, or to alter their underlying specifications so that a rising sonority profile is turned into a falling one. In fact, various strategies of avoiding SCC violations that do not involve epenthesis are abundantly attested in the literature on syllable contacts, both in synchronic grammars and in historical change (see Murray 1982; Murray & Vennemann 1982, 1983; Vennemann, Alderete 1995a; Bat-El 1996; Urbanczyk 1996; Rose 1997; Green 1997; Shin 1997; Davis 1998; Miglio 1998; and Davis & Shin 1999; among others). Yet, the account in (7)–(13) does not provide any explanation as to why epenthesis is consistently the selected option in Old Spanish and Old French. Similarly, such an approach fails to provide any clue as to why the place and voicing features are consistently copied from the first member of the cluster, and not, say, from the second member; nor can it explain why precisely these features, and not any others, are selected. Indeed, it can be argued that the rule-based approach obscures, rather than illuminates, the true nature of consonant intrusion. Consider, first, the relationship between the Cslot insertion rule (7) and the SCC (10). It should be noted that the epenthesis of

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an oral stop is not accidental; among obstruents, stops are the class of the lowest sonority in the Universal Sonority Hierarchy (cf. (11) above). The insertion of a stop has the effect of reversing the sonority slope of the syllable contact, while creating an optimal onset cluster, one with a maximal sonority distance between the first member (the inserted stop) and the following liquid. Now, recall that the overarching reason for positing the epenthesis rule (7) in the first place is to avoid the violation of a universal phonotactic constraint, the SCC (11). However, a significant problem with this analysis is that the sonority condition embodied by the SCC (i.e., that abutting syllable edges have a sonority profile of equal or falling sonority) is not satisfied by the C-slot at the point of insertion. Instead, such condition is only met later in the derivation, when rules (8) and (9) specify the inserted consonant position as an oral stop. In short, the direct relationship between the insertion of an intrusive stop and the avoidance of an SCC violation is inevitably lost. Finally, one might add that in rule-based phonology there is no coherent theory of how rules interact with constraints. In fact, the role of constraints in serial derivations can be construed as essentially contradictory: in some instances, such as in the case under consideration, satisfaction of a constraint crucially triggers the application of a phonological rule; in other instances, however, constraints are invoked to block the application of phonological rules.

. An Optimality theoretical account of intrusive consonants In this paper I argue that a much simpler and more straightforward account of consonant intrusion such as that found in Old Spanish and Old French is available in the framework of Optimality Theory, couched within the subtheory known as Correspondence Theory (McCarthy & Prince 1995, 1997). The essence of the account presented here is based on the interaction of two types of markedness constraints on the one hand, and a certain set of Faithfulness (Correspondence) constraints on the other. Following Bat-El (1996), I will assume the Syllable Contact Constraint, a member of a family of markedness constraints on syllable contacts, which is actually comprised of two distinct constraints, formulated in (14): the Syllable Contact Law in (14a) and the Syllable Contact Slope (14b). Since it mentions “preference” the Syllable Contact Slope (14b) is a gradient constraint. (14) Syllable Contact Constraints (SyllCon ) (Bat-El 1996: 304–305): a. Syllable Contact Law: The onset of a syllable must not be of greater sonority than the last segment in the immediately preceding syllable. b. Syllable Contact Slope: The preferred syllable contact is one with the greatest sonority slope

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between the onset and the last segment in the immediately preceding syllable. For purposes of this paper, it will suffice to factor in the joint effect of the two constraints in (14) as simply Syllable Contact (SyllCon). Considered in this way, SyllCon essentially prohibits syllable edges with a rising sonority profile, and prefers, all other things being equal, syllable contacts with the deepest slope in sonority. Second, my account invokes the family of markedness constraints in (15), known as the Identical Cluster Constraints (ICC) (Pulleyblank 1997). which demand featural identity of consonant clusters: ICC-Place (15a), ICC-[voice] (15b); and ICC-[continuant] (15c). (15) The Identical Cluster Constraints (ICC) (Pulleyblank 1997): a. ICC-Place: a sequence of consonants must be identical in place of articulation. b. ICC-[voice]: a sequence of consonants must be identical in voicing. c. ICC-[cont]: a sequence of consonants must be identical in continuancy. And third, we will invoke the Correspondence constraints in (16), which require identity between underlying and phonetic forms. (16a) and (16b) demand segmental faithfulness, while the (16c–d) require faithfulness of the features [sonorant], and [consonantal]. (16) a.

Maximization of input and output (Max-IO): Every segment in the input has a correspondent in the output (i.e., ‘avoid deletion’). b. Dependence of input-output (Dep-IO): Every segment in the output has a correspondent in the input (i.e., ‘avoid epenthesis’). c. Identity of [sonorant] (Ident-[son]): The specification for [sonorant] in the input must have a correspondent in the output. d. Identity of [consonantal] (Ident-[cons]): The specification for [consonantal] in the input must have a correspondent in the output.

Since, as we have seen earlier, avoidance of the SCC in both Old Spanish and Old French is achieved by consonant intrusion rather than vowel epenthesis, our constraint-based analysis of intrusive consonants needs to include a formal distinction between consonant epenthesis and vowel epenthesis. In such cases, Dep-IO (16b) is customarily split into the two distinct constraints shown in (17). To en-

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sure that consonant epenthesis is selected over vowel epenthesis, Dep-IO-V must be ranked higher than Dep-IO-C in the constraint hierarchy. (17) a.

Dependence of input-output consonants (Dep-IO-C): Every consonant in the output has a correspondent in the input. b. Dependence of input-output vowels (Dep-IO-V): Every vowel in the output has a correspondent in the input.

As shown directly below, in order for the the correct sort of consonant intrusion to be obtained, the markedness constraints SyllCon (14), the ICC constraints (15), and the input-output faithfulness constraints Max-IO (16a), Ident-[son] (16c), Ident-[cons] (16d), and Dep-IO-V (17b), must dominate Dep-IO-C (17a), as indicated in (18): (18) Constraint ranking SyllCon, ICC-constraints, Max-IO, Dep-IO-V, Ident constraints >> Dep-IO-C The constraint ranking in (18) ensures consonant insertion instead of other logically possible options, as shown in tableaux (19) through (25), illustrating the derivation of the Old Spanish item (h)ombro [óm.bro] ‘shoulder’, where the logically possible alternatives are evaluated vis-à-vis epenthesis. For example, as shown in (19), the domination of SyllCon over Dep-IO ensures that consonant epenthesis (19b) is favored over faithfulness to the input (19a): (19) C-epenthesis is favored over faithfulness to the input:

As stated, a ranking of Dep-IO-V higher than Dep-IO-C, as illustrated in tableau (20), guarantees that the instrusion of a consonant (20b) is preferred to the intrusion of a vowel (20a): (20) C-epenthesis is preferred to vowel epenthesis:5

Domination of both SyllCon and Ident-[sonorant] over Dep-IO, as shown in tableau (21), ensures that consonant epenthesis (21c) is selected over the option of changing the [sonorant] specification of either member of the hosting cluster, as reflected in candidates (21a–b).

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(21) C-epenthesis is favored over changing the [sonorant] value of either member of the cluster:

In addition, as can be seen in tableau (22), if both SyllCon and Max-IO are ranked higher that Dep-IO, epenthesis (22c) will be correctly selected over the option of deleting either member of the offending cluster, as in candidates (22a–b): (22) C-epenthesis is favored over the option of deleting one of the members of the cluster:

In tableau (23) we observe that the domination of Ident-[cons] over Dep-IO ensures that the strategy of inserting an epenthetic consonant (23b) is favored over the option of vocalizing the first member of the cluster (23a) as an alternative strategy to improve the syllable contact: (23) C-epenthesis is favored over the option of vocalizing the first member of the cluster:

As illustrated in tableau (24), SyllCon selects a stop (24b) over a fricative (24a) as the optimal epenthetic consonant, because the former creates a steeper decline in sonority across the syllable contact than the latter, and thus satisfies optimally Syllable Contact Slope portion of SyllCon (cf. (14b) above). Evidently, other markedness constraints not considered here also contribute to the less preferred status of an onset fricative following a coda nasal (such as the [m.β-] portion of (24a)), visà-vis a nasal-oral stop one (such as [-m.b-] in (24b)). In addition, the complex onset [-βr-] in (24a), consisting of a fricative plus liquid cluster is clearly a more marked option than the stop-liquid counterpart [-br-] in (24b). Note that since the ICC constraints evaluate the three-consonant sequence in (24a–b), both candidates violate both ICC-[cont] and ICC- Place once (the offending sequence is shown for clarity).

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(24) An epenthetic stop is preferred to a fricative:

Finally, as is evident in tableau (25), an epenthetic consonant that agrees both in voicing and place features is favored over one that does not. Thus, in candidates (25a–b) neither of the consonants of the cluster coincides in Place features withy any immediately adjacent consonant. And the same is true of candidates (25a) and (25c–d) for the feature [voice]. (25) Coda-onset clusters that agree on both voicing and place are favored over those that do not:

In (25), however, we encounter a difficulty, because the constraints considered so far cannot discriminate between the correct output ombro in (25f) in which the intrusive consonant is a labial, and an incorrect one (25e), in which the intrusive consonant is a coronal. (The tie is indicated by the smiling faces.) Note that both candidates satisfy ICC-Voice and both violate ICC-Place once: (25e) because the first consonant of the cluster and the intrusive stop are heterorganic; and (25f) because the intrusive stop and the following rhotic differ in Place features. Of course, we know that candidate (25f) is more optimal than (25e) in that only the former meets the requirement that coda nasals be homorganic with a following onset consonant, a condition that, as far as we know, has held throughout the history of Spanish, from the Vulgar Latin stage up to the present day. In (25e), by contrast, the sequence is heterorganic. Quite generally, in Optimality Theory assimilation in coda-onset clusters is achieved by the interaction of Positional Faithfulness and ICC constraints (Alderete 1995b; Beckman 1997, 1998; Zoll 1999; Kager 1999: 407–413; Lombardi 1999). The positional faithfulness constraints for Place and [voice] are given in (26): IdentOnset-Place (26a), and Ident-Onset-[voice] (26b).

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(26) Positional Faithfulness Constraints: a. Ident-Onset-Place: the place specification of an onset output must be identical to that of its input. b. Ident-Onset-[voice]: the [voice] specification of an onset output must be identical to that of its input. The domination of the Positional Faithfulness Constraints (26a–b) over the relevant ICC constraints yields regressive assimilation, as shown in (27). Specifically, if Ident-Onset-Place dominates ICC-Place, a coda consonant assimilates in place to the following onset one (rather than vice versa), as illustrated in (27a) for hypothetical */onba/. Likewise, if Ident-Onset-[voice] dominates ICC- Place, a coda consonant assimilates in place to a following onset one (rather than vice versa), as shown in (27b) for hypothetical */osda/. (27) a.

Ident-Onset-Place dominates ICC-Place:

b. Ident-Onset-[voice] dominates ICC-Place:

The problem here is that such a mechanism cannot resolve the tie between (25e) and (25f) because the intrusive consonant is absent in underlying forms, and by definition it falls outside the purview of input-output faithfulness. A simple solution, however, can be reached by appealing to Positional Licensing constraints (cf. Itô 1987; Goldsmith 1990; Steriade 1995; Zoll 1998). First, consider License Coda Place, formulated in (28): (28) Positional licensing of place features: License Coda Place (Lic-Coda-Place): Place features in a coda must be licensed by a following onset. (It also dominates Dep-IO.) As shown in (29), License Coda Place is sufficient to break the tie of (25e) and (25f) in favor of the latter, thus correctly predicting that the intrusive stop will be homorganic with the preceding consonant, rather than the following one:

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(29) License-Coda-Place breaks the tie between (25e) and (25f) in favor of the latter:

A problem entirely analogous to the one found in (25) emerges now when instead of Place we attempt to generate the correct voicing specification for the intrusive stop. That is, the constraints we had considered so far cannot discriminate between a voiced intrusive stop and a voiceless one when the first member of the cluster is a voiceless consonant, as shown in (30) with the Old French item corresponding to the copula ‘to be’. Here, both candidates satisfy ICC-Place and violate ICCVoice once: (30a) because the intrusive stop differs in voice from the preceding consonant; and (30b) because it disagrees in voicing with the following one. Of course, (30a) should be less optimal than (30b) because it reflects a more marked configuration: in the unmarked case, coda obstruents tend to agree in voicing with a following consonant. (30) Old French /esre/ → [es.tre] ‘to be’ /esre/ SyllCon a. J es.dre b. J es.tre

ICC-Voi * *

ICC-Place Dep-IO * *

Here again, the tie can be easily broken by resorting to Positional Licensing of laryngeal features, namely, License-Coda-[voice], as in (31). (31) Positional licensing of laryngeal features (cf. Lombardi 1999): License Coda-[voice] (Lic-Coda-[voice]) Voicing features in a coda must be licensed by a following onset. (It dominates Ident-IO.) License-Coda-[voice] correctly predicts that the intrusive stop will agree in voicing with the preceding coda consonant, rather than with the following onset one, as can be seen in (32): (32) License-Coda-Place breaks the tie between (30a) and (30b) in favor of the latter:



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. Conclusion To conclude, this paper has attempted to provide a formal analysis of consonant intrusion in heterosyllabic consonant clusters in Old Spanish and Old French. Such intrusion works in both languages as a strategy to improve syllable contacts of rising sonority. I have proposed an Optimality Theoretical account which derives both the locus of epenthesis and the phonological properties of the intrusive consonant primarily from the interaction of faithfulness and markedness constraints. This analysis presents a uniform account of consonant intrusion, one in which there is no need for the unnecessary complex and seemingly unrevealing approach adopted in earlier serial approaches. My account is not only considerably simpler in its formal machinery, since it appeals exclusively to independently needed universal constraints, but it provides, I believe, a more insightful way of expressing the phonological behavior of intrusive consonants.

Notes * I would like to thank Eric Holt and two anonymous reviewers for their comments and criticism. All errors are my own. . See, for example, Menéndez Pidal (1968: 309ff., 1980, esp. pp. 160–161), Hooper (1976), and Lloyd (1986, esp. pp. 202–204, 311–312). Consonant intrusion was certainly not the only mechanism to deal with heterosyllabic sequences of rising sonority in Old Spanish. There are at least three other well documented options, of which (i) contains several representative examples: first, by metathesis of the two members of the cluster, as in (ia); second, by deletion of the coda nasal and gemination of the onset rhotic in /-nr-/ sequences, as in (ib), and third, by dissimilation of the first (coda) nasal, rather than the second, in /-nm-/ clusters, as in (ic). The net effect of all these alternatives is to eradicate the rising sonority slope left behind by vowel syncope, therefore improving bad syllable contacts. (i)

a. ven(e)ris > viernes gen(e)ru > yerno cum(u)lu > colmo b. porrá (< pon(e)rá) verrá (< ven(i)rá) terrá (< ten(e)rá) c. an(i)ma ( > anma) > alma min(i)mare (> menmar) > mermar

‘Friday’ ‘son-n-law’ ‘overflow (fig.)’ ‘will put-3 sg.’ ‘will come-3 sg.’ ‘will have-3 sg.’ ‘soul’ ‘to diminish’

Of the three alternatives in (i), dissimilation and metathesis have prevailed in Spanish, while (ib) appears to have occurred only in certain dialects, and it quickly disappeared in the transition from Old to Modern Spanish.

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Consonant intrusion in Old Spanish and Old French . It should be noted that when the first member of the cluster thus created is a dental affricate (voiced or voiceless), there is variation in Old Spanish, and consonant intrusion appears to have been optional, as illustrated by the following pairs (where syllable boundaries here are provided for expository convenience): (i)

Infinitive luzir dezir cre(s)çer pare(s)çer

‘to display’ ‘to say’ ‘to grow’ ‘to appear, seem’

Future 3 sg. luz.drá / lu.zrá diz.drá / di.zrá cres.trá / cre.çrá pa.res.trá / pare.çá

Conditional 3 sg. luz.dría / lu.zría diz.dría / di.zría cres.tría / cre.çría pa.res.tría / pa.re.çría

It is a fact of Old Spanish phonotactics that the dental affricates /ts / and /dz / (spelled ç and z, respectively) occurred only in syllable onsets; in coda position, they were deaffricated into their corresponding fricatives [s, z] (Harris-Northall 1992). Affricates do not cluster with tautosyllabic liquids in Old Spanish for a simple historical reason: they never came about in such a context. However, the second members of the future and conditional pairs in (i) apparently do not conform to this statement. It is quite likely that such exceptional affricateliquid tautosyllabic parsings were essentially dialect-bound. The issue deserves more space than can be granted in this study, and thus I will not discuss it any further. . Examples in (4) are taken from the edition of the Cantar by Michael (1980). . Technically, (12) and (13) could be collapsed by incorporating a multiple spreading operation into the autosegmental formalism: X]ó

R [+cons] SL

. . .

PA

L

ó[X

. .

[–cont]

X

[–son]

. .

[+son] [+cons]

[–nas]

It seems evident, however, that the power of such multiple spreading procedures is unwarranted, and they do not seem to be otherwise needed to describe the phonology of natural language. . There is an alternative analysis to (20) which also derives the preference of consonant epenthesis over vowel epenthesis as a correspondence effect, namely, one that appeals to prosodic faithfulness to the input. Thus, the insertion of an epenthetic vowel inevitably increases the number of syllables in the output, a result that does not arise in consonant intrusion. I thank an anonymous reviewer for bringing this point to my attention.

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References Alderete, John (1995a). Winnebago Accent and Dorsey’s Law. In Jill N. Beckman, Laura Walsh Dickey, & Suzanne Urbanczyk (Eds.), University of Massachusetts Occasional Papers in Linguistics 18: Papers in Optimality Theory (pp. 21–52). Univ. of Massachusetts, Amherst. Alderete, John (1995b). Faithfulness to Prosodic Heads. Ms., Univ. of Massachusetts, Amherst. Bat-El, Outi (1996). Selecting the Best of the Worse: the Grammar of Hebrew Blends. Phonology, 13, 283–328. Beckman, Jill (1997). Positional Faithfulness, Positional Neutralization, and Shona Vowel Harmony. Phonology, 14, 1–46. Beckman, Jill (1998). Positional Faithfulness. Ph. D. Dissertation, Univ. of Massachusetts, Amherst. Blevins, Juliette (1995). The Syllable in Phonological Theory. In John Goldsmith (Ed.), The Handbook of Phonological Theory (pp. 206–244). Cambridge, MA: Blackwell. Clements George N. (1987). Phonological Feature Representation and the Description of Intrusive Stops. In Anna Bosch, Barbara Need, & Eric Schiller (Eds.), Papers from the 23rd Annual Meeting of the Chicago Linguistics Society (pp. 29–50). Chicago: Chicago Linguistics Society. Clements, George N. (1990). The Role of Sonority in Core Syllabification. In Jill Kingston & Mary Beckman (Eds.), Papers in Laboratory Phonology I (pp. 283–333). New York: Cambridge University Press. Davis, Stuart (1998). Syllable Contact in Optimality Theory. Korean Journal of Linguistics, 23, 181–211. Davis, Stuart & Seung-Hoon Shin (1999). The Syllable Contact Constraint in Korean: an Optimality Theoretical Analysis. Journal of East Asian Linguistics, 8, 285–312. Green, Anthony (1997). The Prosodic Structure of Irish, Scotts Gaelic, and Manx. Ph.D. Dissertation, Cornell University. Goldsmith, John (1990). Autosegmental and Metrical Phonology. Cambridge, MA: Blackwell. Hankamer, Jorge & Judith Aissen (1974). The Sonority Hierarchy. In Anthony Bruck, Richard A. Fox, & Michael W. La Galy (Eds.), Papers from the Parasession on Natural Phonology (pp. 131–145). Chicago: Chicago Linguistic Society. Harris Northall, Ray (1992). Devoicing, Deaffrication and Word-Final -z in Medieval Spanish. Hispanic Linguistics, 4, 245–274. Hooper, Joan (1976). An Introduction to Natural Generative Phonology. New York: Academic Press. Itô, Junko (1988). Syllable Theory in Prosodic Phonology. Ph.D. Dissertation, University of Massachusetts, Amherst. (Published in 1988 by Garland Press, New York). Kager, René (1999). Optimality Theory. New York: Cambridge University Press. Lloyd, Paul M. (1987). From Latin to Spanish. Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society. Lombardi Linda (1999). Positional Faithfulness and Voicing Assimilation in Optimality Theory. Natural Language and Linguistic Theory, 17, 267–302.

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McCarthy, John & Alan S. Prince (1995). Faithfulness and reduplicative identity. In Jill N. Beckman, Laura Walsh Dickey, & Suzanne Urbanczyk (Eds.), University of Massachusetts Occasional Papers in Linguistics 18: Papers in Optimality Theory (pp. 249–384). Univ. of Massachusetts, Amherst. McCarthy, John & Alan S. Prince (1997). Faithfulness and Identity in Prosodic Morphology. Ms., University of Massachusetts at Amherst, and Rutgers University. (To appear in The Prosody-Morphology Interface, ed. by René Kager, Harry van der Hulst, & Wim Zonneveld. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.) Menéndez Pidal, Ramón (1968). Orígenes del español (6th ed.). Madrid Espasa-Calpa. Menéndez Pidal, Ramón (1980). Manual de gramática histórica española (16th ed.). Madrid: Espasa Calpe. Michael, Ian (Ed.). (1980). Poema de Mío Cid (2nd ed.). Madrid: Castalia. Miglio, Viola (1998). Epenthesis and Deletion in Mantuan. University of Maryland Working Papers in Linguistics, 7, 81–109. Morin, Yves-Charles (1980). Morphologisation de la epenthese en ancien français. Canadian Journal of Linguistics / Revue cannadienne de linguistique, 25, 204–225. Morin, Yves-Charles (1987). De quelques propriétés de l’épenthèse consonantique. Canadian Journal of Linguistics / Revue cannadienne de linguistique, 32, 365–375. Murray, Robert (1982). Consonant developments in P¯ali. Folia Linguistica Historica, 3, 163– 184. Murray, Robert & Theo Vennemann (1982). Syllable Contact Change in Germanic, Greek, and Sidamo. Klagenfurter Beiträge zur Sprachwissenschaft, 8, 321–349. Murray Robert, & Theo Vennemann (1983). Sound Change and Syllable Structure in Germanic Phonology. Language, 59, 514–528. Picard, Marc (1987). On the General Properties of Consonant Epenthesis. Canadian Journal of Linguistics / Revue cannadienne de linguistique, 32, 133–142. Piggot, Glyne L. & Rajendra Singh (1985). The Phonology of Epenthetic Segments. Canadian Journal of Linguistics / Revue cannadienne de linguistique, 30, 415–451. Pulleyblank, Douglas (1997). Optimality Theory and Features. In Diana Archangeli & Terence Langendoen (Eds.), Optimality Theory: An overview (pp. 59–101). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Rose, Sharon (1997). Theoretical Issues in Comparative Ethio-Semitic Phonology and Morphology. Ph.D. Dissertation, McGill University. Shin, Seung-Hoon (1997). Constraints Within and Between Syllables: Syllable Licensing and Contact in Optimality Theory. Ph.D. Dissertation, Indiana University. Singh, Rajendra (1980). Old French Epenthesis and Syllabic Structure. Canadian Journal of Linguistics / Revue cannadienne de linguistique, 25, 226–230. Steriade, Donca (1995). Underspecification and Markedness. In John Goldsmith (Ed.), The Handbook of Phonological Theory (pp. 114–174). Cambridge, MA: Blackwell. Urbanczyk, Suzanne (1996). Patterns of Reduplication in Lushootseed. Ph.D. Dissertation, University of Massachusetts, Amherst. Vennemann, Theo (1988). Preference Laws for Syllable Structure. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. Walker, Douglas (1978). Epenthesis in Old French. Canadian Journal of Linguistics / Revue cannadienne de linguistique, 23, 66–83.

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Wetzels, W. Leo (1985). The Historic Phonology of Intrusive Stops. A Nonlinear Description. Canadian Journal of Linguistics / Revue cannadienne de linguistique, 1, 3–54. Zoll, Cheryl (1999). Positional Asymmetries and Licensing. Ms., MIT.

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A constraint interaction theory of Italian raddoppiamento Mario Saltarelli University of Southern California

.

Raddoppiamento at phonetic interface

Italian shows evidence of initial consonant lengthening or raddoppiamento (RF, henceforth), more specifically known as raddoppiamento (fono-)sintattico “(phono) syntactic doubling” for its realization at syntactic phrase boundary (D’Ovidio 1872; Loporcaro 1999). Formal studies of RF (Vogel 1994, 1978; Chierchia 1983–1986, 1982; Nespor & Vogel 1986; Saltarelli 1984, 1970; among others) reveal an analytical debate over the derivational source of the ‘doubling’ element. The options range from positing an abstract element in the underlying representation (Vogel 1994: 117; Saltarelli 1984: 292), to condition-driven rules affecting the form of serial derivations (Chierchia 1983–1986: 25–29), or even to defining RF as an autonomous phonological rule (Loporcaro 1999: 15). An apparent impasse in the understanding of RF in a rule-driven deterministic design suggests a theoretical and descriptive re-positioning of the path to discovery. In this scenario, my empirical claim is that what has been circumscribed as RF in Italian is just one manifestation at phonetic interface of more general effects of quantitative restrictions between consonants and vowels, responding to conflicting constraints. If this claim can be substantiated and the results of derivational rules can be solely and more harmonically characterized through constraint interaction, as implied in Optimality Theory (Prince & Smolensky 1993: 203), then we might be closer to an analysis of RF with minimal assumptions beyond conceptual necessity (Chomsky 1995). My paper proceeds as follows. In Section 2, I introduce RF in light of previous derivational studies, highlighting issues and new data relevant to a comprehensive understanding of the phenomenon. In Section 3, I propose a re-assessment of RF in view of a typology of quantitative restrictions regulating duration in both con-

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sonants and vowels from a universal perspective. In Section 4, a categorical distinction is introduced re-configuring RF in terms of two grammatical types (lexical and functional) and the ensuing typology is discussed in a preliminary re-evaluation of old and new data.

. Consonant length in Italian Italian shows systematic contrastive evidence for short and long consonants. The lexicon of central and southern Italian, as well that of other Italo-Romance dialects spoken in this area, retains and enhances, through cluster simplification,1 the Latin contrast between short and long consonants in medial position: It. cassa ‘box’ (< Lat. capsa(m)), It. frutto ‘fruit’ (< Lat. fructu(m)), It. colonna ‘column’ (< Lat. columna(m)), etc. In addition, Italian lengthens word initial consonants under the conditions of raddoppiamento (RF), the phenomenon that is the subject of study in this paper.

. Initial consonant lengthening (raddoppiamento) Italian RF is illustrated in (1a, b) and informally stated by Gennaro Chierchia for the general case (1c). (1)

a. chiamò Maria [kja.mòm.ma.rí˜.a] 2 “(she) called Mary” +RF b. chiamo Maria [kjà.mo.ma.rí˜.a] “(I) call Mary” –RF c. “In a sequence of words w1 w2 the initial consonant of w2 gets lengthened when w1 ends in a vowel and is stressed on the last syllable” (cf. Chierchia 1983–1986: 6)

We observe in the syntactic phrase (1a) that at phonetic concatenation the initial bilabial nasal consonant [m] of the second constituent (w2 ) Maria is lengthened: [kja.mòm.ma.rí˜.a]. In contrast, in (1b) ([kjà.mo.ma.rí˜.a]), where the first word of the syntactic phrase has penultimate (rather than ultimate) stress, no initial consonant lengthening occurs. It should be noted that the phonetically long consonant in (1a) is phonologically interpreted as a hetero-syllabic geminate straddling the coda and the onset of contiguous syllables. Geminates in RF contexts, created as a result of syntactic merge at phonetic interface, are of the same physical nature as other lexical geminate consonants in the language, which are distinctive only word medially. X-ray microbeam studies by Carolyn Smith (1992) on Italian and Japanese word medial geminate bilabial and velar stops did not show any evidence of double peaks in articulatory movement of the lips. Neither was there any evidence of dou-

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ble peaks in tongue blade movements for alveolar geminates, contrary to previous experimental studies of geminates. No significant difference in duration has been detected between word medial (lexical) long consonants and initial consonants phonetically lengthened in the context of raddoppiamento.3 For the general case of (1a), the prevailing view is that RF is a phonetic effect of the prosodic properties of the preceding word chiamò [kjamò] ‘(she) called’; namely a phonetic consequence of the fact that the word ends in a stressed syllable and stressed syllables must be ‘heavy’. The phenomenon is ultimately generalized to the full lexical class of words ending in a stressed vowel in specific varieties of Italo-Romance.

. C-lengthening, C-copying and latent elements Building on an eminent Romance and Italian philological and experimental tradition (D’Ovidio 1872; Josselyn 1900; Panconcelli-Calzia 1911; Camilli 1911; Parmenter & Carman 1932; etc.), contemporary studies of initial consonant lengthening in Italian can be grouped into two methodologically different formulations of RF (2a, b) which go hand in hand with the evolution of phonological theory in a derivational model from linear (2a) to non-linear (2b). (2)

a. RF Rule: (i) C → C˜ / V#__ , #:$ (ii) Ø → Cα / V__#Cα b. RF Rule: … CV [+cons] CV … citt à “city”

(Loporcaro 1999: 15) (Vogel 1982: 44) (Vogel 1994: 117)

bella “beautiful”

The choice of phonological design illustrated in (2) intersects with at least two conceptually distinct interpretations of Italian raddoppiamento. That is, (2a-i) considers the lengthening of the consonant in the RF context to be the product of a phonological rule (Loporcaro 1999: 14), independently of other quantity phenomena in the language. As a linear rule, (2a-i) is not transparent as to the nature of gemination, syllable structure and its interaction with prosodic prominence. A general characterization of this intuitive relation is claimed as a desirable descriptive goal and, at present, is a compelling theoretical issue given the significant advances made in metrical theory and the relation between prosody, rhythm and phonetics. Studies of the RF phenomenon couched in the more powerful and successful autosegmental model (2b) also intersect with an initial consonant lengthening conceptualization whereby the initial consonant is pronounced phonetically long, not as a structure-particular instruction of a phonological rule, but as a consequence of



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its bi-segmental CV-tier association. Thus, (2b) offers greater insights into the nature of gemination and its relevance to quantity relations in general. However, the advantages of this theory of RF do not come free of cost, as longer derivations in the computational system are required. Moreover, an analysis of the type (2b) must be evaluated against the stipulation of an underlying latent or floating element alternating between Ø, in the default context, and a partially specified timing slot on the skeletal tier (Saltarelli 1984; Bullock 1991 and Vogel 1994 (cf. (2b) above)).4

. Stress to weight effects Closer to a well-formedness characterization of RF is Chierchia’s (1983–1986) proposal, which derives the latent (RF) element from an independently needed prosodic condition: the ‘Strong Rhyme’ Condition. SRC requires that stressed syllables have branching rhymes. Accordingly, a condition-driven rule inserts a slot at a cyclically ordered level of derivation prior to the application of post-cyclic rules and conventions (Chierchia 1983–1986: 24–25, (43)). Conceptually, Chierchia’s interpretation of RF as an effect of prosodic properties formalizes a significant insight into the phonological correlates of stress. It can be construed that initial consonant lengthening (RF) is one of two possible modes that satisfy the prosodic condition requiring that ‘stressed syllable must be heavy’. In principle, either lengthening of the stressed vowel or gemination of the following consonant would satisfy the prosodic requirement. It is important to underline the empirical relevance of Chierchia’s insight correlating stress to syllable weight, a forerunner of the stressto-weight constraint adopted in current optimality theory (cf. Kager 1999: 268). In physical terms, lexical stress (which is distinctive in this language) must be contrastively ‘audible’ in pronunciation. Hence duration (along with other laryngeal features such as pitch) is an acoustic signature of stress in Italian. While Chierchia’s proposal is an insightful conceptualization of conflicting restrictions at play in RF, it is not readily implemented in a (partially) rule-based derivational framework without loss in the stated generalization (Chierchia 1983– 1986: 8). Relevant portions of Chierchia’s derivations (Chierchia 1983–1986: 22– 25) are adopted in (3), which we submit for discussion. It can be shown in (3) that an SRC driven derivation of RF under-defines the phenomenon. That is, both (3c), C-lengthening, and (3c ), V-lengthening, meet the Strong Rhyme Condition. The crucial question can be worded as follows: why isn’t the vowel lengthened (cf. 3c ) rather than the consonant (cf. 3c)? This derivational option is raised in view of the fact that Italian lengthens stressed vowels in open syllables. Chierchia suggests, without formal discussion, that the choice is to be attributed to a prohibition against long vowels at word boundaries (Chierchia 1983–1986: 25).5 Thus, SRC, as a structure-specific analytical arrangement, sheds

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no light on the problem at hand. Moreover, the selection of (3c), instead of (3c ) at phonetic interface must rely on constraints, uneasy bedfellows in a derivational design (cf. (12)). (3) R a.

b.

xxx xx

xxxxxx →

(*Strong Rhyme Condition, SRC)

c i t à

pul i t a

-insert x/_#C in external sandhi “clean city”

xxx xx x xxx xx → c i t à

c.

*c¢.

pul i t a

xxx xx x xxxxx c i t à

(C-lengthening)

p˜ u l i t a

xxx xx x xxxxx = c i t à˜

(Autosegmental Association, AA)

(*V-lengthening)

p u lit a

In another crucial aspect of RF, Chierchia’s SRC, as a derivational x-inserting rule, over-applies in the case of s+C initial clusters (cf. (3d)). The SRC hypothesis, in this case, makes the wrong prediction in that it derives a doubly associated s, therefore long, which is contrary to fact. Hence the analysis would requires additional machinery, such as Stray Erasure, in order to correct the over-application of SRC (Chierchia 1985: 26). This additional machinery is beyond conceptual necessity and reveals a missed generalization, namely that in all V(#)s+C contexts SRC is met by the parsing of s as coda and, therefore, is not subject to initial consonant lengthening (RF). *d.

xxx xx x xxxxx c i t à

= sporka

(Stray Erasure is required for s-association line to block RF (Chierchia 1985:27)) “dirty city”

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. Initial and final C-lengthening: Interaction with Onsets and Codas In this paper we reframe the issue of RF as an effect of a wider consonant lengthening phenomenon which includes not only onsets (§2.4.1), but also codas (§2.4.2).6 We shall keep in mind that consonant lengthening (like vowel lengthening) affects syllabic weight and interacts with the prosodic requirement that “stressed syllables must be heavy.”

.. Onset lengthening: ÁV#Cα → ÁVCα #Cα As we can observe in (4), the lengthening of word initial consonants is systematically blocked in complex onsets s+C (4c, e), but not with complex onsets composed of Stop+Liquid (4b). Principles of syllable structure and the sonority hierarchy account for the well formedness of (4b–e) and the instances of non-application of the RF rule. Namely, the sonority offending initial –s (4c) in the lexical representation of the word sporca ‘dirty’ is rescued by syllabification as coda at phonetic interface, hence satisfying sonority hierarchy constraints as well as prosodic weight requirements at phonetic interface. (4)

a. b. c. d. e. f.

città pulita città triste città sporca chiamo Stefano chiamò Stefano appostano

[ˇcit.tàp.pu.lí.ta] [ˇcit.tàt.trís.te] [ˇcit.tàs.pór.ka] [kjà.mos.té.fa.no] [kja.mòs.té.fa.no ] [ap.pós.ta.no]

“clean city” “sad city” “dirty city” “I call Stefano” “s/he called Stefano” “they bet”

.. Coda lengthening: ÁVCα #V→ ÁVCα #Cα V A second type of consonant lengthening occurs with loanwords, neologisms and acronyms ending in a consonant, as illustrated in (5). This extended aspect of consonant lengthening affects the coda of the final (stressed) syllable in the first word of the syntactic phrase. The created geminate is also hetero-syllabic; its second member (the glottal abduction) is analyzed as the onset of the initial syllable of second word. With important differences, the effects of this type of RF contribute to the well-formedness of the onset of the second word of the syntactic phase, while at the same time satisfying the weight requirement of the final stressed syllable of the rhythmic phrase. As we can see in (5), the lengthening of the Coda occurs only under prosodic prominence (contrast (5f) vs. (5g)). As a mirror image metaphor between the two types of RF, in (4) the onset lengthens to a coda, while in (5) the coda lengthens to an onset. Similarly, in (4) a complex onset blocks the lengthening phenomenon, while in (5d) vs. (5e) a complex coda blocks consonant lengthening, a parallelism to be captured in a unified theory of RF. The SRC hypothesis again makes the wrong prediction. SRC predicts that phases like Hotel Este (5b) should

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not be subject to RF lengthening, since SRC is met in these cases, owing to the fact that the final syllable of the first word is both stressed and heavy. As in the case of (3d), the derivational analysis can only work if SRC is fed by the lexical device of extrametricality (Chierchia 1983–1986: 27), which marks final stressed and ‘heavy’ syllables as ‘light’ at some derivational level of representation. (5)

a. b. c. d.

tram elettric Hotel Este Hotel Patria spot estivo

[tràm.me.lét.tri.ko] [o.tèl.lés.te] [o.tèl.pá.trja] [spòt.testívo]

“electric tramway”

e. f. g. h.

sport estivo Milan-Inter Telecom italiana manager antipatico

[spòr.tes.tí.vo] [mì˜.la.nín.ter] [tè.le.kòm.mi.ta.ljá˜.na] [mà.˜ na.3e ràn.ti.pá˜.ti.ko] “nasty manager”

“summer (TV) advertisement” “summer sport”

. Metrical stress retraction, clash and raddoppiamento Consonant lengthening alternates and interacts with other prosodic manifestations. In the development of metrical analysis of rhythm and stress (cf. Hayes 1995), stress retraction, in phrases like caffè lungo [kà˜.fe.lú].go] (6d).7 The data in (6a–d) illustrates, however, a more complex situation. (6a, b) describes this writer’s Italian as spoken in Rome, in which consonant length is distinctive and RF is active. In this system neither stress clash nor stress retraction excludes RF. An account of (6b) is not predicted by a conventional theory of stress-driven initial consonant lengthening. (6a), on the other hand, may follow from a bi-moraic (rather than bisyllabic) conceptualization of minimal foot binarity (Repetti 1991) as alternative measures. The data in (6c, d), describes a system which does not have geminate consonants nor RF, but does not exclude stress clash. The scenario illustrated in (6), however, does not exhaust the distribution of RF. There are southern Italo-Romance varieties which have distinctive lexical geminates and exclude the conventional type of RF (1a). A general typology of RF will be discussed in Section 3. (6)

caffè lungo a. [kaf.fèl.lú].go] “long (diluted) espresso” kaf.(fèl)(lún.go) (metrical clash, no retraction, RF, CC) b. [kàf.fel.lú].go] (kàf.fel)(lún.go) (no clash, retraction, RF, CC)

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c. [ka˜.fè.lú]go] ka.(fè)(lún.go) (clash, no retraction, clash, no RF, no CC) d. [kà˜.fe.lú]go] (kà.fe)(lún.go) (no clash, retraction, no RF, no CC)

. Syntactic, prosodic and semantic effects In formal statements of RF rule adjacency at phonetic interface is given as the stable context for raddoppiamento. However, Nespor and Vogel (1986: 168) present data from Tuscany on the basis of which they conclude that RF application is further restricted to adjacency within specific syntactic and prosodic boundaries identifying contrastive semantic interpretations. Syntactically restricted RF is illustrated in (7). (7) a. le mappe di città [v˜]ecchie ‘the maps of [old cities]’ b. le mappe di città [v]ecchie ‘[old maps] of cities’ (Vogel 1994: 116) Although the RF distinction claimed for (7) does not seem to hold for RF varieties other than the one reported (cf. Loporcaro 1999: 20–23 and sources therein), one might conceive of a speech register or context in which a degree of pause in (7b) may preempt RF in the configurational relation between città and vecchie in (7b). A recursive derivation of the syntactic structure of (7b) through the application of the minimalist process Merge, as a structure deriving compositional function (Chomsky 1995), would offers an appropriate syntactic-semantic scenario for pause in performance and consequently voiding the context for RF in (7b), but not in (7a). The implications of the data reported in (7) for compositionality and the meaning-sound parallelism at interface are central to a comprehensive study of RF, but will not be pursued in this paper.

. Duration rhythm, RF and the design of grammar: A closer look The legacy of conceptualizing RF as one of a list of autonomous processes or rules in the sound system of the language may have distanced the researcher’s attention from experimental evidence which detects a ‘duration rhythm’ in Italian , a complementary difference in duration between a stressed vowel and following consonantal segment(s) as ÁV˜.C/ÁVC˜.8 The conceptual goal of this paper is re-directed toward an understanding of this prosody driven alternation in duration rhythm. From this perspective, we claim that RF emerges as an effect of the interaction of markedness and faithfulness constraints at phonetic interface in a parallel de-

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sign of grammar as proposed in Optimality Theory (OT) (Prince & Smolensky 1993; Prince & McCarthy 1999; Kager 1999; McCarthy 2002). Extended evidence of the durational interplay between vowel and consonants is illustrated in (8) and a general summary is given in (9). (8)

a. casa/cassa/casta [ká˜sa]/[kássa]/[kásta] ká.sa/kas.sa/kas.ta b. saluto tutti [salù˜totútti] sa.lù.to.tút.ti c. salutò tutti [salutòttútti] sa.lu.tòt.tút.ti d. salutò Anna [salutò˜ánna] ∼ [salutò‘‘ánna] sa.lu.tò.án.na ∼ sa.lu.tò‘.‘án.na e. saluto Anna [salù˜toánna] ∼ [salù˜tánna] sa.lù.to.án.na ∼ sa.lú.tán.na f. saluto Adele [salù˜toadé˜le] ∼ [salù˜tadé˜le] sa.lù.to.a.dé.le ∼ sa.lù.ta.dé.le g. salutò Adele [salutò˜adé˜le]∼ *[salutadé˜le] sa.lu.tò.a.dé.le

“house/box/caste” “I greet everyone” “s/he greeted everyone” “s/he greeted Anna” “I greet Anna” “I greet Adele” “s/he greeted Adele”

In (8a) we see that a stressed syllable must be ‘heavy’. This quantitative requirement is fulfilled by lexically closed syllables or by phonetic vowel lengthening in lexically open syllables: /ká.sa/ → [ká˜sa]. Note that the alternation is between the stressed lengthened [ù˜] in (8b) and the short unstressed [u] in (8c) in the first word. It should be emphasized that vowel lengthening also occurs in external sandhi, as in (8d), where the second word of the phrase begins with a vowel. Note also in (8d) that vowel lengthening in external sandhi may alternate with glottal stop [‘]. In (8e) we observe that an unstressed final vowel may be deleted if the second word begins in a stressed (8e) or unstressed (8f) vowel. In (8g) we see that a stressed vowel cannot be deleted, conceivably for the same reason requiring that lexical prominence must be phonetically realized. (9) Summary: distribution of vowel and consonant quantity in Italian a. (i) Length is not lexically distinctive for vowels: *paala/pala (ii) Length is distinctive for consonants: pala/palla, but only word medially. b. (i) Stressed syllables must be ‘heavy’: ÁVC, ÁV˜, *ÁV (ii) Stressed vowels are long in open syllables and short in closed syllables.9 c. (i) Consonant lengthening is restricted to word periphery (§2.4.2) (ii) Vowel lengthening is restricted to stressed syllables.

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. Quantitative (duration) restrictions and the ranking of constraints Our account aims at providing answers to two puzzling questions which any comprehensive theory of quantitative enhancement must grapple with. Namely, (a) why is vowel lengthening favored (and not consonant lengthening) within word boundary in satisfaction of the prosodic requirement that ‘stressed syllables must be heavy’? and (b) why is consonant lengthening favored (and not vowel lengthening) across word boundary to satisfy the same prosodic requirement. Our general claim is that a principled understanding of raddoppiamento emerges as an epiphenomenon from the interaction of universal constraints regulating quantity (duration) relations between vowels and consonants at phonetic interface in an optimality theory framework (Prince & Smolensky 1993; McCarthy & Prince 1999; McCarthy 2002). Assuming that sequences of two consonants are universally dis-preferred over single consonants, a segment quantity typology might be defined on the basis of the conflict created by alternate rankings of the two markedness constraints such as *VV, *CC (‘ban geminates’) and correspondence constraints such as Identity-io[duration] (correspondent segments have indentical values for the feature length [duration]). The ranking of Identity-io[duration] >> *VV, *CC (cf. (10a)) defines languages that have un-restricted occurrence of short and long vowels and consonants, such as Latin where the noun villa [ví˜l.la] illustrates a lexically distinctive long vowel and a geminate (long) consonant. Violations of the universal ban on geminates are equally ranked. The integrity of the sound-meaning lexical contrasts is insured by the higher ranked Identity constraint. In Italian, the reflex of the same etymon villa is pronounced [víl.la], which illustrates that in the lexicon of today’s Romans only consonants are distinctively short or long. (10b) is a constraint-based definition characterizing the restricted quantity distribution of Italian.10 (10) Markedness and faithfulness constraints in Latin (a) and Italian (a) a. Ident-io[dur] >> *VV, *CC b. Ident-io[dur/Cm] >>*VV >> *CC >> Ident-io[dur] In contrast with Latin (10a), in Italian (10b) violations of the universal constraint *VV are dis-preferred over violations of *CC, thus suggesting a relative ranking *VV >> *CC. Moreover, the integrity of the sound-meaning geminate contrasts, phonetically signaled by the lexical value of the feature duration, must be assured at phonetic interface for consonants only: hence the split-category ranking of Ident-io[dur/Cm] >> Ident-io[dur]. In principle, given (10b) the duration values of vowels and consonants in non-contrastive (i.e, medial) position can be violated. This means that vowels, as well as peripheral consonants, can be lengthened if so required by a higher ranking constraint. In what follows it will be shown

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that the precise quantity distribution of Italian vowels and consonants, including raddoppiamento, is predicted as a consequence of the constraint grammar (10b). One might look for independent evidence for the assumption that *VV violations are dis-preferred over *CC in Italian. Language external evidence can be gathered from the adaptation of loanwords like alcool [ál.kol]: foreign words with geminate vowels are adopted and pronounced as singleton. In contrast, words with final consonants, such as the verbs ‘to format’ and ‘to scan’ are lexicalized as geminates (formattare and scannerizzare), where a singleton final root consonant could have been otherwise chosen. Language internal evidence comes from the general observation that sequences of ‘identical’ vowels at morphological boundaries are contracted in pronunciation, as in the plural forms of the number paradigm: principio/principi (*princip[i-i]), ginnasi-o/ginnasi, suicidi-o/suicidi, etc. These otherwise unexplained phenomena would follow from the relative ranking *VV >> *CC, which states that in Italian violations of the universal constraint on consonant geminates is lower ranked (preferred) than the constraint on vowel geminates.

. Interaction between lexical prominence and vowel quantity: Stress-to-Weight >> *VV As summarized in (9), Italian vowels are lexically unmarked for the feature duration, a property of the system characterized by the context-free (universal) constraint *VV that bans sequences of identical vowels. But, in an optimality theoretic conceptualization of phonology, constraints can be violated in order to satisfy higher ranked constraints. In Italian a vowel, unmarked in its lexical representation, is lengthened to meet prosodic stress requirements in its phonetic realization. The lengthening of the stressed vowel can be construed as the acoustic signature of prosodic syllable prominence at phonetic interface, where it must be ‘audible’ for the perception of lexical contrast.11 This prosodically driven quantity requirement is defined as the Stress-toWeight (SWP) constraint (Kager 1999: 268 and sources therein), a recognizable counterpart to the Weight-to-Stress-Principle (WSP) ‘heavy syllables are stressed’ characterizing Latin prosody (Prince & Smolensky 1993). In (11) we illustrate that satisfaction of stress audibility at phonetic interface is favored over the high ranked context free constraint against long vowels (cf. (10)). In fact, WSP appears to be undominated. Namely, given the lexical input form /kása/ and two of the possible output candidates (a) and (b), the optimal form is (b) as the more harmonic with the relevant constraints in the evaluation line. This is so, because (b) is the one which satisfies the higher ranked prominence audibility requirement SWP, and in spite of the fact that the same winning form violates the constraint that bans geminate or long vowels in the language. Hence (11) illustrates that in Italian,

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vowels are lengthened in order to satisfy the syllable weight audibility requirement of lexical prominence (informally stress cf. fn. 11). (11) Vowel lengthening: casa “house”

. Vowel and consonant quantity interaction: *VV >> *CC As mentioned in §3.1, the fact that Italian vowel length is non-distinctive, defines its lexicon as unmarked with respect to the universal (context-free) constraint *VV. In contrast, the Italian lexicon is marked as to consonant quantity as illustrated by minimal geminate contrasts /pál.la/ ‘ball’ (vs. /pá.la/ ‘shovel’) in disrespect of the universal (context-free) constraint against geminate *CC. I propose that the uneven interplay in quantity restrictions for which we find external and internal evidence in Italian is characterized by the relative ranking *VV >> *CC. This constraint ranking, incidentally, recapitulates the diachronic readjustment of quantity relation between vowels and consonants in Italian vis à vis Latin (cf. 10). The clinching argument in support of the proposed ranking of the universal constraints *VV >> *CC is illustrated in (12). (12) provides an illustration of the optimality account we are proposing for the conventional case of RF (cf. (1a)), and the explanation that it engenders. Arguably attributable to Merge, the function that generates both interfaces at logical and phonetic forms (Chomsky 1999), the phonetic interface input phrase with respect to the three relevant output candidates (12a, b, c) is evaluated by the ranked constraints SWP >> *VV >> *CC. Candidate (12a) is disqualified as it violates the highest ranking SWP, which assures the ‘audibility’ of the stressed syllable in the output pronunciation. Note that the stressed syllable of the first word encodes crucial logical form information such as tense, person and number. Having eliminated candidate (a) the system is left with selecting the optimal candidate between (12b) and (12c). (12c) is chosen over (12b) as the form that is more harmonic with the constraints in question. We suggest that the choice between (12b) and (12c) is between satisfaction of the prosodic requirement SWP through vowel lengthening or consonant lengthening. The optimality theoretic analysis selects consonant lengthening on a principled basis, that is, a choice of relative ranking between the universal constraints regulating quantity relation between consonant and vowels *VV >> *CC, that seems to be independently motivated for Italian, as we mentioned above.

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(12) Onset lengthening: chiamò Maria “Mary called.” Why Consonant lengthening and not Vowel lengthening?

The optimality theoretical decision between (12b) and 12(c) reformulates the analytical option under-defined in the derivational account (3c) and (3c ). Conceptually, the resolution suggested by Chierchia is identical to the universal constraint *VV. The difference appears to be in the execution, which is straightforward and systemically coherent in (12): a more general understanding of the conventional case of RF (1a) as a stable manifestation of the general restrictions regulating quantity, as we wanted to demonstrate. Some consequences of the optimality theory of RF follow.

. Coda lengthening: Stress and syllable structure interaction: Onset >> NoCoda In (13) an account of the so-called ‘backward’ RF is illustrated. As observed in (5), this ‘inverse’ type of consonant lengthening satisfies at the same time SWP and Onset constraints at the expense of the lowest ranked NoCoda. The optimal form is the default candidate (13c), since (13a) and (13b) are disqualified for violating one or the other of two higher ranked constraints, one regarding prosody and the other syllable structure.12 This is a telling example of cumulative constraint interaction straightforwardly accessible to a parallel design of grammar, hence avoiding an appeal to theory internal devices such as extrametricality (Chierchia 1983– 1986: 27, cf. §2.4.2 above; Hayes 1995), a conceptually unnecessary assumption for a generalized understanding of RF. (13) Coda lengthening: Motel Ada

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. Lexical faithfulness and ‘contrast’: Ident-io[dur/Cm] >> *VV >> *CC >> Ident-io[dur] One might be reminded that (11) does not provide a full illustration as to why vowel lengthening is preferred over consonant lengthening in external sandhi (RF) contexts, as a strategy for meeting SWP requirements at phonetic interface. In (14) we re-propose the same example, adding an additional candidate to analysis (a), which forces the evaluation to choose between vowel lengthening (14c), and consonant lengthening (14a) within word boundaries. The relevant issue involves an OT articulation of the structuralist concept of ‘contrast’ in lexical representations.13 As the short/long consonant contrast is only word medially distinctive in Italian, a lexical input like /ká.sa/ may be pronounced [ká˜.sa] “house” in order to meet SWP because vowels are non-distinctive in the language, but it may not not be pronounced *[kás.sa] because medial consonants are contrastive. Contrast, as a fundamental concept of lexical distinctiveness, is precisely characterized by a higher ranked (un-dominated) Ident-io[dur/Cm] in correspondence theory. This constraint is defined for the feature duration of consonants in medial position. The split ranking formulation of this feature identity constraint proposed for Italian preserves the integrity of lexical contrast by blocking (14a). At the same time, it allows stressed vowels to be realized long (14c) at phonetic interface. (14c) is the optimal candidate that meets SWP requirements, in contrast with (14b). This result is achieved at the expense of violating lower ranked *VV. What disqualifies (14a) is the fundamental violation of lexical contrast, as a derivative of an interpretation of correspondence theory. Under this conceptualization, lexically contrastive segments are protected from the residual quantitative restrictions defining Italian as opposed to Latin. In sum, this is the optimality theoretic explanation as to why within word boundaries consonant lengthening is not preferred with respect to vowel lengthening. (14) Word medial vowel lengthening Why Vowel lengthening and not Consonant lengthening. (cf. (10) above)

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. Rules, constraints and the typology of raddoppiamento revisited As demonstrated in (12), RF emerges as one manifestation of the evaluative function of constraint interaction, a level of simplicity and generalization unattained in rule-based derivational studies of the phenomenon. A re-positioning of RF as an effect of universal quantity restrictions under prosodic conditions leads to a more cohesive understanding of syllable well-formedness effects such as the behavior of s+C clusters and coda lengthening: tram elettrico [tràm.meléttriko] “electric tramway”. The analysis proposed here accounts for the general or ‘regular’ case (cf. (1c) and (15c)) involving RF triggers identified with lexical categories such as verbs and nominals. It’s important to underline that, by its nature, each lexical category is an open set of lexical items, and that for each item the prosodic prominence pattern of the stem is lexicalized. This category of grammar RF is invariant regardless of the syllable cardinality of the trigger (cf. (15a-i and ii)). (15) Regular and Irregular RF (Loporcaro 1999: 1) a. Regular (i) all polysyllabic oxytons: farò [b˜]ene ‘I will do well’ (ii) all strong (stressed) monosyllables: sto [b˜]ene ‘I am well’ b. Irregular (i) some weak (unstressed) monosyllables: a [l˜]ui ‘to him’ (a, [da], e, fra, ma, né, o, se, su, tra) (ii) a few polysyllabic paroxitons: come[t˜]e ‘like you’ (come, [dove], qualche) Obviously, the prosody driven theory developed here for lexical categories does not logically extend to the initial consonant lengthening at phonetic interface observed with triggers identifying functional categories such as prepositions, determiners and conjunctions (15b). This categorical distinction is significant in that the set of functional categories is a closed set, in which each functional category is a unit set by definition. So far, it has not been readily demonstrated that in the initial consonant lengthening triggered by functional items a prosodic requirement is at play in the case of Italian. Rather, functional categories across the languages of the world are often bound morphemes, evidence that suggests their propensity to prosodic inertness. A provisional conclusion is that the initial consonant lengthening which occurs with different functional items has a story of its own, one that is likely to be systemically unrelated to initial consonant lengthening observed with lexical categories, as diachronically indicated (Loporcaro 1999; but see Vincent 1988).14 It is also conceivable that the small set of mostly monosyllabic functional items are individually learned along with their external sandhi effect, and that, accordingly, no sweeping generalization is at hand.

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Variation of RF with individual functional categories is unpredictable and consistent with their unit set nature. The alternate RF behavior that the preposition da ‘from’ exhibits in Roman ad Tuscan Italian is well known. A telling example of the distinctiveness of initial consonant lengthening with the masculine definite article is its correlation with mass/count realization in Neapolitan: o fierro [of.fjér.ro] “iron (metal)”/[o.fjér.ro] “the flatiron”.15 It is interesting to note that in Marsican (Abruzzo) the same mass/count realization is grammaticalized, not by an RF manifestation, but by the selection of distinct elements as determiners: le pane [l6.pá.n6] ‘bread’ / i cane [i.ká.n6] ‘dog’.16 In accordance with the systemic distinction between lexical and functional categories as triggers for initial consonant lengthening, I propose the following categorical reassessment of (15) as a possible working typology for observing the distribution of RF phenomena, namely (16) and (17). (16) Grammatical types and their distribution a. Lexical Head Categories (open set): N, V, A (catalectic metrical patterns) b. Functional Categories (unit set): Prep., Conj., Det., etc. (C-loss and assimilation) (17) Distribution: Type a, b: Type *a, b: Type a, *b: Type *a, *b:

Italian (as spoken in central and southern Italy) Marsican, (Abruzzo)17 (unattested) Italian (as spoken in northern Italy)

. Absence of lexically driven RF in Marsican: Inverse ranking Marsican appears to be consistently of the Type *a, b. Accordingly, the vernacular of Pescasseroli differs from Italian in lacking RF as triggered by lexical heads (the ‘regular’case (15a)), while maintaining RF triggered by individual functional items. The initial examples (1a, b) are reported in (18a, b) for comparison. (18)

a. chiamò Maria (i) [kja.mòm.ma.rí˜.a] “s/he called Mary” (ii) [kja.m¡7 ˜.ma.rí˜.a] b. chiamo Maria (i) [kjà.mo.ma.rí˜.a] “I call Mary” (ii) [kjà.m6.ma.rí˜.a]

+RF (It.) –RF (Pescass.) –RF (It.) –RF (Pescass.)

As noted in (18) the Marsican dialect of Pescasseroli prefers vowel lengthening (18a-ii) in satisfaction of prosodic prominence in sandhi contexts. Interestingly,

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this is in contrast with Italian, which prefers the complementary quantitative option, i.e., consonant lengthening (cf. (18a-i) and (12)). The optimality-theoretic characterization of this systemic difference, typologized as Type *a, b, is the inverse ranking of the duration markedness constraint formulated for Italian, namely *CC >> *VV, which is illustrated in (19). (19) Marsican inverse constraint ranking: Type *a, b –Vowel (not Consonant) lengthening in sandhi contexts.

(19a) illustrates violation of the highest ranking prosodic constraint. In the vernacular of Pescasseroli (Marsican), the selection of the candidate (19c), exhibiting a long stressed vowel across word boundary, over (19b), the RF pronunciation, is defined by the inverse ranking of the universal constraints regulating quantity relation between vowels and consonants.

. Conclusion and consequences The conceptually minimalist execution of quantitative restrictions (including RF) in Italo-Romance varieties explored in this paper supports a parallel design of grammar, in contrast with a derivational one. As a consequence the results suggest a re-positioning of the analytical instrument and a broadening of the conceptual perspective in seeking answers for time-honored phenomena such as raddoppiamento. I have argued, in Section 2, that the apparent impasse in the formal analysis of Italian raddoppiamento as an RF effect is in part attributable to the degree of conceptual (in)adequacy of the analytical instrument available to the researcher eager to come up with that ‘original’ idea that would contribute to a better understanding of this recalcitrant phenomenon. It can be said, in hindsight, that the individual contributions to the formal analysis of RF in the last 40 years identify landmarks in the progress from a strictly derivational framework, through derivations-cumconditions, and finally to a parallel constraint interaction theory of pronunciation. With each landmark, nevertheless, we have experienced the limitations of the instrument, as every scientist does. The de-construction of RF and its empirical bases are laid out in (4)–(9). In Section 3 raddopiamento is de-coupled from RF and revisited from the general viewpoint of quantitative restrictions between vowels and consonants as first encountered in the seminal studies of Josselyn (1900) and observations by Porena

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(1908). The re-positioning of the path of discovery on the interaction between quantity and prosodic requirements on lexical prominence (SWP), the implicational relation between singletons and geminates and the issue of ‘lexical contrast’, positional effects, as well as a wider comparative perspective, have resulted in the proposed OT theory of raddoppiamento. In (10a, b) the relative ranking between faithfulness and markedness defines the quantity contrast system of consonants and vowels for Italian and Latin, with independent arguments in favor of the crucial relative ranking *VV >> *CC, which accounts for peripheral C-lengthening. The OT story of raddoppiamento as an epiphenomenon of prosodically driven lengthening word medially and word peripherally is discussed and illustrated in (11)–(14). In sum, RF is not a structure-specific idiosyncrasy of Italian phonotactics. Rather, it is conceptually derived as a stable effect of quantity constraint interaction. The conclusions reached in this paper lead to a reformulation of the ‘regular/irregular’ definition of raddoppiamento (15) as a grammatically based dichotomy between lexical and functional triggers (16). The new proposal is anchored on the logically distinct prosodically discriminating nature of the two categories. The resulting typology (17) so far unexplored re-opens fieldwork perspectives, as the presently attested Type *a, b, instantiated by the Marsican dialect, shows (18).

Notes . A preliminary constraint-based interpretation would be the following. In Italian, as opposed Spanish, Latin obstruent codas that disagree in manner and place with the following consonant are banned by a higher ranked coda condition. They have filtered down as geminates, in preference of preservation of the mora over deletion of the segment. . In this presentation, I transcribe long vowels as lengthened vowels and long consonants as geminates. Italian geminate vs. singleton consonantal segments exhibit a systematic difference in length on a gradient ratio of 2:1 as consistently observed in the literature. . Lexical geminates are illustrated by an extensive list of minimal pairs such as casa/cassa (house/box). Our own measurements show no significant difference in the realization of the lexical geminate in cassa and the syntactically (RF) generated geminate in sará sano “he will be healthy”. . RF has been identified with to the syllabic ‘duration rhythm’ of the language (Porena 1908) and formalized in the framework of linear generative phonology in respect of the complementary quantity constraint between vowels and consonants in Italian stressed syllables (Saltarelli 1970: 86). This conceptualization of RF is the thesis of this paper. . As we show in (8d), however, this statement of fact is contradicted. Stressed vowels may indeed surface as lengthened across word boundaries.

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A constraint theory of raddoppiamento . This is an instance of consonant lengthening sometimes called ‘backward’ RF (cf. Chierchia 1983–1986: 27). . This has been considered an alternative to RF (6a) (Nespor & Vogel 1979), as a possible parameter distinguishing northern (6c, d) from central and southern Italian varieties (6a, b). . The realization of the ‘duration rhythm’ as a complementary relation between a stressed vowel and the following consonant (Saltarelli 1970) can be instrumentally substantiated for RF. . This syllable-based typology of stressed vowel quantity is also reported for Icelandic (Riad 1992). . Note that Latin, but not Italian, allows trimoraic syllables in /ví˜ l.la/. This typological difference follows from the relative rank order proposed in (10), without further appeal to an ‘overweight’ constraint *3µ as proposed for Icelandic (Kager 1999: 268). . In line with traditional wisdom, we can suggest that Latin and Italian prosodies share the same signature for the perception of lexical prominence at phonetic interface: namely, duration. They differ by a fundamental shift in the optics of perception of lexical prominence. While in the mother language the acoustic signature of lexical prominence was segmentfocused (vowel length), in the daughter language lexical prominence is syllable-focused. This re-conceptualization, which implies the same computational mechanism, would account for the invariance of the locus of lexical prominence (the ‘stressed’ syllable in the word). . Note that the optimal candidate selected in (13c) is consistent with the extended grammar of Italian (10b). Compare (13c) with an additional candidate (13d) [mo.tè˜.lá.da], suggested by an anonimous reviewer. Both candidates satisfy SWP. (13d), however, violates the higher ranked *VV and is therefore evaluated to be less harmonic. . For a different formalization of ‘contrast’ in optimality theory see Bradley (2001) defined on Flemming’s dispersion theory. In our analysis the concept is derivative of correspondence theory. . If the prosodic inertness of functional categories is confirmed, as my hypothesis assumes, the ‘irregular’(15b) instances of initial consonant lengthening triggered by functional categories could be generally construed as the historical reflex of consonant assimilation, being mindful of restructuring accidents. Accordingly, a provisional account of the irregular type in the approach I have explored in this paper would be in the form of a ‘floating’ feature, conceptually un-distinct from doubling in alla casa “to the house” but not in la casa “the house”. The posited feature, perhaps identified with Repetti’s mora (Repetti 1991), must be realized at phonetic interface. This option would have low functional load, given the small set and unit nature of functional elements. Yet, the issue of the floating feature surfacing as an assimilated lengthened vowel or an ambi-syllabic geminate consonant reappears. In the conceptual scenario we have described in this paper, the issue is resolved by the general ranking relation independently established in (12) for Italian consonants and vowels, namely *VV >> *CC. From this perspective, (15a) and (15b) have different phonological stories, but both types are subject to the same quantitative constraints regulating vowels and consonants. An added advantage of this perspective is that the issue regarding initial doubling, in the few cases like come[t˜]e ‘like you’ (15b-ii), becomes moot.

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Mario Saltarelli . The proposed lexical/functional dichotomy would extend the RF paradigm (15b) to include determiners. . This data illustrates the determiner system described for La Marsica (Abruzzo) (Saltarelli 1999). . Marsican is the Italo-Romance variety spoken today in La Marsica, a sub-region of western Abruzzo in central Italy. Marsian is the Italic language reported to have been spoken in this region by the Marsi prior to romanization (Price 1998). Modern Marsian has been linguistically and archeologically identified with a sub-region of La Marsica center around Lecce nei Marsi and extending east to Celano and west to Luco dei Marsi in today’s plain of Fucino and to Civita d’Antino, Villavallelonga, Opi and Bisegna in higher elevations.

References Bradley, Travis (2001). On hypercorrection and preaspiration in Dominican Spanish. Linguistic Symposium on Romance Languages, XXXI. Presentation handout. Camilli, Amerindo (1911). Ancora dei rafforzamenti iniziali in italiano. Le Maître Phonétique, XXVI, 72–74. Chierchia, Gennaro (1983–1986). Length, syllabification and the phonological cycle in Italian. Journal of Italian Linguistics, 8, 5–33. Chomsky, N. (1995). The Minimalist Program. Cambridge, MA: MIT. D’Ovidio, Francesco (1872). Di alcune parole che nella pronuncia Toscana producono il raddoppiamento della consonante iniziale della parola seguente. Il Propugnatore, V, 64– 76. Hayes, Bruce (1995). Metrical Theory of Stress. Chicago: U. of Chicago Press. Kager, René (1998). Optimality theory. Cambridge: Cambridge U. Press. Loporcaro, Michele (1999). L’origine del Raddoppiamento Fonosintattico. Basel: Francke Verlag. McCarthy, John (2002). A thematic guide to optimality theory. Cambridge: Cambridge U. Press. McCarthy, John & Alan Prince. Faithfulness and identity in prosodic morphology. In Kager, René., van der Hulst, H., & Wim Zonneveld (Eds.), The Prosody-Morphology Interface (pp. 218–309). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Napoli, Donna Jo & Marina Nespor (1979). The syntax of word initial consonant gemination in Italian. Language, 55, 812–842. Nespor, Marina & Irene Vogel (1979). Clash avoidance in Italian. Linguistic Inquiry, 10, 467– 482. Panconcelli-Calzia, G. (1911). Italiano. Leipzig and Berlin. Porena, Manfredi (1908). Sillabe brevi e syllable lunghe nella poesia italiana. Note di Lingua e Stile. Napoli. Price, Glanville (1998). Languages of Europe. Oxford: Blackwell. Prince, Alan & Paul Smolensky (1993). Optimality Theory: Constraint Interaction in Generative Grammar. Ms., Rutgers University, New Brunswick and the University of Colorado.

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Repetti, Lori (1991). A moraic analysis of raddoppiamento fonosintattico. Rivista di Linguistica, III, 307–330. Saltarelli, Mario (1970). A phonology of Italian in a generative grammar. The Hague: Mouton. Saltarelli, Mario (1983). The mora unit in Italian phonology”. Folia linguistica, XVII/1–2, 7–24. Saltarelli, Mario (1984). Italian Syllable Structure. Estudis Grammaticals. Working Papers in Linguistics, 279—294. Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. Bellaterra. Saltarelli, Mario (1998). Loan-words and Universal Grammar. In Lourdes Díaz & Carmen Pérez (Eds.), Views on the Acquisition and Use of a Second Language: Proceedings of the 7th European Second Language Acquisition (EUROSLA) (pp. 533–538). Saltarelli, Mario (2000). From Latin Metre to Romance Rhythm. In J. C. Smith & D. Bentley (Eds.), Historical Linguistics 1995 (pp. 345–360). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Smith, Caroline (1992). The Timing if Vowel and Consonant Gestures. Ph.D. Dissertation, Yale University. Vincent, Nigel (1988). Non-linear phonology in diachronic perspective: stress and word structure. In P. M. Bertinetto & Michele Loporcaro (Eds.), Certamen Phonologicum (pp. 421–431). Torino: Rosenberg & Seller. Vogel, Irene (1978). Raddoppiamento as a resyllabification rule. Journal of Italian Linguistics, III, 15–28. Vogel, Irene (1994). Phonological interfaces. In Michael Mazzola (Ed.), Issues and Theory in Romance Linguistics (pp. 109–126). Washington, DC: Georgetown U. Press.

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Ground/Focus A perspective from French Claire Beyssade, Jean-Marie Marandin, and Annie Rialland Université de Paris 3 & LLF / CNRS (LLF) / CNRS (ESA 7018)

.

Introduction

Analyses of the relation between information structure and grammar are currently characterized by a lack of consensus regarding the terms or concepts appropriate to define the aspects of information structure to which grammar is sensitive. In most analyses of focus prosody, the concept of focus itself is not subject to analysis but is simply taken for granted. [ . . . ] The lack of a conceptual framework within which pragmatic notions are given precise definitions has resulted in much confusion and contradiction in the literature. For example, focus has often been confused with ‘new information’ and absence of focus with ‘given information’. (Lambrecht & Michaelis 1998: 478)

In this paper, our aim is to contribute to the clarification of the notions of Focus, Ground, Given, and Discourse Topic on the basis of new analyses of French. In Section 2, we take up and develop a proposal first made by Jacobs (1984, 1991) according to which Focus belongs to illocutionary semantics (i.a., Zaefferer 1981; Han 2000). In Section 3, we develop a definition of Discourse Topic (henceforth DT) proposed by Büring (1997) in order to define the notions of Ground and Given. In both sections, we motivate our definitions with arguments drawn from the analysis of intonation; in Section 4, we briefly consider an argument drawn from word order in French.

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. Illocutionary definition of Focus French has no lexical stress (unlike English, for example), but assigns prosodic features to the edges of prosodic phrases, called Rhythmic Groups (henceforth RGs). A primary accent occurs at the end of RGs and an optional secondary accent at the beginning. RGs are organized into intonational phrases (IntPs), whose right edge is marked by a boundary tone (intonème). Some pitch accents also have to be posited to account for intonational patterns (cf. §3 below). These basic features have been incorporated into most models of French intonation (Vaissière 1991; Mertens 1987; Rossi 1998 among others). Among boundary tones, we will be concerned with those that vary the illocutionary force of utterances, which we will call “illocutionary boundary tones” (henceforth IBTs). The main IBTs are the assertion low boundary tone (L%) and the question high boundary tone (H%).1 Both are quite common cross-linguistically. However, they are not commonly seen as playing a role in focus marking. In this section, we will show that focus marking is based on illocutionary boundary tones (IBTs) in French. (See also Rossi 1998 who analyzes them as “rheme” markers.)

. Illocutionary boundary tones and Focus marking Here we present IBTs in broad-focus utterances (§2.1.1) and then in assertive utterances with a narrow focus (§2.1.2). Following this, we show that the distribution of Question IBTs in syntactically non-interrogative questions is parallel to that of assertion IBTs in assertions (§2.1.3).

.. Illocutionary tones in broad-focus utterances All complete utterances end with an IBT which varies with illocutionary force. This is illustrated in (1) and (2) below. Both utterances are syntactically declarative sentences, the former being understood as an assertion and the latter as a question. The Assertion IBT us realized on the last word of (1), lui; the question IBT is realized on the last word of (2), Bernard: (1) Les choses n’ont pas trop bien marché pour lui. L% “Things didn’t go too well for him.” (2) Tu pars dans la voiture de Jean-Bernard? H% (You leave in the car of Jean-Bernard) “Are you leaving in Jean-Bernard’s car?”

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.. Illocutionary tones in narrow-focus assertions The presence of an assertion IBT at the end of a sentence as in (1) characterizes broad-focus assertions. Assertions with narrow focus present a different intonational pattern, with one IBT at the end of the narrow focus domain and another at the end of the sentence.2 This pattern is illustrated in (3), (4), and (5):3 (3) C’est dix sept romans qu’il a écrits. L% L% “It is seventeen novels that he wrote.” (4) [Qu’est-ce que qu’il a montré au juge pendant sa garde? “What did he show the judge while in custody?”] Il montré son agenda au juge. L% L% “He showed his diary to the judge.” (5) [Qui a tué Caesar? “Who killed Caesar?”] Brutus a tué César. L% L% “Brutus killed Caesar.” The L% assertion IBT is realized on the clefted XP4 in (3), on the focused object in (4), and on the focused object in (5). In all cases there are two IBTs: the leftmost IBT signals the focus domain and the rightmost IBT signals the end of the sentence.5 This pattern is regular and characterizes focus marking in French assertions, as summarized in (6): (6) a. Focus marking makes use of IBTs in French. b. The leftmost IBT signals the focus domain.

.. Illocutionary tones in questions with narrow focus We observe the same pattern, mutatis mutandis, in questions. The H% question IBT is realized at the end of the utterance in (2). It may also occur on an XP inside the utterance, as illustrated in (7) and (8). (7) is a syntactically non-interrogative cleft sentence associated with Question force; the two question IBTs occur at the end of the clefted XP and at the end of the sentence: (7) C’est Jean-Pierre qui est sorti avec Marie? H% H% “Was it Jean-Pierre who was going out with Marie?” (8) is a non-interrogative, non-cleft sentence associated with Question force. Two question IBTs occur in it, the former on Jean-Bernard and the latter at the end of the sentence.

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(8) Tu pars dans la voiture de Jean-Bernard dimanche prochain? H% H% (you leave in the car of Jean-Bernard next Sunday) “Are you leaving in Jean-Bernard’s car next Sunday?” The placement of the Question IBT is distinctive. Question (2) is a yes-no question bearing on the whole situation described in the question, whereas question (8) is a yes-no question bearing on the identity of the owner of the car involved in the situation described in the question. This is shown by the fact that (9a) is an appropriate answer to question (8), whereas (9b) is not: (9) a.

Non, dans celle de Marina. “No, in Marina’s car.” b. #Non, samedi prochain. “No, next Saturday.”

This pattern, in which the scope of the question is signaled by the placement of the leftmost question IBT, is fairly general. Let us consider another example. (10a) is a yes-no question bearing on Pierre’s involvement in a situation (Est-ce que c’est Pierre qui est venu avec Bernadette hier soir? “Was it Pierre who came with Bernadette last night?”). (10b) is a yes-no question concerning Bernadette’s involvement (Est-ce que c’est avec Bernadette que Pierre est venu hier soir? “Was it Bernadette that Pierre came with last night?”). (10c) is ambiguous: it may be understood as a yes-no question concerning the whole situation (Est-ce que Pierre est venu avec Bernadette hier soir? “Did Pierre come with Bernadette last night?”), or restricted to the time of the situation (Est-ce que c’est hier soir que Pierre est venu avec Bernadette? “Was it last night that Pierre came with Bernadette?”). (10) a. Pierre H% est venu avec Bernadette hier soir H% b. Pierre est venu avec Bernadette H% hier soir H% c. Pierre est venu avec Bernadette hier soir H% “Pierre came with Bernadette last night?” The various possible placements of IBTs in questions and the meanings associated with them have not been discussed so far. The parallelism between focus marking in questions and focus marking in assertions (clefts or regular declaratives) must also be accounted for. It is our claim that an illocutionary definition of Focus makes it possible to capture a generalization holding among utterances of any illocutionary type, thereby shedding light on the meaning of Focus.

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. Illocutionary definition of Focus Ground-Focus articulation is usually defined in informational terms. Ground is the part of the propositional content that is shared by the interlocutors or is inferable from the context. Focus is the part of the propositional content that is new in the context. In other terms, Focus contributes the informative part of the propositional content.6 Jacobs (1984, 1991) sets up a different approach that relates Ground-Focus articulation to illocutionary semantics: in his view, Focus is that part of the content that is specifically affected (“inhaltlich besonders betroffen” in Jacobs’ terms) by the illocutionary operator associated with the sentence. In particular, he proposes to split the propositional content of assertive sentences into two parts, both falling within the scope of the Assertion operator ASSERT: (11) ASSERT In assertions, either the whole propositional content or a part of it may be specifically asserted. The first case corresponds to Broad Focus and gives rise to Broad Focus marking; see (12) below, where the IBT is realized on the last word of the sentence. The second corresponds to Narrow Focus; see (13), in which the IBT is realized on Marie: (12) [Qu’est-ce qui se passe? “What happens?”] Marie est venue L% “Marie has come.” (13) [Qui est venu? “Who came?”] Marie L% est venue L% Assuming (11), the Ground-Focus articulation of (12) and (13) may be made explicit as in (14a) and (14b) respectively: (14) a. ASSERT < λP P, ∃e (Venir (e,Marie))> b. ASSERT < λx ∃e (Venir (e,x)), Marie> Following Lambrecht (1994), the content making up the update value of (12) and (13) may be made explicit as in (15a) and (15b) respectively:7 (15) a. Assertion: x = Marie b. Assertion: P = ∃e Venu (e,Marie)

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. Descriptive adequacy of the illocutionary definition .. New versus informative information In general, the content that is specifically asserted is “new” in the sense that it is not shared by all interlocutors. In other words, both the informational and the illocutionary definitions overlap; the asserted information is new information. But certain utterances have been recognized as posing a problem for the informational definition (i.a., Lambrecht 1994; McNally 1998). Such are utterances conveying old/shared information and exhibiting broad focus marking. Examples are given in (16) and (17). Sentence (16) can be uttered in a situation in which the interlocutors see the rain (Lambrecht 1994); (17) can be uttered as a reply to Pierre est bien arrivé?: (16) It’s raining L% (17) [Pierre est bien arrivé? “Pierre has arrived, hasn’t he?”] Pierre est arrivé L% “Pierre has arrived.” In both cases, the speaker asserts a presupposed content, pragmatically presupposed in (16) or lexically presupposed in (17).8 The content is not new, but it is presented as the information the speaker contributes to the context by asserting it. As (16) and (17) show, informativity is not a static notion, but requires a dynamic approach of context: “old” information may constitute the update of an utterance (triggering pragmatic effects we leave aside here).

.. Focus in questions We propose to extend the definition (11) to questions as follows:9 (18) QUEST The content of a question may be partitioned into two parts: the Focus that contributes the questioned content, and the Ground that contributes the shared content. As in assertions, either the whole content or a part of it may be questioned. The first case corresponds to broad-focus questions and the second to narrow-focus questions. We may make this proposal explicit by comparing the non-interrogative questions (19a) and (19b) and the wh-question (19c). Question (19a) is a broad-focus question, while (19b) and (19c) are narrow-focus ones. (19) a. Pierre avec venu Bernadette hier soir H% b. Pierre avec venu Bernadette H% hier soir H% c. Avec qui H% Pierre est venu hier soir H% “With whom did Pierre come last night?”

(=(10c)) (=(10b))

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The Ground-Focus articulation of questions in (19a/b/c) may be represented as (20a/b/c). In broad-focus questions, the whole proposition contributes the questioned content. In (20a), the function λP P captures the fact that Ground has no content as in (14a) above. In narrow-focus questions, the questioned content is contributed either by a constituent bearing the question IBT as in (19a) or by a wh-expression as in (19c).10 QUEST (λP P, ∃e (venu-avec (e,Pierre,Bernadette) & Time(e,hiersoir))) b. QUEST (λx ∃e (venu-avec (e,Pierre,x) & Time(e,hier-soir)), Bernadette) c. QUEST (∃x ∃e (venu-avec (e,Pierre,x) & Time(e,hier-soir)), x; human)

(20) a.

In parallel to (15a), the specifically questioned part of (19a) and (19b) can be represented as in (21a) and (21b), respectively. Question (19a) is a yes-no question that queries the truth value of a proposition (21a). Question (19b) is a yes-no question that queries the identity between x and Bernadette (21b). Question: P = ∃e (venu-avec (e,Pierre,Bernadette) & Time(e,hiersoir))) b. Question: x = Bernadette

(21) a.

. To sum up If one admits that questions have a Ground/Focus articulation just as assertions do, the intonational pattern observed in questions (cf. §2.1.3 above) falls under the same generalization as the pattern characterizing assertions (cf. §2.1.2): in both, the leftmost IBT signals the Focus domain (6b). If one accepts the illocutionary definitions (11) and (18), the meaning of the partition into Ground and Focus depends on the illocutionary force of the utterance. The focal content in assertions is the informative part of the content (which is not necessarily new), while the focal content in questions is the content that must be supplied or confirmed by an answer. Just as the content the speaker wants to present as informative may represent only a part of the content expressed by the proposition, the content the speaker wants to question may represent only a part of the content of the proposition expressed in the question. It is currently assumed that all assertive utterances have a focus. We have extended this assumption to utterances of all illocutionary types. McNally (1998) correctly points out that such an assumption is stipulated in most frameworks. She defends a hypothesis which is indeed restricted to assertions: every utterance

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has a Focus because every utterance has an update value (a content whose addition to the context modifies the context of uttering). We have a different account: every sentence has a Focus because every sentence bears an illocutionary force. Focus in assertions is just a particular case of a more general phenomenon. We have grounded our proposal on data drawn from the analysis of intonation in French. It just happens that French prosody gives a transparent cue to the nature of Focus. We expect that the semantics of Focus is the same in all languages, but is independent of any particular marking system (be it syntactic, morphological, or prosodic). If this is true, Ground/Focus articulation, viewed as a partition of the content of a sentence under the scope of an illocutionary operator, can be universally defined as in (22): (22) ILLOCUTIONARY-OP where ILLOCUTIONARY-OP ∈ {ASSERT, QUEST, COM}

. The thematic definition of Ground It is commonly assumed that Ground is shared knowledge, more precisely a proposition that belongs to the background or context. We take up Büring’s proposal to split the context into two sets of propositions, those that make up the Common Ground and those that make up the Discourse Topic.11 We show that a precise model of Discourse Topic (henceforth DT) makes it possible to capture the distribution of one type of pitch accent (C accents) in French. Moreover, it provides a framework for defining the notions of Ground and Given in a way that will be useful in our subsequent account of constituent ellipsis and one type of word order alternation in French.

. C accent and pitch range widening French has several pitch accents realized as high tones on the first or second syllable of RGs in IntPs. These accents convey several types of meaning. Here we consider one of them that we call C accent, in reference to the B accent of English or German. This accent is realized as a high tone on the first or second syllable of RGs it also involves a lengthening of the whole syllable, including the first consonant.12 Moreover, it is associated with a widening of the pitch register over the whole IntP, thus triggering the raising of the continuation tone which may occur at the end of the IntP. We give a prototypical illustration of C accent placement in the question-answer pair (23):13

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(23) [Qu’ont fait les étudiants cette année? “What (subjects) did the students take this year?”] Les éTUdiants de première année (H%) ont fait de la syntaxe, les éTUdiants de deuxième année (H%) ont fait de la sémantique. “First year students studied syntax and second year students studied semantics.” The question-answer pair (24) is another context in which a C accent occurs. Only answer (24a) with C accent on Marina is appropriate. (24) [Sais-tu si Bernard a acheté l’appartement? “Do you know whether Bernard bought the apartment?”] a. MArina (H%) n’a pas voulu. “Marina didn’t agree.” # b. Marina n’a pas voulu. Answers in (23) and (24) share a feature: they modify the question. In (23), the speaker splits the question by considering different groups of students; each sentence in the reply is a partial answer. In (24), the speaker shifts the discourse from a “Bernard-apartment” issue to a “Marina-Bernard-apartment” issue. Both are associated with the same discourse effect: they call for the pursuing of the discourse on the issue raised by the question.14

. Büring’s definition of Discourse Topic Büring takes up the idea that the DT should be analyzed as a question. DT is viewed as the question under debate at the time of the utterance. Adopting a Hambling (1973)-style representation of the meaning of questions, DTs are sets of propositions just as questions are. An answer resolves a question; in a model treating DTs as questions, questions shape the DT, answers bring up elements of the DT and in some cases reshape the DT. An answer may resolve a question directly or indirectly. As observed above, C accents occur in answers that indirectly resolve questions. Given the view of DT we have just accepted, C accents are correlated with a modification of the DT. Let’s consider this point. Take question (25) and two answers, a direct answer (26a) and a partial answer (26b): (25) Qu’est-ce que fumaient les chanteurs de rock dans les années 60? “What did rock singers smoke in the sixties?” (26) a.

Les chanteurs de rock fumaient de la marijuana. “Rock singers smoked marijuana.”

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b. Les chanteurs de rock ANglais (H%) fumaient de la marijuana. “English rock singers smoked marijuana.” Answer (26a) does not modify the DT. The DT developed by (26a) may be represented as a set of propositions: (27) a.

Intensional presentation: DT = λx ∀y (rock-singer(y)→ smoke (y, x)) b. Extensional presentation: DT = { rock singers smoked marijuana, rock singers smoked cocaine, rock singers smoked Marlboros, . . . }

Discourse (26b), on the contrary, does modify the DT. It brings up an intermediary question concerning the English singers as opposed to other singers. The DT modified and developed by (26b) may be represented as a set of sets of propositions: (28) a.

Intensional presentation: DT = λP λx ∀y ((rock-singer(y) & P(y)) → smoked (y, x)) b. Extensional presentation: DT = {{ English rock singers smoked marijuana, English rock singers smoked cocaine, English rock singers smoked Marlboros, . . . } { French rock singers smoked marijuana, French rock singers smoked cocaine, French rock singers smoked Marlboros, . . . } { American rock singers . . . . . . }, . . . }

The abstraction over x (λx in (28a)) opens a witness set for the focus; the abstraction over P (λP in (28a)) opens a witness set for the topical part of the utterance. The constituent anglais in (26b) brings in an element in a set which is distinct from the set of alternatives that feeds the focus of the answer. Let us compare the DT of (26a) as it is represented in (27) and that of (26b) as it is represented in (28). In (27), the DT is simple (one set of propositions), in (28), the DT is complex or layered (a set of sets of propositions). This is summarized under (29) where both cases are represented schematically: (29) DT (simple) = {{p1, p2, . . . , pn}} DT (layered) = {{q1, q2, . . . , qm}, {q’1, q’2, . . . , q’s}, . . . } Now, we can account for the compulsory occurrence of C accents in French (and German): (30) C accents are compulsory for constituents that bring up an element belonging to a set of alternatives in the DT and, by the same token, initiate a layered DT.

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In other words, C accents are related to Discourse Topic marking. They are sensitive to DT layering and thus participate in the signalling of the dynamics of Discourse Topic development.

. Definitions of Ground and Given We define Ground as (31). Definition (31) gives a more precise content to the observation often made in information packaging theories: Ground anchors the uttering of the sentence in the context. It states that Ground anchors the utterance in the issue at hand. (31) Ground is an open proposition belonging to the Discourse Topic. The notion of Given also can be derived from the definition of DT (see also Schwartzchild 1999): (32) Given is the open proposition expressing the common content of the DT. We illustrate definition (32) by taking up (26b) again, which we repeat under (33a): (33b) makes explicit the proposition that constitutes the Given. The elements that make up the given proposition are underlined in the extensional representation (33c): (33) a. Les chanteurs de rock ANglais fumaient de la marijuana. b. λy λQ ∀x ( (Chanteur de rock (x) & Q (x) ) → fumer (x, y)) c. DT = {{ English rock singers smoked marijuana, English rock singers smoked cocaine, English rock singers smoked Marlboros, . . . } { French rock singers smoked marijuana, French rock singers smoked cocaine, French rock singers smoked Marlboros, . . . } { American rock singers . . . . . . }, . . . } The notion of Given makes it possible to state a principle that accounts for constituent lexicalization: (34) Expressions contributing to the Given may be deleted or pronominalized. Take again (25): the most expected answers are those in (35) where expressions contributing given content are deleted. (35) a.

Les chanteurs ANglais de la marijuana, les chanteurs FRANçais des Marlboros. (The singers English marijuana, the singers French Marlboros) “English singers marijuana, French singers Marlboros.” b. Les ANglais de la marijuana, les FRANçais des Marlboros. “The English marijuana, the French Marlboros.”



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. Information Structure and word order It is commonly accepted that word order variation is related to Information Structure. For example, the so-called free inversion characterizing Romance languages is analyzed as triggered by Narrow Focus placement on subjects. Although French has no free inversion, it has several types of inversion (Marandin 2001). Here, we concentrate on stylistic inversion in relative clauses (henceforth RC). Stylistic inversion is not related to Subject focusing. Indeed, stylistic inversion occurs most frequently outside of the focus domain as witnessed in clefts: (36) C’est [au restaurant]F qu’a dîné Pierre. (It is at the restaurant that dined Pierre) “It was in the restaurant that Pierre had dinner.” Although French stylistic inversion is not sensitive to focus placement, it is sensitive to Givenness: it is appropriate only when the proposition expressed in the RC is Given. This is illustrated in the contrasts below. Consider the relative clauses in the answers to (37) in (38) and (39) below. In (38), inversion is in free variation, and there is no difference in meaning between the two variants: (37) Que sont devenus les étudiants dont Bernard s’est occupé? “What happened to the students Bernard took care of ?” (38) a. Les étudiants dont s’est occupé Bernard ont tous réussi. b. Les étudiants dont Bernard s’est occupé ont tous réussi. “All the students Bernard took care of have been successful.” In (39), the verb in the RC of the answer is different from that in the question. Each clause in the reply is a partial answer, in which a subgroup of students is distinguished by the property denoted in the RC. Inversion as shown in (39a) is not appropriate. (39) a.

#Les

étudiants qu’a soignés Bernard ont réussi, ceux qu’il a dissuadés de poursuivre une carrière sportive ont repris un cursus normal. b. Les étudiants que Bernard a soignés ont réussi, ceux qu’il a dissuadés de poursuivre une carrière sportive ont repris un cursus normal. “The students Bernard treated have been successful; those he persuaded not to go into sports careers returned to their studies.”

Consider now the answers in (40) to the same question (37): both are appropriate, but they are not in free variation. The verb in the RC of the answer (entraîner, [‘to train’]) is different from that of the question (s’occuper de [‘to take care of ’]); entraîner and s’occuper de may, but need not be, interpreted as synonyms here. When the property denoted by entraîner is taken as an equivalent to that denoted

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by s’occuper de, it counts as Given. Inversion is felicitous and the answer in (40a) is interpreted as a complete answer. When the property is taken as non-equivalent, however, it is no longer Given. Inversion is then inappropriate. The answer in (40b) is interpreted as a partial answer as in (39b): it concerns a sub-group of students and calls for the pursuing of the discourse. (40) a. Les étudiants qu’a entrainés Bernard ont réussi. b. Les étudiants que Bernard a entrainés ont réussi aux Olympiades universitaires. “The students that Bernard trained have been successful at the University Olympics.” The data we have just presented is just one element to be accounted for in a complete analysis of stylistic inversion from an informational perspective (see Marandin, forthcoming). Nevertheless, they clearly show that Ground-Focus articulation is not involved in the felicity and meaning of inversions in RCs; rather, it is the Given/Non-Given contrast that plays the crucial role.

. Conclusion We have shown that an illocutionary approach to Focus makes it possible to unify the analysis of the distribution of illocutionary boundary tones in French. It naturally calls for a dynamic approach to the transfer of information in discourse. A piece of information is not new (informative) or old (shared) per se. The update of assertions is constituted by the content that is specifically asserted. The update requested from the hearer by questions is delimited by the content that is specifically questioned. Secondly, an explicit definition of what Discourse Topic is allows a description of the obligatory placement of one type of pitch accent in French. It further provides the frame to define the part of the Ground that is Given. We have shown that Givenness is the appropriate parameter to account for constituent ellipsis and Subject inversion in French.

Notes . The symbol % refers to Pierrehumbert’s notation of Boundary Tones. . The focus domain is the part of the utterance containing the XP(s) contributing the focal information.



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Claire Beyssade, Jean-Marie Marandin, and Annie Rialland . The answers in (4) and (5) are perhaps not the most frequent in ordinary use, but they are possible ones, which make it possible to generate more elliptical answers such as son agenda or Brutus. . This is true of clefts associated with narrow focus (see Rialland et. al. 2002). See also Clech-Darbon, Rebuschi, and Rialland (1999). . Note that there may be more than one IBT in the postfocal domain, one at the end of each IntP (see Delais-Roussarie et al. 2002). . This is essentially the content of Lambrecht’s definition of Focus: “the Focus is the component of a pragmatically structured proposition whereby the assertion differs from the presupposition” (Lambrecht 1994: 213). . The analysis represented in (15) captures the difference in update value of (12) and (13): the update content is contributed by the NP Marie in (15a), whereas it is contributed by the Sentence Marie est venue in (15b). In both cases, the update is viewed as an identity relation between a variable (typed in the Ground) and a value (contributed by the Focus). . The item bien in this usage is a presupposition trigger in French. . By the same token, it may be extended to commands. We leave commands (henceforth COM) aside here. . The informational status of wh-expressions has raised much debate in the literature: are they foci or not? Indeed, wh-expressions do play a double role in questions. On the one hand, they contribute the Focus to the Question operator; as such, they represent the locus of uncertainty the speaker wants to resolve by asking the question. On the other hand, they are presupposition triggers; as such, they introduce an existential quantification in the Ground. The main difference between a narrow-focus wh-question and a narrow-focus non-interrogative question is captured in (20): in (20b), the Focus contributes a constant, whereas it contributes a typed variable in (20c). . See Büring’s definition of Context as a pair: Context = . Such a definition is a first approximation; it should include a plan set in order to account for the directive impact of speech acts on speaker’s and hearer’s verbal behavior. . Such an accent has been related in the literature to Contrast (i.a., Jun & Fougeron 2000) or Focusing (accent de focalisation, in Rossi 1998). . From now on, we only note C accents in our illustrations, leaving aside the IBTs involved in Focus marking. We note C accents by capitalizing the syllables bearing them. The H%, inserted in the text, represents the end of an IntP. See Delais et al. (2002) and Rialland et al. (2002) for our approach to Intonational Phrases. . Büring has observed the same pattern in German: the so-called “59th street bridge” accent may be obligatory. For example, weiblichen must be accented in (i): (i)

Q: Was hatten die Popstars an? “What did the pop stars wear?” a. Die WEIBlichen Popstars trugen [KAFtane]F “The female pop stars wore caftans.” b. #Die weiblichen Popstars trugen [KAFtane]F

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The answer is partial (the question is about pop stars, the answer about female pop stars). Kaftane bears the Focus-Related accent as expected; the B accent on weiblichen remains to be explained.

References Büring, Daniel (1997). The 59th Street Bridge Accent: on the meaning of topic and focus. London: Routledge. Clech-Darbon, Anne, Georges Rebuschi, & Annie Rialland (1999). Are there cleft sentences in French? In Georges Rebuschi & Laurie Tuller (Eds.), The Grammar of Focus. Amsterdam & Philadelphia: Johns Benjamins. Delais-Roussarie, Elisabeth, Annie Rialland, Jenny Doetjes, & Jean-Marie Marandin (2002). The prosody of postfocus sequences in French. Speech Prosody 2002 Proceedings (pp. 239–242). Hamblin, C. L. (1973). Questions in Montague Grammar. Foundations of Language, 10, 41– 53. Han, Chung-Hye (2000). The Structure and Interpretation of Imperatives: mood and force in universal grammar. New York: Garland. Jacobs, Joachim (1984). Funktionale Satzperspektive und Illokutionsemantik. Linguistische Berichte, 91, 25–28. Jacobs, Joachim (1991). Focus ambiguities. Journal of Semantics, 8, 1–36. Jun, Sun-Ah, & Cécile Fougeron (2000). A Phonological Model of French Intonation. In Antonis Botinis (Ed.), Intonation: Analysis, Modelling and Technology (pp. 209–242). Dordrecht: Kluwer. Lambrecht, Knud (1994). Information Structure and Sentence Form. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Lambrecht, Knud & Laura Michaelis (1998). Sentence Accent in Information Questions: default and projection. Linguistics and Philosophy, 21, 477–544. Marandin, Jean-Marie (2001). Unaccusative Inversion. In Yves D’hulst, Johan Rooryck, & Jan Schroten (Eds.), Going Romance 1999: Selected Papers. Amsterdam: Johns Benjamins. Marandin, Jean-Marie, Claire Beyssade, Elisabeth Delais-Roussarie, & Annie Rialland (2002). Discourse Marking in French: C accents and discourse moves. Speech Prosody 2002 Proceedings (pp. 471–474). Marandin, Jean-Marie (forthcoming). Inversion du sujet et structure de l’information dans les langues romanes. In Danièle Godard (Ed.), Langues romanes. Problèmes de la phrase simple. Paris: Editions du CNRS. McNally, Louise (1998). On the linguistic encoding of information packaging instructions. In Peter Cullicover & Louise McNally (Eds.), Syntax and Semantics: The Limits of Syntax. New York: Academic Press. Mertens, Piet (1987). L’intonation du français: de la description linguistique à la reconnaissance automatique. Ph.D. thesis, University of Louvain.

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Rialland, Annie, Jenny Doetjes, & Georges Rebuschi (2002). What is focused in C’est XP qui/que cleft sentences in French? Speech Prosody 2002 Proceedings (pp. 595–598). Rossi, Mario (1998). L’intonation, le système du français. Paris: Ophyrs. Schwartzchild, Roger (1999). Givenness, a AvoidF and Other Constraints on the Placement of Accent. Natural Language Semantics, 7, 141–177. Vaissière, Jacqueline (1991). Rhythm, Accentuation, and Final Lengthening in French. In Johan Sundberg, Lennard Nord, & Rolf Carlson (Eds.), Music, Language, Speech, and Brain (pp. 108–120). Houndsmills, England: McMillan. Zaefferer, Dietmar (1981). On a Formal Treatment of Illocutionary Force Indicators. In Herman Parret, Marina Sbise, & Jef Verschuren (Eds.), Possibilities and Limitations of Pragmatics (pp. 779–798). Amsterdam: John Benjamins.

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The subject clitics of Conversational European French Morphologization, grammatical change, semantic change, and change in progress Bonnie Fonseca-Greber and Linda R. Waugh Bowling Green State University and University of Arizona

.

Introduction

Many researchers have said that there are changes under way in the subject clitics of spoken French. Examples given have been morphologization of the clitics, substitution of nous by on, and other, concomitant changes: e.g., loss of the negative particle ne (Ashby 1977, 1980, 1999; Harris 1978, 1988; Lambrecht 1981; Sankoff 1982; Gadet 1989/1996; Schwegler 1990; Blanche-Benveniste et al. 1991; Lodge 1993; Auger 1994; Klausenburger 2000). But what has been lacking is a full-scale corpus study, based on actual conversational usage of native speakers of French, which tests these claims about formal changes. Such a study would determine how many changes have reached completion, how many are still in progress, and, of those still ongoing, what stage they have reached in the process of completion – i.e., how much synchronic variability there is for any given change in progress. At the same time, there is no concomitant corpus study that delineates the semantic (discourse-pragmatic) consequences of these formal changes. It is just such a corpus study that is the focus of this article. We will discuss formal and semantic completed changes and changes in progress in the subject clitics of European conversational French. Our purpose will be not only to document the current situation of spoken French, but also to provide a better understanding of grammatical change and to highlight the interrelation of historical change with change in progress (synchronic variation). As we shall also see, the current changes in French are having an impact on its typological status, and thus on its typological relation with the other Romance languages. Additionally, because intuitions are so easily

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 Bonnie Fonseca-Greber and Linda R. Waugh

Table 1. Clitics and disjunctive pronouns

Personal: 1Sg. 2Sg. 3Sg. 1Pl. 2Pl. 3Pl. Indefinite:

Subject clitics (-1)

Object clitics (-2)

Disjunctive pronouns (-3)

je (I) tu (you familiar) il, elle-1 (he, she, it) nous-1 (we) vous-1 (you (& formal)) ils, elles-1 (they) on (one/you/they)

me te le, la, lui, se nous-2 vous-2 les, leur se

moi toi lui, elle-3 nous-3 vous-3 eux, elles-3 soi

swayed by the prescriptive dictates of school learning of the written language, the unreliability of grammaticality judgments for spoken French must be taken as a given. Thus the results of this study highlight the methodological importance of corpus-based research if we are to come to an understanding of spoken French as it is used by adult native speakers. As a point of departure against which we can later compare spoken French, Table 1 presents the traditional linguistic, reference grammar, and pedagogical accounts of the clitics (called conjunctive or unstressed pronouns in the reference and pedagogical grammars) and disjunctive (stressed, tonic) pronouns of French. The subject clitics are given in column one (noted as -1 when the same form occurs with other functions), object clitics in column two (noted as -2 when needed), disjunctive pronouns in column three (noted as -3 when needed). The subject clitics can only be used with a finite (conjugated) verb and are placed either before (in the majority of the cases) or after the verb; the object clitics can only be used with a verb (finite, infinitive, participle) and for the most part occur before the verb, although, as for the subject clitics, in certain cases they can occur after the verb. The disjunctives basically cannot be used as subject or object pronouns right before the verb, and are the forms that must be used in isolation, after a preposition, when stressed, and so forth. Table 1 is a perfectly adequate representation of formal versions of written French, but for spontaneous spoken French, as we shall see, it is woefully inadequate.

. The corpus For the present study, we used Fonseca-Greber’s corpus of Everyday Conversational Swiss French (ECSF) and Waugh’s corpus of Everyday Conversational Metropolitan French (ECMF). Both corpora represent spontaneously occurring, informal,

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face-to-face conversation between family members, friends and (less often) acquaintances. The conversations occur over food and sometimes in other types of contexts (e.g., friends talking while one of them is packing for a trip). Although participants gave their written consent to be recorded, they were not made aware of the exact nature of the research questions. We chose such types of conversations for our study because, as many have said, this is the fundamental type of linguistic communication (see, e.g., Chafe 1994; see also Gadet 1989/1996, for whom the term “ordinary” is used for this type of conversational usage). The results, therefore, while potentially generalizable to other discourse contexts, are most relevant for informal face-to-face interaction. Fonseca-Greber’s ECSF corpus contains 117,000 words, spanning 7 conversations, and represents the speech of 14 educated, middle-class speakers, six men and eight women, six over 40, eight under 40. In the examples used in this article, speakers in the ECSF corpus are identified by a capital S followed by a number; this S# is placed after the utterance cited. Waugh’s ECMF corpus contains 77,000 words, spanning eight conversations, representing the speech of 13 educated, middle-class speakers, five men and eight women, four over 40 years old, nine under 40. In the examples used in this article, speakers in the ECMF corpus are identified by initials in capital letters; the initials are placed before the utterance cited. Preliminary work on the two corpora showed that they are substantially the same with regard to the factors we are examining. “Indeed,” as Offord (1990: 18) states: “it is best to consider the standards of Belgium and Switzerland as the same as standard French [of France], with minor modifications.” These modifications are usually lexical and phonological, rather than morpho-syntactic or grammatico-semantic. Hence, although Fonseca-Greber’s ECSF was the basic corpus for the discussion of morphologization in §3.1 below, much of the discussion in §3.2 is based on a pooled corpus of Everyday Conversational European French (ECEF – 194,000 words, 15 conversations, 27 educated, middle-class speakers, 11 men, 16 women, ten over 40, 17 under 40). Before turning to the findings themselves, a caveat is in order regarding the transcription conventions: it should be remembered that the transcription attempts to represent actual speech, and therefore tries to convey the sound (e.g., liaison and phonetic reduction) and structure (e.g. hyphens to indicate morpheme boundaries and dashes to set off false starts) of the spoken language, which at times may differ drastically from the familiar norms of the writing system. The English translations also attempt to give a rendering that shows these qualities of normal conversational language, as against more formal spoken and written varieties.



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. Discussion of the data Our discussion is divided into two main parts: a morphosyntactic component and a grammatico-semantic component. In the first, we assess the degree of morphologization of the subject clitics and note other formal changes. In the second, we explore concurrent grammatico-semantic changes.

. Morphologization of the subject clitics In his work on analyticity and syntheticity in the Romance languages, Schwegler (1990) proposes a series of tests to determine whether an element has morphologized or not. Similar in many respects to Zwicky and Pullum’s (1983) tests for distinguishing between clitics and affixes, these tests have allowed us to determine that, for the most part, the subject clitics are no longer clitics in the conversational language, and have become fully bound morphemes. In short, the results show that the subject clitics have fully morphologized into inflectional prefixes in the 1st and 2nd person; that is, they are now inflectional prefixes that occur obligatorily, preceding the verb stem as a marker of person and number. The 3rd person subject clitics lag somewhat behind; that is, as we shall see, some 3rd person uses fail the test of obligatoriness, although they pass all the other tests. For this reason, where pertinent in the examples that follow, we cite both a 3rd person example as well as a 1st or 2nd person one. In all cases, we use a hyphenated form in both the French and the English translation for those examples where, according to our analysis, the former clitic now takes the form of a prefix. Below, we apply Schwegler’s tests, (1)–(7), plus one of our own, (8), to the data from the ECSF corpus.

.. Reduced forms, reduced paradigms The first test has to do with the reduced forms (a) and reduced paradigms (b) of morphological affixes, compared with the larger number of morpho-syntactic possibilities of clitics. a.

Reduction of the morphological bulk of individual forms

(1) J-espère que vz-arrivez à réparer ces problèmes.. (S1) ([vz] instead of [vuz]) ‘I-hope y-can get the problems fixed’ b. Reduction of the paradigm as a whole: i. Replacement of nous-1 and its accompanying suffixed verb form by third person on (to be discussed further below):

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The subject clitics of Conversational European French 

(2) Comme nous-3 on-a une forêt de sapins (S12) ‘As we (the way we) we-have a pine forest’ ii. Weakening of elles-1 (and elles-3) and their replacement by ils- (pronounced [i] or [iz], depending on the pre-consonantal or pre-vocalic context) and eux: (3) Mes petites cousines () eux i-savaient.. (S6) ‘My little cousins [fem. Plur.] () they [masc. Plur.] they [masc. Plur.]knew..’ Reduction of individual forms is illustrated by vous reducing to vz in (1), but it occurs across all persons as they lose either vocalic or consonantal material (to be discussed further below in §3.1.2). As for the reduction of the paradigm as a whole, the most striking example is the loss of nous-1 and its accompanying suffixal verb form, e.g., nous parlons (parlons [stem-1Pl suffix]) ‘we speak’, and its replacement on- (which is used with a 3rd person singular, and thus suffix-less, form of the verb). This morphosyntactic and semantic change presages other semantic changes to be discussed in the second section of this paper. Notice also in example (2) that the loss of nous-1 in no way entails the loss of nous-3 (the disjunctive pronoun), which is still actively used (for more discussion of this relationship, see Fonseca-Greber 2000). Another form where the paradigm as a whole is undergoing reduction is in the 3rd person plural, feminine. The weakening of feminine elles-1 in favor of masculine ils-1 (and of elles-3 in favor of eux), although not as far advanced as the loss of nous-1, is nonetheless striking in example (3), where mes petites cousines is audibly marked as feminine and refers to human girls. Admittedly, the semantics of the noun can be a contributing factor in gender mismatches in some cases, such as les compagnies étrangères [fem.] ‘foreign companies’ and les universités [fem.] ‘universities’, as Jonathan Beck (p.c.) and Bullock (2001) point out, since the foreign companies and the universities are both no doubt comprised of mixed groups of men and women. This, then, could be a motivation for using a masculine pronoun, since masculine plural is unmarked vs. the feminine plural and is used by adjectives and pronouns referring to both masculine and feminine nouns. Still, this cannot account for example (3) since, if a mixed group had been intended, the speaker would have selected the masculine form mes petits cousins, audibly distinct from the exclusively feminine form she chose. In this case, a more likely cause is the nonaccumulation of marked categories (see Waugh 1982): cross-linguistically, gender distinctions are more common in the unmarked 3rd singular than in the marked 3rd plural – in other words, the combination of marked plural and marked feminine would represent an accumulation of marked categories. Markedness is one of the standard bases by which paradigms are trimmed.

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.. Systematic allomorphy This test differentiates prefixes from less tightly bound elements by the fact that prefixes undergo systematic allomorphy (some of which also leads to reduced forms, as in §3.1.1): e.g. devoicing before voiceless consonants (4), consonant reduction before a consonant (5), vowel reduction before a vowel (6), liaison of a final consonant before a vowel (7): (4) J-pense (pronounced as [špas]) (S5) (vs. j-dis [ždi] ‘I say’) ‘I-think’ (5) Il-fait si chaud (pronounced as [ife]) (S7) (vs. il-a [ila] ‘he has’) ‘It-s so hot’ (6) T-as (pronounced as [ta]) (S3) (vs. tu-veux [tüvø] ‘you want’) ‘Y-got’ (7) Ils-ont (pronounced as [izõ]) (S10) (vs. ils-font [ifõ] ‘they do’) ‘They-ve’

.. Word boundaries A prefix is part of a word. Therefore, in fluent speech, it cannot be separated by a pause from the rest of the word or stem. This is the case in our corpus: (8) Il-est comme moi (S1) ‘He-s like me’ Speakers may pause after il-est to gather their thoughts for the precise comparison but they do not do so between il and est.

.. Wordhood Since a prefix forms part of a larger word, it is understandable that no other nonaffixal material could intervene between prefix and stem (see also Zwicky & Pullum 1983). Once again, this turns out to be the case in the corpus: (9) Pis j-dis (S13) but not * Je pis dis (note that [pi] is the spoken counterpart of written puis) ‘Then I-say’ (10) Il-avait un pyjama et autre (S1) but not * il évidemment avait un pyjama et autre ‘He-had on his pyjamas ‘n’ stuff ’ Thus, independent words such as puis ‘then’ and évidemment ‘obviously’ cannot intervene mid-word between the prefix and its verb stem. Furthermore, this pattern holds just as strongly in 3rd person as it does in 1st and 2nd, despite the as

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yet incomplete morphologization of the 3rd person. This test also argues for the affixal status of the object clitics as well (in agreement with Kayne 1975: 97), since they occur between the subject prefixes and the verb, in contrast with what we have seen with puis and évidemment. In addition, this test shows that the retention of the negative ne would mean that it would come between the subject and object prefixes, a disallowed sequence (see Bybee 1985). But, ne too is being lost in the spoken language, as many have argued (Harris 1978; Ashby 1981, 1999; Gadet 1989/1996; Posner 1997): it is being squeezed out as the bond between the subject (and object) prefixes and the verb stem tightens. As ne is lost, the various postverbal elements used for negation (pas ‘not’, rien ‘nothing’, jamais ‘never’) become the true negators: in the ECSF corpus, there is only 2.5% usage of ne in negative contexts (49 out of 1,982 negative finite utterances) and thus the loss of the ne is indeed an ongoing change that is near to completion. Much more work needs to be done in this area, as the Swiss corpus has indications that when ne is used, it seems to occur in utterances which show contrast, emphasis, or dramatic effect; in addition, it can mark a more formal (and perhaps hypercorrect) level of language.

.. Fixed ordering before the verb stem The fifth test relates in part to the definition of prefixes and serves to distinguish them from clitics. Prefixes are subject to fixed ordering and by definition they must come before the stem. This test characterizes precisely the behavior of the inflectional prefixes in the corpus. (11) J-m-inquièterais pas trop (S1), but not *M-j-inquièterais pas trop; note the lack of ne, which, if present, would come between the two prefixes j‘I’ and -m- ‘myself ’ (reflexive) ‘I-wouldn’t worry (myself) too much’ (12) Tu-veux encore un peu? (S2), but not *Veux-tu encore un peu? (a form which does occur in the written language) ‘D-y-want a little more?’ (13) I-sort jamais lui? (S13), but not *Sort-il jamais lui?. Note again the lack of ne, which, if present, would come between the prefix and the verb stem. ‘Doesn’t-he ever go out?’ Not only is fixed order respected, as the contrast between the attested and unattested forms indicates, but not once does the former subject clitic ever occur following the verb stem, other than in a handful of fixed expressions. Yet, clitic-verb inversion is still often given as a (or the) standard question formation in some linguistic treatments, and in the vast majority of reference and pedagogical grammars. In this corpus, however, questions were systematically formed with the inflec-

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tional prefix obligatorily preceding the verb stem, accompanied either by question intonation (the majority of cases) or by an initial est-ce que ‘is-it that’.

.. Obligatoriness The sixth test also relates to wordhood. Grammatical categories are typically obligatory, and thus a grammatical prefix for subject should occur with every instance of a finite verb. This is exactly what we see happening with all of the 1st and 2nd person clitics: (14) Moi j-aime le Caotina (S1); J-aime le Caotina is also possible, but not *Moi aime le Caotina or *Aime le Caotina ‘I-like Caotina’ (15) Lui il-attend un garçon (S5); Il-attend un garçon is also possible, but not *Lui attend un garçon or *attend un garçon ‘He-thinks it’s gonna be a boy [lit.: Him he-expects a boy]’ This is true of all 1st and 2nd person occurrence, including on-, the new prefix meaning ‘we’ (see example (2) earlier and our discussion below). In (14) and (15), either with or without the optional subject pronouns (formerly the disjunctives) moi and lui, the utterance is attested, as long as forms like j- and il- are present. However, there are no attested occurrences in our corpus of utterances with only a disjunctive pronoun. This test points up a major difference between spoken and written French. For in written French, an utterance like lui attend un garçon would be allowable, but no such cases exist in this corpus. It is true that, as said earlier, morphologization is not yet complete in the 3rd person, but it is complete when there is no noun phrase or quantifier phrase as a subject (for a discussion of the interaction of subject type and degree of clitic morphologization, see Fonseca-Greber 2000).

.. Repetition of prefixes with every successive tensed verb The seventh test also relates to the issue of obligatoriness. Here, not only would the inflectional prefix be obligatory in any given utterance, it would have to be repeated with every successive tensed verb. And this is exactly what happens in the corpus. (16) Et après elle-la-prend et elle-la-grille.. (S3) ‘N’ afterwards she-takes-it an’ she-grills-it..’ This test is another that serves to distinguish the clitics of written French from the inflectional prefixes of European conversational French, for in written French a single clitic can suffice for successive verbs, whereas in (16) we see that the inflectional prefixes are repeated systematically with each new conjugated verb.

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.. Reprisal of prefixes after false starts Finally, there is an eighth test also relating to obligatoriness and using false starts as the measure of wordhood. In (17), we see that inflectional prefixes and stems are reprised together as a single indivisible unit when speakers recover from false starts. (17) Et pis jch-j-mais jch-crois que ya une tendance. (S4) (We use the spelling jch- to render the unvoiced [s] ‘I’.) ‘An’ then I-th-I-but I-think there’s a tendency,’ (18) I-i-il-a ja iz-ont jamais compris. (S9) ‘H-h-he nev did they-never did understand.’ In (17), it should be noticed not only that j- is repeated with each new start but also that the speaker had already selected the voiceless allomorph, jch- [s], in the initial start in anticipation of jch-crois, where the initial consonant of the stem is also the voiceless [k]. In (18) the inflectional prefix is reprised from its beginning with each successive start. Here, the speaker has successfully selected 3rd person masculine but at first is hesitating between the singular pre-consonantal variant i-, the singular pre-vocalic variant il- ‘he-’ and then finally choses the plural prevocalic prefix and the plural form of the verb iz-ont ‘they-did’.

.. This concludes the tests of morphologization applied to the corpus. The results are presented in Table 2, which shows that the 1st and 2nd person subject clitics have fully morphologized into inflectional prefixes marking person and number and that morphologization is approaching completion in the 3rd person. Obligatoriness was the only test failed for 3rd person subjects. When no subject is expressed elsewhere in the utterance and some 3rd person meaning is meant, then a 3rd person prefix is necessary; when a subject is expressed, then the presence of a 3rd person prefix seems to be dictated by functional properties of the subject: this presence is spreading from contexts with subject pronouns to those with full noun phrases and finally to those with quantified noun phrases (see Fonseca-Greber 2000). This Table 2. Percentage of 1st, 2nd, and 3rd person finite verb stems preceded by a subject clitic

1Sg.: 2Sg: 1Pl.: 2Pl.: 3Sg.: 3Pl.:

Inflectional prefixes

Tokens

Percentage

jetuonvousil-, elle-, çails-, (elles-)

n.= 4121 n.= 2126 n.= 1335 n.= 216 n.= 3744 n.= 1288

100% 100% 100% 100% 91.5% 93.6%

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is no doubt also subject to prescriptive pressure from the written language, which may be acting to make the change occur more slowly than it would otherwise. It remains true, however, that in all environments, prefixation is more advanced than has generally been assumed.

. Semantic changes in the inflectional prefixes .. Nous-1 vs. OnThe first, most striking, finding in terms of semantic changes is the nearly categorical loss of nous-1, as in nous parlons ‘we speak’ and its replacement by on, as in on-parle ‘we speak’ in everyday, conversational European French – see Table 3. This change, then, sets up a series of subsequent semantic changes, to be discussed in turn, that increase the distance between spoken and written French. While it comes as no surprise to anyone who has had extensive contact with spoken French that a corpus of conversational French would reveal a high percentage of on for nous-1 (among the many discussions in the literature, see Söll 1983; Boutet 1986), what is surprising is that this change has just about come to completion. That is, the substitution of on for nous is virtually categorical. Indeed, Table 3 shows that out of the 1348 times when speakers choose to express 1st plural meaning, in 1335 of these utterances, or 99% of the total 1st plural tokens, they do so with on, not nous-1, as shown in (19). (19) On-s-est mariés deux fois ouais ici et aux Etats-U ouais (S5) ‘We-got married twice yeah here and in the United St yeah’ Only in a residual 13 utterances, or 1% of the total 1Pl. tokens, did speakers use the traditional nous-1, as shown in (20). (20) G: Nous-revenons sur Lyon. ‘We’re coming back to Lyons’ Both on in (19) and nous-1 in (20) can have no other meaning than ‘we’ in the context; for example, in (19), in the larger context of this conversation, the speaker can be referring only to herself and her husband; and in (20), the speaker can only be referring to himself and the other person in the car. Thus, in light of the figures in Table 3 and irrespective of its ongoing use in written French, nous-1 is all but gone from European conversational French. Table 3. 1st plural (‘we’) n. = 1348

Tokens

Percentage

Nous-1 On-

13 1335

1% 99%

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Indeed, nous-1 has disappeared from conversational Swiss French, since the very few tokens of nous-1 that we found were from the ECMF corpus. The bulk of these 13 tokens with nous-1 came from older, more conservative speakers (schoolteachers) and we suspect some hypercorrection here. In spite of the propensity of Swiss French to be more conservative in terms of phonology and lexicon, here we find that it is further advanced in this area of grammatico-semantic change. Negation is another example of morpho-syntactic change where Swiss French appears to be more advanced than Metropolitan French. As noted above, in Swiss French, ne use is quite low, only 2.5% (Fonseca-Greber 2000), whereas Ashby’s most recent study (1999) shows that ne use in Tours is at 18% (see also Matthews 1989, who claims that French dialects in the southern Massif Central also show particularly far advanced grammatical changes). We attribute the more conservative usage and hypercorrection in some speakers of French to the forces of standardization, the educational system, which focuses on the written language, and the prestige of the literary language in France. All of these forces exist in Switzerland but are not as powerful as in the French (and in particular, the northern French) context.

.. On-: Indefinite vs. Personal The replacement of nous-1 by on raises another question, however. As we saw in Table 1, the traditional way of expressing indefinite meaning is on. But now that on- has in essence become the sole way of expressing 1st plural meaning, as we saw in Table 3, we need to address the issue of how this change has affected its traditional role. In Table 4, based on ECEF, we see that on is now much more used to express the personal meaning (‘we’) than the indefinite meaning (‘one’). Once again, we see that a radical shift in meaning has taken place. On has undergone a reversal in its basic (core) vs. marginal meanings. Its original basic meaning (after it had grammaticalized from the Latin word homo meaning ‘man’) was indefinite, although eventually it acquired various personal meanings as stylistically marked, marginal variants. These personal meanings included ‘we’, as well as ‘I’, ‘you’, ‘he’, ‘she’ and ‘they’. Now, the situation is quite different: over threequarters of the 1749 tokens of on in the corpus are used to express the 1st plural meaning, and barely more than 5% the indefinite meaning. ‘We’ has become the Table 4. Relative frequency of Indefinite vs. Personal uses of onn. = 1749

Tokens

Percentage

On- = Indefinite On- = Vague* On- = Personal

100 314 1335

5.7% 18% 76.3%

* Vague = could be interpreted as either Indefinite (3Sg.) or Personal (1Pl.)

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new basic meaning, with the indefinite as a marginal variant. The other personal meanings are not attested in the corpus (a larger corpus would be needed to get these rare, and still stylistically marked, uses). There is, however, a third category of uses of on in Table 4: 18% of the tokens are classified as vague, because in the context of these conversations, these utterances could be interpreted either as Indefinite (3Sg.) or Personal (1Pl.). Indeed, the existence of a category such as this is no doubt one of the ways in which grammatico-semantic change takes place: they are a transition point between the older (indefinite) and newer (personal) meanings. However, it should be said that there is no evidence in the conversations themselves that these vague tokens were difficult for either the speaker or the addressees. In addition, there is reason to believe that, particularly for the younger speakers, some of the tokens might better be viewed as personal in interpretation. Still, since this hypothesis does not come from the corpus itself but from a few uses in which, both in the spoken and in the written language, what would be classified as ‘vague’ here was understood by younger speakers as instances of personal on, we have chosen to be conservative and not to force these vague tokens into one category or the other. Below are examples of the now marginal, indefinite on- (21), the vague on- (22), and the now dominant, personal on- (23). (21) Ouais-ouais..parce moi on-m-a fait légaliser le mariage (S4) ‘Yeah-yeah..’cuz for me they had me authenticate the wedding’ (22) ND: C’est ridicule on-a même pas besoin de permit ‘It’s ridiculous one-/you-/we-/they don’t need to have a [driving] permit’ (23) (repeated from (19) above) On-s-est mariés deux fois ouais ici et aux Etats-U ouais (S5) ‘We-got married twice yeah here and in the United St yeah’ In (21), the presence of -m- (1Sg.Acc.) forces the indefinite reading of on. In (22), however, it is impossible for us to determine exactly how the speaker means this usage to be interpreted by the addressee, even taking into account the larger discourse context. Finally, in (23), given the semantics of the verb se marier ‘to get married’ the speaker can only intend a personal, 1st plural reading, i.e., the speaker and her spouse.

.. Indefinite: On- vs. Tu-/VousThe reversal in the basic/marginal relation in the semantics of on- leads us to another question. As we have just seen, on- only marginally means indefinite. Yet, presumably, speakers would still have the communicative need to express indefinite meaning. So how do speakers of conversational European French now express the indefinite? In Table 5, we see that another semantic shift has occurred.

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Table 5. Indefinite (‘one’ or ‘you/they’) n. = 1350

Tokens

Percentage

On- (Indef. & Vague*) Tu- (Indef.) Vous- (Indef.)

414 918 18

30.7% 68% 1.3%

* Vague = could be interpreted as either Indefinite (3Sg.) or Personal (1Pl.)

A preliminary search through the corpus revealed that the forms used quite frequently for indefinite meaning were second person (tu-, vous-). We thus decided to investigate all instances of indefinite meaning expressed by on-, tu- or vous-. With 1350 tokens, we find that on does not account for even a third of all indefinite meanings, even if, at this point, we count as indefinite all of the vague tokens. With this somewhat generous combined tally for on-, Table 5 shows us that speakers expressed over two-thirds of their indefinite meanings, not with on-, but with the 2nd person. Furthermore, upon closer inspection, we see it is not just 2nd person as a whole that is shouldering the brunt of indefinite meaning, but specifically the 2nd singular/familiar tu-. Vous- (2nd plural/formal) is in essence a non-participant in this change, accounting for barely more than 1% of the indefinite tokens. (For different findings, see Ashby 1992.) Nor is this discrepancy to be interpreted as just an artifact of one-on-one interaction in a corpus with predominant use of the familiar form tu-. The example of indefinite tu- in (24) below is, in fact, addressed by the speaker to a group of three or four of her peers. Beyond the corpus, in their own interactions with native speakers of European French, the researchers have observed that indefinite tu- is sometimes used even in an otherwise vous- context, although vous- can also be heard in these contexts as well. The prevalence of 2nd singular discourse markers such as t-sais ‘y-know’ and tu-vois ‘y-see’, which were excluded from these figures, may also be helping to privilege the development of a generalized 2nd singular indefinite. In addition, the authors have been informed by various researchers that the replacement of an original indefinite by some sort of ‘you’ is an ongoing change in other European languages, perhaps under the influence of English; in other words, this change may be related to a wider, areal phenomenon. But there is no other language except French (that we know of) in which this change is associated with the use of the earlier indefinite to mean ‘we’. The examples in (25)–(28) show the various possible means of expressing indefinite meaning in conversational European French: indefinite on- (25), vague on(26), indefinite tu- (27), and indefinite vous- (28): (24) (repeated from (21) above) Ouais-ouais..parce moi on-m-a fait légaliser le mariage (S5) ‘Yeah-yeah..’cuz for me they-had-me authenticate the wedding’

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(25) (repeated from (22) above) ND: C’est ridicule on-a même pas besoin de permit ‘It’s ridiculous one-/you-/they-/we don’t need to have a permit’ (26) E: Quand tu–tu-viens d’un quartier nord et tu-vas dans des quartiers un peu bourges tu-ne-sens pas ta place quoi ‘When y–y-come from a northern neighborhood and y-go into yuppie neighborhoods y-feel kinda out of place’ (27) En bas vous-avez le Doubs..là vous-avez le début des arbres.. (S1) ‘Down there y-ve got the Doubs..there where y-ve got the tops of the trees..’ [said by a guide to a group of tourists] The traditional indefinite on- from (21) is repeated in (25), where, as said earlier, the indefinite reading is the only possible one, given the clarifying -m-. In (26), also repeated from above, the vague on- allows both an indefinite reading and a personal meaning in the discourse context. The new and favored form for indefinite usage is shown in (27), where the speaker uses the indefinite tu- as she describes her feelings, generalizing them to anyone else who, like her, comes from the disadvantaged northern neighborhoods of Marseille. Strikingly, however, this example cannot be interpreted as a personal tu- because her addressees, in fact, do not themselves come from those northern neighborhoods. Finally, (28) shows one of the rare utterances that makes use of the indefinite vous-, such that the speaker’s actual listeners or anyone else who comes to this look-out point would have the same view down into the river gorges of the Doubs. What makes the speaker in (27) opt for indefinite tu- despite the plurality of her audience while the speaker in (28) chooses the indefinite vous- to address his plural group? Various explanations suggest themselves. One possibility is that, although both speakers are in the under 40 age group, since E is a woman while S1 is a man and we are looking at a case of change in progress, it is possible that her speech represents a more advanced stage of change than does his, in accordance with the generally accepted notion that women are the leaders in change. Another possibility is that E’s addressees, although plural, were her peers, with whom she would easily use the personal tu-. In contrast, not only were S1’s addressees plural but they were not his peers: most of them were older, some significantly so, than he was at the time of the guided tour; thus, he used the formal vous- with them for personal address. It is possible that either plurality or formality (politeness) alone allows indefinite tu- but when the two factors are combined, they favor indefinite vous- instead. Whatever the conditioning factors actually turn out to be for indefinite tu-/vous- use, this would be a fruitful area for further research. In any case, at the present time, the balance has clearly shifted away from on- and toward tu-

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as the preferred way of expressing indefinite meaning in European conversational French, whatever the social context.

.. Tu- : Personal vs. Indefinite This situation, though, leaves us with one last question. According to Table 1, the sole traditional function of tu- was as the 2nd singular/familiar clitic; yet now we see that it has emerged as the preferred indefinite in addition to its traditional personal meaning. What effect, if any, is indefinite tu- having on the original personal meaning of tu- as 2nd singular/familiar? In Table 6, we see the relative frequency of personal versus indefinite meanings of tu-. Of the 2126 total tokens of tu- in the corpus, we can see that the spoken language is approaching a 50-50 split between personal (28) and indefinite (29) uses of tu-. (28) Maman tu-regardes pas?.. (S13) ‘Mom aren’t-y looking ?’ (29) (repeated from (27) above) E: Quand tu–tu-viens d’un quartier nord et tu-vas dans des quartiers un peu bourges tu-ne-sens pas ta place quoi ‘When y–y-come from a northern neighborhood and y-go into yuppy neighborhoods y-feel kinda out of place’ The utterance in (28) typifies the original meaning of tu-, its personal function, as the speaker directly addresses his mother. Alongside the personal meaning is the indefinite one, as in (29). Thus, based on the figures presented in Table 6, we can see that there is no longer any basic meaning of tu-; tu- is now both personal and indefinite. Since this is inherently an unstable situation, much more research should be done on tu- and its uses in contemporary spoken French (see Laberge & Sankoff 1979; Ashby 1992 for interesting hypotheses in this regard). Table 6. Relative frequency of Personal vs. Indefinite uses of tun. = 2126

Tokens

Percentage

Tu- = Personal Tu- = Indefinite

1208 918

56.8% 43.2%

. Conclusions Many changes are going on in the former subject clitics of European conversational French, and all are intertwined. The changes taking place are too numerous to be

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covered in totality in this short paper, so we have documented what we consider to be the most important. Prefixation is developing, with a concurrent reduction of suffixation, in the verbal paradigm, as well as the loss of nous-1 and the use of onto mean ‘we’. These processes are linked with further semantic changes: when nous1 disappears and on- takes on 1st plural meaning, it no longer is the preferred way to express indefinite meaning; tu- moves in to fill the gap in indefinite meaning, and in so doing now has two major meanings, split between the older personal use and newer indefinite one (see Table 7). In this conclusion, we will sum up those changes we have covered and point to those that we have not had time to address but are clearly worthy of more research. For those changes we have discussed, if we compare the forms from the corpus, in Table 7, with the traditional forms in Table 1, we can see that: 1. The 1st and 2nd person clitics have fully morphologized into inflectional prefixes 2. The 3rd person clitics are approaching full morphologization 3. Elles-1 is losing ground to ils4. On- has in essence ousted nous-1in the 1st person plural meaning 5. On- only marginally maintains its traditional indefinite meaning 6. Tu- has superseded on- as the preferred indefinite. In addition, as said in the text: 7. the negative particle ne has almost disappeared. And other changes that we have not had time to discuss in detail in this paper include the following: 8. As a result of the morphologization of the former subject clitics into inflectional prefixes, the disjunctive (stressed) pronouns of written French have beTable 7. The radical difference between the personal pronouns in written and Conversational European French* Written subject clitics Personal 1Sg. 2Sg. 3Sg. 1Pl 2Pl 3Pl. Indefinite Relative/Interrogative

Je Tu il, elle-1 nous-1 vous-1 ils, elles-1 on qui-1

Spoken subject pronouns

Spoken infl. prefixes

moi toi lui, elle-3, ça nous-3 vous-3 eux – qui-3

je- (j-, jch-) tu-(t-, d-) il- (i), elle-, ça- (ce-, c-) on- (o, on) vous- (vou, vz) ils- (i, iz), (elles-) tu-, onqui-

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come the new, but optional, subject pronouns of conversational French. This brings French back into line with the other Romance pro-drop languages in this respect (Fonseca-Greber 2000). 9. Subject inflection in prefix form is spreading to other former pronouns: ça- ‘that’ (Auger 1994; Fonseca-Greber 2000; Lawson 2001) and qui- ‘who’ (Fonseca-Greber 2000, 2001). 10. Preliminary work on the ECMF corpus shows that ils ‘they’ can also be used with indefinite meaning: more research needs to be done on this use and on the discourse-pragmatic and perhaps sociolinguistic differences between on-, tu-, and ils- for indefinite meaning. The ordinary conversational language of France and Switzerland is undergoing rapid change, and in particular it is the preverbal zone which is the locus of this change: the verb is now made up of an (almost obligatory) grammatical subject prefix, an optional object prefix, and the verbal stem. There is now only one instance of a grammatical suffix for subject person-number: when vous-1 is the subject or in the plural/formal imperative (since any vous-1 form necessitates a suffix, as in vous-parlez, where -ez represents [e]). As a result of these changes, French is going from a suffixing language to a prefixing one, just as it has also developed many periphrastic tense-aspects, especially perfects and the future with aller, in which the auxiliary is placed before the verb. Thus, French is becoming like the other Romance languages in developing null subjects along with its grammatical morphology and optional subject pronouns, but at the same time it is also diverging from its congeners by developing a prefix form of grammatical morphology for person-number-gender (along with its preverbal periphrastic tense-aspects). Thus, the changes documented here are harbingers of intense typological change in the language as well. (Our data, however, do not support the claim made by many, e.g., Matthews 1989, that French is drifting toward VSO word order). Thus, all of the changes noted here, whether formal or semantic, completed or still in progress, are combining to produce a new form of the conversational language, radically – indeed, typologically – different from the written one.

References Ashby, William (1977). Clitic Inflection in French: An Historical Perspective. Amsterdam: Rodopi. Ashby, William (1980). Prefixed Inflection in Parisian French. Italic and Romance. In H. Izzo (Ed.), Linguistic Studies in Honor of Ernst Pulgram (pp. 195–207). Amsterdam: John Benjamins.

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Ashby, William (1981). The Loss of the Negative Particle ne in French: A Syntactic Change in Progress. Language, 57, 674–687. Ashby, William (1992). The Variable Use of on Versus tu/vous for Indefinite Reference in Spoken French. Journal of French Language Studies, 2, 135–157. Ashby, William (2001). Un nouveau regard sur la chute du *ne* en francais parle tourangeau: s’agit-il d’un changement en cours?. Journal of French Language Studies, 11(1), 1–22. Auger, Julie (1994). Pronominal Clitics in Quebec Colloquial French: A Morphological Analysis. Ph. D. Dissertation, University of Pennsylvania. Blanche-Benveniste, Claire, M. Bilger, C. Rouget, & K. van den Eynde (1991). Le Français parlé, études grammaticales. Paris: CNRS. Boutet, J. (1986). La référence à la personne en français parlé: le cas de ‘on’. Language et Société, 38, 19–50. Bullock, Barbara (2001). On the Use of ils for elles: Gender Syncretism in the History of French. French Review, 74(4), 700–709. Bybee, Joan (1985). Morphology: A Study of the Relation between Meaning and Form. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Chafe, Wallace (1994). Discourse, Consciousness, and Time: The Flow and Displacement of Conscious Experience in Speaking and Writing. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Fonseca-Greber, Bonnie (2000). The Change from Pronoun to Clitic to Prefix and the Rise of Null Subjects in Spoken Swiss French. Ph. D. Dissertation. University of Arizona, Tucson. Fonseca-Greber, Bonnie (2001). The Morphologization of qui in Everyday Spoken Swiss French (ESSF). Unpublished manuscript. Fonseca-Greber, Bonnie & Linda R. Waugh (2001). On the Radical Difference between the Subject Personal Pronouns in Written and Spoken European French. To be published in C. Meyer & A. Leistyna(Eds.), Corpus Analysis: Language Structure and Language Use. Amsterdam: Rodopi. Gadet, Françoise (1989/1996). Le Français ordinaire (2nd, revised and augmented edition). Paris: Armand Colin. Harris, Martin (1978). The Evolution of French Syntax: A Comparative Approach. London: Longman. Harris, Martin (1988). French. In M. Harris & N. Vincent (Eds.), The Romance Languages. London: Routledge. Kayne, Richard (1975). French Syntax: The Transformational Cycle. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Klausenburger, Jurgen (2000). Grammaticalization: Studies in Latin and Romance Morphosyntax. Amsterdam: Benjamins. Laberge, Suzanne & Gillian Sankoff (1979). Anything you Can Do. In T. Givón (Ed.), Syntax and Semantics, Volume 12, Discourse and Syntax (pp. 419–440). New York: Academic Press. Lambrecht, Knud (1981). Topic, Antitopic, and Verb Agreement in Non-Standard French. Amsterdam: Benjamins.

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Lawson, Aaron (2001). Topic Management and Demonstratives in Spoken French and English: A Corpus-based Approach. Ph.D. Dissertation. Cornell University, Ithaca, New York. Lodge, R. Anthony (1993). French: From Dialect to Standard. London: Routledge. Matthews, S. (1989). French in Flux: Typological Shift and Sociolinguistic Variation. In T. Walsh (Ed.), Synchronic and Diachronic Approaches to Linguistic Variation and Change (pp. 188–203). Washington, DC: Georgetown Univeristy Press. Offord, Michael (1990). Varieties of contemporary French. London: Macmillan. Posner, Rebecca (1997). Linguistic Change in French. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Sankoff, Gillian (1982). Usage linguistique et grammaticalisation: les clitiques sujets en Français. La Sociolinguistique dans les pays de langue romane. Tübingen: Gunter Narr Verlag. Schwegler, Armin (1990). Analyticity and Syntheticity: A Diachronic Perspective with Special Reference to Romance Languages. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. Söll, Lucien (1983). Situer on «nous» en français moderne. In F.-J. Hausmann (Ed.), Studies in Descriptive Linguistics (pp. 7–15). Heidelberg: Julius Groos Verlag. Waugh, Linda (1982). Marked and Unmarked: A Choice between Unequals in Semiotic Structure. Semiotica, 38, 299–318. Zwicky, Arnold & Geoffrey Pullum (1983). Cliticization vs. Inflection: n’t. Language, 59, 502–513.

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A scalar propositional negative polarity item in Spanish Javier Gutiérrez-Rexach and Scott A. Schwenter The Ohio State University

.

Introduction: Propositional NPIs

In this paper, we study the semantics and pragmatics of a negative polarity item (NPI) in Spanish that has received, to the best of our knowledge, absolutely no attention to date: que digamos (lit. “that we (might) say [SUBJ]”). We argue that there is a class of NPIs which have propositional content and which present new challenges for a general theory of NPI licensing and meaning. Such a theory should incorporate attention to scales of different types, and specifically in the case of que digamos scales of expectations. In this respect, our contribution can be ascribed to a longstanding tradition in the study of NPIs based on pragmatic scales and ordered entailments, along the lines initially proposed by Horn (1972) and Fauconnier (1975). More interestingly, it also provides arguments in favor of a more fine-grained understanding of the ingredients of polarity licensing, an understanding in which structural factors combine with or are superseded by semantic and pragmatic constraints. The majority of Spanish NPIs belong to the class of n-words (Bosque 1980; Laka 1990; Vallduví 1994). Items such as nada “nothing,” nadie “nobody,” ninguno “none,” nunca “never,” etc. quantify phrases of the nominal or adverbial categories (i.e. they quantify over individuals or times/events). Others, such as ningún N “no N,” are determiners heading negative quantifier phrases. All of them are singleworld expressions which encode a negative feature and are subject to syntactic matching requirements.1 (1) a.

Juan no ha dicho nada. J. neg has said nothing. “Juan hasn’t said anything.”

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b. No le he dado un libro a nadie. neg to-him have given a book to nobody. “I haven’t given a book to anybody.” There is, nevertheless, a small class of NPIs, which has not received much attention in the literature, characterized by the property of having a full propositional form. We will call this class of NPIs “propositional NPIs.” The members of this class are mostly parenthetical expressions headed by the negative particle ni “not even” and containing a verb in the infinitive (ni lo pienses, ni soñarlo, ni hablar de ello, etc.). They uniformly result in ungrammaticality in the absence of negation: (2) a.

Ni pensarlo, Forbes *(no) llegará a presidente. Not-even think:it F. neg will.arrive to president. “Don’t even think about it, Forbes won’t become President.” b. Ni lo sueñes, *(no) te voy a prestar mi nuevo Not-even it dream neg to-you go to lend my new Lexus. Lexus. “Don’t even dream about it, I’m not going to lend you my new Lexus.”

Because of their sensitivity to negation, these expressions should not be confused with the non-parenthetical forms ni + V. These latter expressions are not NPIs and structurally they occupy positions in the higher periphery of the clause. In addition, they also have full embedding capacities: (3) Ni soñar con (no) venir hoy. Not-even dream with (neg) come today. “Don’t even dream of (not) coming today.” The primary semantic contribution of propositional NPIs such as these to the content of the sentence in which they occur is to strengthen the associated denial. Compare the reply to (4A) in (4B1) with that in (4B2). (4B1) simply states that A’s previous assertion is false: it carries out a straight denial. The denial in (4B2) is stronger. It carries additional entailments and/or implicatures related to the speaker’s evaluation of A’s assertion. (4) A: Creo que Forbes llegará muy lejos en su carrera política. Think that F. will.arrive very far in his career political. “I think that Forbes will go very far in his political career.” B1: No, Forbes no llegará a presidente. neg F. neg will-arrive to president. “No, Forbes won’t become President.”

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B2: (Ni pensarlo), Forbes no llegará a presidente. Not-even think:it F. neg will.arrive to president. “Don’t even think about it, Forbes won’t become President.” Finally, the members of this class of NPIs have only partial productivity. Not all sequences of ni followed by a verb (of the speech act or propositional attitude class) are permissible, as shown in (5) below. Propositional NPIs are also polyfunctional. They can function both as NPIs and as free-standing negative expressions indicating refutation of a contextually-salient proposition. In the previously considered examples, the propositional negative element is a true NPI. Nevertheless, in (6) it is not, since it does not appear in the scope of a negation. (5) *Ni concebirlo/expresarlo/decirlo/entenderlo, etc. “Not-even conceive:it/express:it/say:it/understand:it, etc.” (6) A: ¿Me podrías dejar tu nuevo Lexus para correr the Me could let your new L. to run el P.-D.? París-Dakar? “Could you lend me your new Lexus to run the Paris-Dakar race?” B: ¡Ni lo sueñes! Not-even it dream! “Don’t even dream of it!”

. Que digamos as an NPI We claim that there is another propositional NPI in Spanish, que digamos, which exhibits clearly differential behavior with respect to the other propositional NPIs mentioned in Section 1 above. First, the proposition is fully lexicalized as an NPI: there is no productivity in the sense that verbs other than decir can appear in the construction. Compare the fossilized nature of this NPI to productive constructions which can take subjunctive forms like relative clauses, where there is no restriction on the lexical verb: (todo lo) que digas/quieras/comas/supongas “(everything) that you say/want/eat/suppose.” In addition, the verb decir must appear in the first person plural present subjunctive form, as the contrast between (7a) and (7b) below shows. And, as (7c) illustrates, the construction is totally fused, insofar as nothing, not even the pronoun nosotros “we”, can intervene between the complementizer and the verb.2 Second, que digamos cannot occur as a free-standing negative element (8a) or as a preposed parenthetical (8b):3

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(7) a.

Tu Lexus no es muy barato que digamos. Your L. neg is very cheap that we.say. “Your Lexus isn’t very cheap que digamos.” b. Tu Lexus no es muy barato que *digas/*digáis/*digan/*dijéramos. c. Tu Lexus no es muy barato que (*nosotros) digamos.

(8) a. *¡Que digamos! b. *Que digamos, tu Lexus no es muy barato. From a semantic point of view, que digamos can be classified as a strong NPI (Zwarts 1995; Giannakidou 1998). It is licensed by negation (9a), n-words (9b), and by negative particles, such as tampoco (9c) (see also Section 6 below for more on tampoco). It is not licensed by merely decreasing operators such as the generalized quantifiers pocos, or menos de n, as the contrast between (10a) and (10b) illustrates. (9) a.

No es muy listo que digamos. neg is very smart that we.say. “He’s not very smart que digamos.” b. Nadie ha comido mucho que digamo. Nobody has eaten much that we.say. “Nobody has eaten much que digamos.” c. Tampoco ha comido tanto que digamos. neither has eaten so-much that we.say. “He hasn’t eaten so much que digamos.”

(10) a. *Pocos han comido tanto que digamos. Few have eaten so-much that we.say. “Few have eaten so much que digamos.” b. *Menos de tres estudiantes son muy listos que digamos. Less of three students are very smart that we.say. “Fewer than three students are very smart que digamos.” Pragmatically speaking, whereas we argued above that ni pensarlo in (4) strengthens the assertive content of the main proposition, que digamos may trigger a conversational implicature of contraposition which amounts to the denial of the proposition expressed by the sentence. (For more discussion, see Section 4 below.) For instance, (11a) may implicate something along the lines of (11b). (11) a.

Mari Pili no es muy alta que digamos. “M.P. is not very tall que digamos.” b. She is actually short.

This common implicature of contraposition notwithstanding, we claim that the essential semantic property of this NPI is its scalar nature. However, unlike other

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well-known NPIs (e.g. en absoluto “at all”), it does not indicate an “extreme” point (i.e. an endpoint) on a contextually-salient scale. For example, in (12a, b), (12) a.

Mari Pili no es en absoluto alta. M.P. neg is in absolute tall. “Mari Pili isn’t tall at all.” b. No conoces a los clásicos en absoluto. neg know to the classics in absolute. “You don’t know the classics at all.”

the function of en absoluto is to deny that in (12a) Mari Pili (or the value corresponding to her) should be located on a scale ordering degrees of “tallness” at all, and in (12b) to deny to the fullest extent possible that the addressee has any knowledge of the classics, i.e., to mark his (lack of) knowledge at an extreme point on a pragmatic scale ordering individuals with respect to the degree of knowledge of the classics that they possess. In contrast, que digamos attenuates the scalar value of the proposition it marks. In the terminology of Israel (1998), it belongs to the class of understating NPIs, not to the more well-known (and more well-studied) class of emphatic NPIs, to which an expression like en absoluto belongs. Consequently, que digamos tends to combine with predicates modified by non-endpointmarking scalar degree expressions (muy “very,” tanto “so much,” tan “so,” poco “little,” mucho “much,” etc.), as in (13). Correspondingly, it cannot combine with absolute predicates or one-time predicates, as shown in (14a, b), respectively, or with endpoint-marking scalar degree expressions like nada “nothing,” as in (14c). (13) a.

Juan no ha comido mucho que digamos. “Juan hasn’t eaten much que digamos.” b. Mari Pili no ha tomado tanto el sol que digamos. M.P. neg has taken so-much the sun that we.say. “Mari Pili hasn’t sun-bathed so much que digamos.” c. Ganar la carrera no es poco que digamos. win the race neg is little that we.say. “To win the race is no small feat que digamos.”

(14) a. *No han llegado que digamos. neg have arrived that we.say. “They haven’t arrived que digamos.” b. *Los autores no murieron que digamos. the authors neg died that we.say. “The authors didn’t die que digamos.” c. *Juan no ha comido nada que digamos. J. neg has eaten nothing that we.say. “Juan hasn’t eaten anything que digamos.”

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An examination of all 93 examples of the NPI que digamos found in the Corpus de Referencia del Español Actual (CREA)4 revealed that 82 (88%) of these co-occurred with an accompanying scalar degree expression like the ones listed above. In those cases where it did not co-occur with a degree expression, que digamos was either used to attenuate a contextually salient scalar value (15a), or to attenuate, as an “afterthought,” a seemingly non-scalar negative (15b). (15) a.

El DRAE no es un modelo de sensibilidad sociológica que digamos, aunque su última edición haya recorrido un gran tranco en esa dirección. “The DRAE (Diccionario de la Real Academia Española) is not a model of sociological sensibility que digamos, even though its latest edition has gone a long way in that direction.” [CREA, Lingüística y Lenguaje, España, 1994] b. Pues este modelito de réquiem de Chanel no es bonito, que digamos, ni siquiera original. “Well this little requiem model from Chanel isn’t pretty, que digamos, or even original.” [CREA, testimonios varios, Argentina, 1977]

In (15a) there is a denial of the high-scalar value represented by modelo de sensibilidad sociológica, leading to the interpretation that the DRAE is to be found at a lower point on a scale of “sensibilidad sociológica.” However, the aunque clause which follows explicitly indicates that the last edition of the DRAE is getting closer to “model” status, i.e., it occupies a non-endpoint position on the scale in question. In (15b), similarly, the addition of que digamos to the proposition expressed by the preceding clause serves to attenuate its interpretation. Whereas the nonattenuated negated predicate no es bonito might potentially lead to a contrary implicature about the model in question, such an interpretation is ruled out by the appended que digamos, which places the negative proposition in a non-endpoint position on a scale which orders degrees of beauty, or lack thereof.

. Scales and propositions Once we have determined the status of que digamos as a scalar element, an important issue arises, namely what kind(s) of scale is involved. Semantically, scales are denotational orderings. The denotation of an expression is associated with an ordering (partial, strict, etc.) of other elements of the same type (with the same denotation). These orderings can be exploited with a variety of purposes such as the creation of informational patterns or the generation of implicatures. Que digamos,

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in addition to its attenuating value described above, is a scalar NPI which situates the event or situation described by the predicate on a scale of expectations. Let Expect (a, p) be the degree of expectation of the individual a with respect to the proposition p. The following expectation order is derived: Expect (a, p) < Expect (a, p ). What this means is that the proposition p is less expected by a than p . For example, when uttering (16), the speaker places the actual event of Mari Pili shopping on a scale of alternative shopping scenarios in which Mari Pili might have bought a bigger or smaller quantity. This quantity is ordered according to speakerhearer expectations, as depicted in (17). With respect to this scale in particular, the following holds: Expect (a, pn-k ) < Expect (a, pn ). The presence of que digamos serves as an indicator that the position of the actually occurring predicate on the scale is lower than it should have been or lower than it might have been expected to be by the participants in the conversation, so (16) would be equivalent to (18). (16) Mari Pili no ha comprado muchos vestidos que digamos. M.P. neg has bought many dresses that we.say. “Mari Pili hasn’t bought many dresses que digamos.” (17) pn = “Mari Pili has bought n dresses.” pn-1 = “Mari Pili has bought n-1 dresses.” pn-k = “Mari Pili has bought n-k dresses.” (18) Mari Pili bought a quantity of dresses which was less than what was expected. The role of que digamos in invoking expectations can be seen more clearly in minimal pair-type examples like the following, where only response B2 can be understood as making explicit reference to a “norm” relating to the amount of snowfall or to some contextually-salient scalar expectation shared by the interlocutors about the snow: (19) A: ¿Nieva en tu pueblo? “Does it snow in your town?” B1: Pues no mucho. “Well not much.” B2: Pues no mucho que digamos. “Well not much que digamos.” Non-modified predicates, i.e., those in which there is no overt scalar expression, can also be interpreted in scalar fashion as the result of the appearance of que digamos. For example, (20) below is only felicitous as a statement that the quantity of food eaten by Juan was less than expected. The strategy is not completely general however, and is restricted by the semantic nature of the predicate itself. Achieve-

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ment predicates are not gradable according to a degree of expectation, as shown in (21a), but state predicates are (21b). (20) Casi no ha comido que digamos. Almost neg has eaten that we.say. “He almost hasn’t eaten que digamos.” (21) a.

?Este

zombi no murió que digamos. This zombie neg died that we.say. “This zombie didn’t die que digamos.” b. Este zombi no está muerto que digamos. This zombie neg is dead that we.say. “This zombie isn’t dead que digamos.”

. Associated implicatures As noted above, despite its attenuating semantic content, que digamos may pragmatically trigger other conversational implicatures. Thus, whereas ni pensarlo in (22a) strengthens the content (i.e., the denial) of the main proposition, que digamos may trigger an implicature of contraposition which amounts to the denial of the proposition expressed by the sentence. For instance, (22b) may implicate (indicated by ⇒) something along the lines of (23). (22) a.

Ni pensarlo, no te dare mi Lexus. Not.even. think.it neg to-you will.give my Lexus. “Don’t even think about it; I will not give you my Lexus.” b. Maria Pili no es muy alta que digamos. M.P. neg is very tall that we.say. “Maria Pili isn’t very tall que digamos.” ⇒

(23) She is actually short. The particular nature of this NPI, i.e., the fact that it is not associated with an emphatic or “endpoint” interpretation but rather with an attenuating one, explains the contrary implicature often associated with (22b). Indeed attenuating expressions may be, and often are, used in understating fashion in order to conversationally implicate full denial (Bolinger 1972; Horn 1989). The reasons for doing this are usually associated with politeness: by negating a high scalar value, one leaves open to inference the exact (lower) scalar value of the predication. An inference which is drawn frequently is that the predication holds at an endpoint, i.e. emphatically low, scalar value.

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(24) a.

Mari Pili no se pinta mucho que digamos. M.P. neg refl paint much that we.say. “Mari Pili doesn’t put on much make-up que digamos.” ⇒ b. Mari Pili no se pinta (nada). “Mari Pili doesn’t put on any make-up.”

Nonetheless, it is clear that this implicated interpretation is conversational, not conventional, in nature. The relevant piece of evidence for this classification is that it can be cancelled in an appropriate discourse context (Grice 1975). The cancelable, conversational nature of this implicature is illustrated by the use of que digamos in attenuated contexts like (25a), where no contradiction arises between the two clauses opposed by adversative pero, and no implicature corresponding to (25b) is licensed. (25) a.

Juan no es muy listo que digamos pero es lo J. neg is very smart que digamos but is it suficientemente listo como para aprobar el examen. sufficiently smart as to pass pass the exam. “Juan isn’t very smart que digamos but he’s smart enough to pass the exam.” ⇒ / b. Juan es tonto. “Juan is dumb.”

Following the conference presentation of this paper, it was pointed out by an audience member that an utterance containing que digamos often, and perhaps in the majority of cases, gives rise to what might be called an “ironic” interpretation. For example, from the assertion that Mari Pili doesn’t wear much make-up “que digamos,” one can extract the purportedly “ironic” interpretation that she doesn’t wear any at all. However, as we have shown here, such an interpretation does not always arise, since there is often contextual material to defeat it. Furthermore, there is no need to employ a more complex pragmatic concept like “irony” – which may not even be the appropriate one to describe these cases – in order to account for such examples. All that is needed is the analysis of que digamos as an attenuating NPI which, like other understating expressions, may often be used to conversationally implicate an emphatic interpretation.

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. Non-declaratives It is well-known that NPIs are licensed in certain non-declarative, non-negative environments such as (i) the protasis of conditionals and (ii) questions. For example, the NPIs anybody and nada are licensed in the protasis/antecedent of the conditionals in (26), and in a similar fashion nunca and nada may occur in the questions in (27). (26) a. If anybody moves, there will be trouble. b. Si haces nada que ocasione problemas, te expulsarán. If do nothing that causes problems you they.will.expel. “If you do anything that causes problems they’ll expel you.” (27) a. ¿Quién ha estado nunca en Las Bahamas? who has been never in The Bahamas? “Who has ever been in The Bahamas?” b. ¿Quién ha dicho nada? Who has said nothing? “Who has said anything?” Sentences (27a, b) have only a rhetorical interpretation, where it is pragmatically presupposed that nobody has ever been in the Bahamas or that nobody has said anything, respectively. This type of rhetorical reading of questions associated with NPIs has been related by Gutiérrez-Rexach (1997, 1998) to the scalar properties of NPIs. Concretely, this interpretation is related to the “bottom of the scale” properties of these elements which, in combination with the extensional semantics of questions, derive this particular reading. What is of interest for our present purposes is that que digamos only participates in conditional and interrogative constructions when these are interpreted rhetorically. In the conditional construction (28a) there is a rhetorical question embedded in the consequent. The standard material conditional in (28b) is incompatible with the NPI. Thus, que digamos behaves like other NPIs in triggering rhetorical readings. Additionally, the content of the si-clause in (28a), i.e. the proposition “Juan no es muy listo que digamos,” must be interpreted – NPI included – as being ascribed to someone who cannot be identified as the speaker (such as the addressee or another interlocutor), while the rhetorical question in the main clause must be understood as being the viewpoint of the speaker. (28) a.

Si If a to

Juan no es muy listo que digamos, entonces ¿cómo va J. neg is very smart that we.say then how go aprobar el examen? pass the exam?

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“If Juan isn’t very smart que digamos, then how is he going to pass the exam?” b. *Si Juan no es muy listo que digamos entonces no va a aprobar el examen. “If Juan isn’t very smart que digamos, then he’s not going to pass the exam.”

. Tampoco and attenuation Finally, our analysis of que digamos accounts for other distributional properties of this NPI. For example, as argued by Schwenter (2000), the n-word tampoco is polysemous between two distinct meanings in Spanish. The first, canonical, meaning (translatable as “(n)either”) amounts to a negated coordination and requires that a pragmatically parallel negative proposition be accessible in the discourse context, as in (29). The second, non-canonical, meaning functions as an attenuating scalar particle and does not require a prior negative in the discourse context to be used felicitously, as the examples in (30) show. (29) [El empleado no ha venido . . . ] El jefe tampoco ha venido. “[The employee hasn’t come . . . ] The boss hasn’t come either.” (30) a.

A: ¡Juan ha comido un montón! “Juan has eaten a ton!” B: Tampoco ha comido tanto. “He hasn’t eaten that much.” b. A: Muchas gracias por ser tan puntual. “Thanks for being so punctual.” (said ironically) B: Tampoco he llegado tan tarde. “I haven’t arrived so late.”

Given our analysis of this NPI as a marker of scalar attenuation, the prediction is that que digamos will always be compatible with the second, attenuating, meaning of tampoco, since it is only this one that is inherently sensitive to contextually determined pragmatic scalarity. On the other hand, que digamos will be compatible with the canonical meaning of tampoco only when the former’s licensing requirements are met by some other element(s) in the sentence. Thus, the sentences in (31a, b), which contain the attenuating scalar particle use of tampoco, are fully felicitous as alternative responses in the two discourses in (30). However, the discourse in (32), where the canonical use of tampoco is at issue, is not felicitous.

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(31) a. Tampoco ha comido tanto que digamos. b. Tampoco he llegado tan tarde que digamos. (32) [El empleado no ha venido . . . ] #El jefe tampoco ha venido que digamos. On the other hand, when the “canonical” use of tampoco is found in a context in which the attenuating scalar properties of que digamos are satisfied, then the latter is also acceptable, as shown in (33): (33) [El empleado no ha comido mucho . . . ] El jefe tampoco ha comido mucho que digamos. “[The employee hasn’t eaten much . . . ] The boss hasn’t eaten much either que digamos.”

. Conclusion We have argued that que digamos is a propositional NPI with scalar properties, but, unlike other propositional NPIs in Spanish (as well as in other languages), it conveys as part of its conventional semantic content attenuating meaning instead of emphatic meaning. Based on its possible licensors, it can be classified as a strong NPI. Its main pragmatic function in discourse is to contravene scalar expectations, whether explicit or implicit. It invokes a pragmatic scale of expectations and indicates that the proposition it marks is less expected, or more unexpected, than some alternative proposition(s) located on the same scale.

Notes . Following the ideas of Bosque (1994) and Longobardi (1991), NPIs raise at LF to the specifier of the Negative Phrase headed by the negative particle. This can be viewed as a feature matching criterion, the Neg criterion of Haegeman and Zanuttini (1991). . Note, as well, that the pronoun cannot appear postposed (*que digamos nosotros), and thus cannot appear at all with the NPI. While there are some fixed expressions in Spanish with “frozen” postposed pronouns (e.g. epistemic/evidential adverbial digo yo lit. ‘say I’), these latter forms are not NPIs. . We have chosen not to translate que digamos into English, since there is no clear equivalent in all cases. However, in at least a small set of contexts, there is parallelism with an English propositional NPI, to speak of, as in She didn’t learn much to speak of. (Compare *She learned much to speak of.) The fact that both these NPIs are built around a verb of communication appears to be significant, especially since both appear to invoke scales of

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expectations in discourse. However, we must leave a more detailed comparative analysis of the expressions to further research. . The CREA is accessible online at http://www.rae.es

References Bolinger, Dwight L. (1972). Degree Words. The Hague: Mouton. Bosque, Ignacio (1980). Sobre la negación. Madrid: Cátedra. Bosque, Ignacio (1994). La negación y el principio de las categorías vacías. In Violeta Demonte (Ed.), Gramática del Espa¯nol (pp. 167–200). Mexico: Pubs. NRFH. Fauconnier, Gilles (1975). Pragmatic scales and logical structure. Linguistic Inquiry, 6, 353– 375. Giannakidou, Anastasia (1998). Polarity Sensitivity as (Non) Veridical Dependency. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Grice, H. P. (1975). The logic of conversation. In Peter Cole & Jerry Morgan (Eds.), Syntax and semantics 3: Speech acts (pp. 41–58). New York: Academic Press. Gutiérrez-Rexach, Javier (1997). The semantic basis of NPI licensing in questions. MIT Working Papers in Linguistics, 31, 359–376. Gutiérrez-Rexach, Javier (1998). Rhetorical questions, relevance and scales. International Journal Revista Alicantina de Estudios Ingleses (R.A.E.I.), 11, 139–156. Haegeman, Liliane & Raffaella Zanuttini (1991). Negative Heads and the Neg-criterion. The Linguistic Review, 8, 233–251. Horn, Laurence R. (1972). On the Semantic Properties of Logical Operators in English. Ph.D. dissertation, UCLA. Horn, Laurence R. (1989). A Natural History of Negation. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Israel, Michael (1998). The Rhetoric of Grammar: Scalar Reasoning and Polarity Sensitivity. Ph.D. dissertation, UC San Diego. Laka, Itziar (1990). Negation in Syntax. Ph.D. dissertation, MIT. Longobardi, Giuseppe (1991). In defense of the correspondence hypothesis; island effects and parasitic gaps constructions in logical form. In James Huang & Robert May (Eds.), Logical Structure and Linguistic Structure (pp. 149–196). Dordrecht: Kluwer. Schwenter, Scott A. (2000). Two kinds of tampoco. Paper presented at the Fourth Hispanic Linguistics Symposium, Bloomington, Indiana. Vallduví, Enric (1994). Polarity items, n-words and minimizers in Catalan and Spanish. Probus, 6, 263–294. Zwarts, Frans (1995). Non veridical contexts. Linguistic Analysis, 25, 286–312.

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A pragmatic analysis of Imperfect Conditionals* Michela Ippolito Massachusetts Institute of Technology

.

Introduction

The standard view of past counterfactuals holds that the falsity of the antecedent is not asserted but only implicated. This is based on the observation that its falsity can be canceled. Anderson (1951) was the first to make this claim, on the basis of examples such as (1), where the falsity of the antecedent cannot be admitted without defeating the purpose of the argument, i.e. to prove that Jones took arsenic. (1) If Jones had taken arsenic, he would have shown just exactly those symptoms, which he does in fact show. [So, it’s likely that he took arsenic]. Given that cancelability is a property of implicatures but not of assertions, it follows that the falsity of the antecedent of a counterfactual has to be an implicature.1 Now consider the following scenario. Zack got married yesterday. Unfortunately, immediately after the ceremony a violent thunderstorm broke out and they had to call off the outdoor reception. I have just heard the forecast on TV: the rain will finally cease tonight. In these circumstances, I can felicitously utter (2) but not (3). Let us call conditionals such as (2) mismatched past subjunctive counterfactuals (MPSC) and conditionals such as (3) non-past subjunctive conditionals (NPSC). (2) If Zack had gotten married tomorrow, they would have had the outdoor reception. (3) If Zack got married tomorrow, they could have the outdoor reception. In the scenario given above, the pair (2)–(3) above is puzzling for two reasons. The first one is that counterfactuals similar to (2) talk about the future despite being morphologically past. The second reason is that the non-past subjunctive conditional in (3) cannot be used to talk about this future hypothetical event.

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Now consider a modification of the above scenario. Zack had planned to get married yesterday but, having heard about the furious storm that was approaching, decided to postpone the ceremony to a better day. Having just heard the forecast on TV, I can utter (3) but not (2). The situation is reversed. The conclusion is that for a MPSC to be felicitous, the event described in the antecedent must be impossible. Examples of the kind in (2) were already discussed in Dudman (1984), and Ogihara (2000), among others.2 Elsewhere (Ippolito 2001a, 2002), I argued against previous proposals and gave my analysis of mismatched past counterfactual. What is important for our purposes is the realization that MPSCs are “more counterfactual” than standard past counterfactuals. In other words, when a past subjunctive counterfactual talks about a future hypothetical eventuality, this hypothetical eventuality is felt as impossible; but – as shown by Anderson’s example in (1) – this is not true for standard past subjunctive counterfactuals. And indeed, the falsity of the antecedent of an MPSC does not seem as easily cancelable as in (1). (4) #If Zack had gone to NY by train tomorrow, Jack would have found in his pocket the ticket that he in fact found. So, Zack must be going to NY tomorrow. As I mentioned above, I have presented the analysis of mismatched past counterfactuals elsewhere and I will not go into it again here (the interested reader is referred to Ippolito 2001a, 2002). Presenting the facts about MPSCs was necessary in order to familiarize the non-native speaker of Italian with the properties of Imperfect Conditionals. In the next section, we will see that the same kind of counterfactuality we observed with MPSCs in English characterizes Imperfect Conditionals.

. Tense flexibility and counterfactuality Imperfect Conditionals (ICs) are indicative conditionals. The Imperfect indicative occurs in both the antecedent and the consequent, as shown in (5).3 (5) Se arrivavi prima, vedevi il film dall’inizio. If (you) arriveimp earlier, (you) seeimp the movie from the beginning ≈ If you had arrived earlier, you would have seen the movie from the beginning. ICs have two properties. First, they show what I called the temporal flexibility, that is to say the ability of being modified by either a past, present or future adverb. (6) Se arrivavi ieri sera, incontravi mia sorella. If you arriveimp yesterday night, you meetimp my sister ≈ If you had arrived yesterday night, you would have met my sister.

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(7) Se partivi domani, incontravi mia sorella. If you leaveimp tomorrow, you meetimp my sister ‘If you had left tomorrow, you would have met my sister.’ Neither standard subjunctive conditionals nor indicative conditionals can talk about the hypothetical past or future without changes in the tense morphology of the conditional. In general, talking about the past requires an additional layer of past. For example, the subjunctive conditional in (8a) can be modified by tomorrow but not by yesterday. For yesterday to be able to occur, an extra layer of past has to be added (the perfect).4 (8) a. If Jack went to Dallas tomorrow/*yesterday, he would meet Zack. b. If Jack had gone to Dallas yesterday, she would have met Zack. The same is true for indicative conditionals. (9) a. If Zack goes to Dallas tomorrow/*yesterday, he will meet Jack. b. If Zack went to Dallas yesterday/*tomorrow, he (must have) met Jack. It is thus a surprising property of ICs that future and past adverbs can occur with the Imperfect. This is even more puzzling because, when used non-modally, the Imperfect is clearly a past tense. In order to see this, consider the following sentences. (10) Quando sono arrivata a casa, Jack dormiva. When I arrived at home, Jack sleepimp ‘When I arrive home, Jack was sleeping.’ (11) #Quando arriverò a casa, Jack dormiva. When I will arrive at home, Jack sleepimp In its non-modal uses, the Imperfect is a past progressive tense. As such, it can only describe events ongoing at some past time. We can then correctly talk of a temporal mismatch between the tense and the temporal adverb in ICs of a type similar to (7). This takes us to the second property of ICs. The English translations in (5) and (6) are standard past counterfactuals. As mentioned above, past counterfactuals only implicate the falsity of the antecedent and such an implicature can be easily canceled (see (1) above). In our brief introduction, though, we said that ICs are “more counterfactual” in that the speaker cannot assume that the antecedent is or may be true. Counterfactuality is thus the second property of ICs. This explains why (12) is deviant: the speaker’s objective is to build an argument that shows that Roberto took arsenic, but this conflicts with the counterfactual meaning of the Imperfect Conditional. Notice the contrast with the standard past counterfactual in (1).

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(12) #Se a Roberto davano dell’arsenico, gli venivano proprio questi sintomi. Quindi, gli hanno dato dell’arsenico. If they giveimp Roberto arsenic, to-him comeimp just these symptoms. Hence, they gave him arsenic. When the hypothetical eventuality is future, as in (7), it is still understood as being impossible, as is the mismatched past counterfactual that translates it in (13). The same test can be used here. (13) #Hanno regalato il biglietto a Roberto, per cui è possibile che venga al concerto domani. Se veniva, si divertiva da morire. They gave the ticket to Roberto, so it’s possible that he’ll come to the concert tomorrow. If he comeimp , he enjoyimp a lot. #‘I gave Roberto the ticket, so it’s possible that he’ll come to the concert tomorrow. If he had come, he would have had a lot of fun.’ The question that this paper aims to answer is the following: Where does the strong counterfactuality of ICs come from? In order to answer this question, we need to look at other modal uses of the Imperfect.

. Modal uses of the Imperfect Consider the so-called epistemic-doxastic, planning and politeness use of the Imperfect in the examples (14) through (16).5, 6 (14) Epistemic-Doxastic use: Che cosa c’era domani al cinema? What wasimp there tomorrow at the movie theater? (15) Planning use: A: Non puoi farlo domani? B: Domani andavo in biblioteca. A: Can’t you do it tomorrow? B: Tomorrow I goimp to the library (16) Politeness use: Volevo del pane, grazie. I wantedimp some bread, thank you. ‘I would like some bread.’ The three examples we are considering show the first of the properties discussed above, i.e., temporal mismatching. What about the second property isolated above, i.e., counterfactuality?

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Let us analyze the planning use in (15). Informally, by uttering (15), the speaker does not assert that he will go to the library tomorrow but that he had the intention to go to the library tomorrow, and that he is now considering withdrawing his plans due to his interlocutor’s request that he run some errands tomorrow. In other words, an utterance of (15) conveys the meaning that at the time of the utterance the speaker no longer endorses the proposition expressed by his utterance. Thus, there are two components that need to be isolated: the modal component – the “planning” modality in (15) – and the past component – the fact that the relevant plans are those that the speaker had before his interlocutor made a request conflicting with such plans. In what follows I shall present my proposal.

. The interaction of tense and modality The imperfective component of the Imperfect is not interpreted aspectually. Indeed, the restrictions that generally hold of the aspectual Imperfect do not hold of the modal Imperfect. As an example, consider the contrast between (17) and (18). The Imperfect is deviant on achievement predicates (partire ‘to leave’ in (17)), which are not constituted of a process but only of a telos (contrary to accomplishments, which have both a process component and a telos and as such are fine with the Imperfect). Strangely, though, the Imperfect can occur on achievements when it is interpreted modally. (17) Quando il telefono ha squillato, Jack era in viaggio/leggeva un libro/#partiva. When the phone rang, Jack beimp in trip/readimp a book/leaveimp ‘When the phone rang, Jack was traveling/was reading a book/was leaving.’ (18) Non puoi farlo domani? ‘Can’t you do it tomorrow?’ a. Veramente, domani partivo per la montagna . . . Actually, tomorrow I leaveimp for the mountain . . . ‘Actually, tomorrow I was leaving for the mountain . . . ’ The pair in (19) will strengthen this point. Suppose your boss asks you to stay at work after the regular time tonight to meet some very important deadline, and you cannot say ‘no’. But suppose you had better plans for tonight, for example going to the movies. You would probably be upset and could politely inform him about your plans by uttering (19a). (19) Questo lavoro deve essere consegnato domani mattina. Puoi fare uno straordinario stasera? This job must be delivered tomorrow morning. Can you work overtime tonight?

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a.

Veramente, stasera andavo al cinema . . . Actually, tonight I goimp to the movies . . . ‘Actually, tonight I was going to the movies . . . ’

The point of this example is that the event of going to the movies is not understood as ongoing. Since the sentence is not being interpreted imperfectively, I suggest that the imperfective component of the Imperfect is there only to signal a modal interpretation.7 The most interesting part of my proposal concerns the interpretation of the past component of the imperfect. Clearly, since the adverb tomorrow occurs in the sentences we are considering, it cannot be the case that the past locates the event described by the VP. If it did, then the sentence would be as anomalous as (20): the event of escaping from prison is said to precede and follow the utterance time, clearly an impossible state of affairs. (20)

#Zack and Jack escaped from prison tomorrow.

Because neither (15), (18), nor (19) are contradictory, the past must receive a different interpretation. Briefly, I suggest that the past applies to a covert modal. In the following section I explain this idea.

. Accessibility relations and their time-argument I shall assume possible worlds semantics, in a version in which world variables are syntactically represented.8 A sentence with an overt modal epistemically understood is generally represented as having the structure in (22). (21) Zack must be happy. (22)

t ã <st,t> must <<s,t>,<st,t>>

ä <st> â <s,t>

R <s,<s,t>>>

w1

The accessibility relation deployed in (22) is given in (23), and the truth-conditions will be as in (24). (23) R = λw.λw’. w’ is compatible with what the speaker knows in w.

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(24) [[Zack must be happy]]w = 1 iff for all the worlds w’ compatible with what the speaker knows in w, Zack is happy in w’. But because modals can be tensed (even if in some language – e.g., English – modals may not like to be morphologically marked for tense), the structure in (22) and the entry in (23) are insufficient. The accessibility relation will have to include a time-argument, as shown in (25). (25) R = λw. λt. λw’. w’ is compatible with what the speaker knows in w at t. I shall also assume a variant of the referential analysis of tense (Partee 1973; Enç 1987; Kratzer 1998), according to which tenses are interpreted presuppositionally (Heim 1994). Modal uses of the Imperfect clearly involve a covert modal operator.9 My proposal is that the past component of the Imperfect constraints the time-argument of the accessibility relation: the time-argument will pick a contextually salient past time, if any. Consequently, the set of possible worlds over which to quantify will be the set of worlds accessible from the actual world at some (contextually salient) past time. Thus, a sentence such as (15B) will have the following truth-conditions. wc and tc are the actual world and the utterance time, respectively. (26) [[I go to the library tomorrow]]c = 1 iff for all the worlds w’ compatible with what the speaker’s plans in wc at t1 < tc , I go to the library tomorrow in w.’ The truth-conditions in (26) say that the tenseless proposition ‘I go to the library tomorrow’ is true in all those worlds compatible with the plans that the speaker had at some past time. What is this past time? Plausibly, it is the time at which something happened that made the speaker change his plans (or made him uncertain about their realization). In our example, this is the time at which A asked B to do something incompatible with B’s plans for tomorrow. This gives us half of the story. Where is the intuition derived that the speaker no longer endorses the proposition in question? I propose that it is a scalar implicature (Grice 1975). Plans are conditional on knowledge in the sense that what was a plan yesterday may no longer be a plan now because we may now know that what we planned is no longer possible. So, why did the speaker say what his plans were and not what his plans are? The speaker should have talked about what he plans now, because that would have informed his interlocutor about what the speaker knows (or assumes to know) to be still possible. Given that the speaker is assumed to obey the Gricean maxims of conversation, it must be the case that the speaker no longer has those plans at the utterance time. This is exactly the conclusion we wanted. It is now time to see how this proposal accounts for the properties of ICs, i.e., the impossibility of the antecedent and the temporal flexibility.

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. Imperfect Conditionals Let consider again one of the examples I gave at the beginning of this paper. (27) Se partivi domani, incontravi mia sorella. If you leaveimp tomorrow, you meetimp my sister. ‘If you had left tomorrow, you would have met my sister.’ I shall assume Kratzer’s treatment of conditionals (1981, 1986, 1991). Kratzer, following Lewis’s (1975) treatment of adverbs of quantification, argued that if (se in Italian) is not a two-place operator that takes the antecedent clause and the consequent clause as its arguments. If -clauses are the restriction of a covert modal operator, the consequent clause being interpreted as the nuclear scope of this operator. This nicely captures the fact that modal sentences are quantificational structures, since now there is no operational difference between a modal operator and quantifiers such as every. Applying what I proposed above, I argue that when the Imperfect occurs in a modal sentence (regardless of whether the modal operator is overt or covert), the past component is interpreted inside the accessibility relation, i.e. it restricts the time-argument. Hence, (27) will have the truth-conditions in (28). (28) [[Se partivi domani, incontravi mia sorella]]g, c = 1 iff ∀w ∈ W [w is accessible from wc at g(2) and you leave tomorrow in w → you meet my sister in w] defined only if g(2) < tc Informally, this tells us that the IC in (27) is true iff in all the worlds that were accessible from the actual world (wc ) at some (contextually salient) past time t2 and in which you leave tomorrow, you meet my sister. Repeating the above discussion for clarity: it is because the past component of the Imperfect is actually interpreted outside the proposition that no clash arises between the past and the future adverb (recall example (20)). Thus, the proposition is actually tenseless. What would the truth-conditions in (28) be truth-conditions of without the contribution of the past? The answer is straightforward: they would be the truthconditions of a non-past indicative conditional. (29) [[Se parti domani, incontri mia sorella]]g, c = 1 iff ∀w ∈ W [w is accessible from wc at tc and you leave tomorrow in w → you meet my sister in w] (30) Se parti domani, incontri mia sorella. If you leavePRES tomorrow, you meetPRES my sister. ‘If you leave tomorrow, you’ll meet my sister.’ Keeping the nature of the modality involved in (27) vague (it could be anything), the truth-conditions in (28) tell us that it was compatible with some past state

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of affairs in which p, that q. Nothing is said about the impossibility of the antecedent, though. Where does that come from? We will answer this question in Section 6. But before we do that, we need to discuss the presuppositions of indicative conditionals, which we do in §5 and §5.1.

. Presuppositions (Felicity Conditions) It is not a novelty that conditionals are associated with presuppositions, that is to say conditions that the context must meet for the conditional to be uttered felicitously. This has been discussed at length in Stalnaker (1975) and, since then, by numerous authors (see von Fintel 1998 and references cited there). What has turned out to be difficult is the specification of the correct presuppositions for conditionals. Here I focus on ICs. Traditionally, felicity conditions have to do with the context at the time of the utterance. In the tradition of formal pragmatics, the context is the set of propositions that constitute the common ground, i.e. those propositions that are known (or assumed to be known) by the speakers and his interlocutors. Therefore, felicity conditions have to do with the epistemic state of the speaker at the time of the utterance. More specifically, felicity conditions state what the relation between the speaker’s epistemic state and the content of the conditional being uttered must be. Stalnaker (1975) introduced the notion of context set, i.e., the set of all the possible worlds not ruled out by the background information. In other words, the context set is the set of worlds where the conjunction of all the propositions in the common ground is true. The felicity condition for indicative conditionals – he proposes – is that everything that the speaker presupposes to hold in the actual situation is presupposed to hold in the hypothetical situation in which the antecedent is true. On the other hand, the use of the subjunctive indicates that presuppositions are being suspended, i.e., that the worlds that are considered may be worlds in which the conjunction of the propositions in the common ground is not true. In Ippolito (2000a) I challenged this view and argued for different felicity conditions for subjunctive conditionals on the basis of their presuppositions’ projection properties. I refer the interested reader to that article for details.10 Let us assume Stalnaker’s proposal for indicative conditionals. For the indicative conditional in (30) to be felicitous, the speaker must not know that the proposition expressed by the antecedent is impossible (or false). Consider (31). What the speaker is presupposed to hold in the actual situation (that Jack is dead) does not hold in the hypothetical situation in which Jack testifies in court tomorrow. This incompatibility between the background information and the presuppositions of

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the antecedent is the reason of the infelicity of (31). Whenever the same facts hold in English and Italian, I give the examples in English for simplicity. (31) #Jack died last week. If he testifies in the trial tomorrow, Zack will not go to jail. Now, consider the IC variant of (31) in (32). Why is this sentence not deviant? Clearly, the felicity condition for (32) has to be different, since the background information (that Jack is dead) is inconsistent with the presuppositions of the antecedent of the conditional (that Jack is not dead). (32) Jack è morto la settimana scorsa. ‘Jack died last week.’ Se Jack testimoniava al processo domani, Zack non andava in prigione. If he testifyimp at the trial tomorrow, Zack not goimp to prison. It seems intuitively correct to say that different tenses – which we saw contributed differently to the truth-conditions of the conditionals where they occur – affect differently the felicity conditions of the conditionals where they occur. The next section is devoted to formalize this intuition.

. The contribution of tense to the Felicity Conditions The skeleton of the felicity condition for Indicative conditionals is given in (33). (33) General Felicity Condition The speaker’s presuppositions at x have to be compatible with the presuppositions of the antecedent. (33) says that a conditional is felicitous when the presuppositions of the antecedent are compatible with the background information at x. What specifies the value of x? My proposal is that the value of x depends on the value of the time-argument of the accessibility relation R: if the worlds quantified over are the worlds that were accessible from the actual world at some contextually salient past time (i.e., if the time argument of R is marked as Past), then x picks up that very past time; if the worlds quantified over are the worlds that are accessible at the utterance time – the default time (i.e., if the time of R is not marked as past), then x will pick up the utterance time too. Consequently, the felicity condition for (30), repeated below in (34) is (35). (34) Se parti domani, incontri mia sorella. If you leavepres tomorrow, you meetpres my sister. ‘If you leave tomorrow, you’ll meet my sister.’

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(35) Felicity Condition for Indicative Conditionals The speaker’s presuppositions at the time of the utterance have to be compatible with the presuppositions of the antecedent. On the other hand, when the past restricts the time-argument of the accessibility relation, as it does in the case of the Imperfect, the felicity condition will be as in (36). (36) Felicity Condition for Imperfect Conditionals The speaker’s presuppositions at some past time have to be compatible with the presuppositions of the antecedent. ICs are felicitous only if the presuppositions of the antecedent are compatible with the speaker’s presuppositions at some (contextually salient) past time. Hence, the full acceptability of (32) is explained: the fact that at the utterance time the speaker knows that Jack is dead is not relevant for the satisfaction of the condition in (36).

. Scalar implicatures As I said above, presuppositions have to do with the epistemic state of the speaker. I know that p only if p is true (if I discover that p is not true, then I never knew it). Hence, knowledge can only increase and, consequently, the set of worlds compatible with what is known can only shrink. Hence, if something is compatible with my knowledge now, then it was compatible with my knowledge at any time earlier than now. In other words, being compatible with my knowledge now entails being compatible with my knowledge at any time before, but not vice versa, because I could have learned that something that was compatible with what I knew in the past is not true (and thus is not longer compatible with my knowledge).11 Scalar implicatures are triggered by the choice of uttering p rather than q, where q asymmetrically entails p. This choice will be interpreted as conversationally implicating that the speaker is not in the position to make the stronger statement, i.e., he either does not know that q or he knows that ¬ q. Following Ippolito (2001a, 2002), I argue that scalar implicatures can arise not only as a result of a competition between assertions, but also as a result of a competition between presuppositions. This idea as already found some advocates: Heim (1990), for example, explicitly refers to it in her treatment of definite articles. The felicity condition in (35) asymmetrically entails the felicity condition in (36). Hence, when the speaker utters (27) – repeated in (37) – instead of (34) above, his interlocutor will understand the speaker as having implicated that he (the speaker) knows that (35) is not true, i.e., that he knows that the presuppositions of the conditional are not compatible with what he knows at the utterance time. Which is

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exactly the result we wanted. In Ippolito (2001a) I also showed that and precisely when this implicature is cancelled. (37) Se partivi domani, incontravi mia sorella. If you leave-imp tomorrow, you meet-imp my sister. ‘If you had left tomorrow, you would have met my sister.’ As I already noticed, in principle there are two possible implicatures that can be drawn from a Gricean competition between two propositions A and B where B is the asymmetrically entailed one and the one that gets uttered: one is that the speaker does not know that A is true, the second is that the speaker knows that A is not true. In our competition between (35) and (36), we make use of the stronger implicature, i.e., that the speaker knows that (35) is not true. Notice, however, that this does not have to be stipulated and naturally follows form the nature of knowledge: the weaker implicature, i.e., that the speaker does not know whether what he knows at the utterance time is compatible with the presuppositions of the antecedent, can easily be eliminated because it can safely be assumed that the speaker (like anybody else) knows what he knows. Hence, if what he knows is incompatible with the presuppositions of the antecedent, then he knows that. Because it is an implicature, the falsity of the antecedent of an imperfect conditional should be cancelable whenever it would not have been relevant to utter the stronger conditional. In these special circumstances, the implicature will not be drawn. Consider the following scenario. (38) Zack is telling a story: “Last week when I saw him, Jack could not decide when to take his exam. Really a hard decision: a. Se faceva l’esame domani, lo interrogava il professore più severo. If he had taken the exam tomorrow, the strictest professor would have examined him. b. Ma, d’altra parte, se faceva l’esame il prossimo lunedì, doveva rispondere al doppio delle domande. But, on the other hand, if he had taken the exam next Monday, he would have had to answer twice as many questions. So, in the end, he decided to be bald and take the test tomorrow. We understand Zack’s story to be coherent. Thus, it must be the case that we do not understand the antecedent of the first imperfect conditional (se faceva l’esame domani) to be false, as we have learned that Jack will in fact take the exam tomorrow. The point of the story is that of informing the listener about the state of mind Jack was in last week, before he took his decision. This is why the reporter, Zack, is allowed to use past counterfactuals to talk about future hypothetical eventualities.

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A pragmatic analysis of Imperfect Conditionals 

Because that is the point of the story, it would not have been relevant to talk about what Zack knows now. Thus, the implicature is not drawn.12

. Syntactic evidence for my semantic analysis: Turkish conditionals In this section, I will provide syntactic evidence for my analysis of the modal uses of past. I have argued that the past component of the Imperfect applies to the covert modal; specifically, it is interpreted within the accessibility relation that selects the accessible worlds. I argued that this proposal explained the presuppositions of ICs and the special implicatures that they trigger. Here, we will analyze a construction that shares all the semantic properties of ICs and where, crucially, past is not in T but in the Complementizer area, the domain of modality (Stowell 1982; see also, Pesetsky 1989; Pesetsky & Torrego 2000; Iatridou & Embick 1994). Turkish conditional sentences employ two morphemes: the past and the conditional morpheme. These two morphemes can appear in the order [[V-] Past-] Cond] or in the order [[V-] Cond-] Past], with very important differences in meaning. I shall assume that the superficial order of the two morphemes reflects their structural position. In particular, I shall assume that the further out a morpheme is, the higher it is in the structure.13 When the order is [[V-] Past-] Cond], the meaning of the conditional is that of an indicative (epistemic) conditional. The phrase in Italic ‘and maybe he did’ has been written to capture the fact that the hypothetical event described by the antecedent (in both English and Italian) can be true. (39) Abelard Eloise-e dün çiçek ver-di-y-se, Eloise Abelard Eloise-dat yesterday flower give-past-cop-cond, Eloise mutlu ol-mu¸s-tur. happy be-perfect-copula2 ‘If Abelard gave flowers to Eloise yesterday, Eloise must have been happy (and maybe he did).’ Being an indicative conditional, it will be subject to the felicity condition in (35); that is to say, it will be felicitous only if the presuppositions of the antecedent are compatible with the presuppositions of the speaker at the utterance time. Thus, we predict that an utterance of (39) in a context that is incompatible with its presuppositions will be deviant. (40) shows that this is indeed correct. (40) #Abelard bir ay once öl-dü-Ø. Abelard Eloise-e dün çiçek ver-di-y-se, Eloise mutlu ol-mu¸s-tur. Abelard one month ago die-past-3sg. (39).

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‘#Abelard died a month ago. If Abelard gave flowers to Heloise yesterday, she must have been happy.’ Moreover, (39) is similar to the English past indicative conditional in (41) in that it cannot co-occur with a future adverb. This tells us that in indicative conditionals, the past is interpreted inside the proposition expressed by antecedent/consequent. The Turkish example is given in (42). (41) #If the police stopped Zack driving that car tomorrow, they must have taken him to prison. yarin çiçek ver-di-y-se, Eloise (42) #Abelard Eloise-e Abelard Eloise-dat tomorrow flower give-past-cop-cond, Eloise mutlu ol-mu¸s-tur. happy be-perfect-copula2. As for the order [[V-] Cond-] Past], I will now show that this order has all the semantic properties possessed by ICs. First of all, the antecedent is understood to be false. (43) Abelard Eloise-e dün çiçek ver-se-y-di, Eloise Abelard Eloise-dat yesterday flower give-cond-cop-past, Eloise mutlu ol-ur-du. happy be-aorist-past. ‘If Abelard had given flowers to Eloise yesterday, Eloise would have been happy (but he won’t).’ Second, despite the past morpheme, a future adverb can felicitously occur, which means that the past tense is not interpreted inside the proposition expressed by the antecedent/consequent. (44) Abelard Eloise-e yarin çiçek ver-se-y-di, Eloise Abelard Eloise-dat tomorrow flower give-cond-cop-past, Eloise mutlu ol-ur-du. happy be-aorist-past. ‘If Abelard gave flowers to Eloise tomorrow, she would be happy (but he didn’t).’ My proposal is that the past is actually interpreted in the modal domain. Specifically, it restricts the time argument of the accessibility relation. The Turkish examples are thus an instantiation of this possibility: the past tense can overtly occur in the C domain (the modal domain), and when it does, it triggers the same effects as ICs. Hence, the structure of (44) will be as in (45). I write the semantic type of every node to show how the semantic composition works.14

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A pragmatic analysis of Imperfect Conditionals  St

(45) ã <st,t> M O <<s,t>,<st,t>>

[Consequent]<s,t>

å<s,t>

â [Antecedent] <s,t> <s,t> á > R <s,>>

t2 [P] w1

The same account that I proposed to explain the implicatures of falsity found in ICs can now be extended to Turkish [[V-] Cond-] Past].

. Conclusion In this paper I have argued that Past can be interpreted outside the proposition in which it occurs. Indeed, sometimes it must be interpreted outside in order to avoid a semantic clash with other temporal elements such as adverbs, which would lead to an uninterpretable structure. These are the modal uses of past. I also argued that the time information in the accessibility relation is responsible for the time of the epistemic state relevant for the felicity conditions of the sentence in question. So, if past constrains the time-argument of the accessibility relation (as in the case of ICs), the felicity conditions will provide information about the speaker’s past epistemic states. If the time-argument of the accessibility relation picks the utterance time as default value, then the felicity conditions will involve talking about the speaker’s epistemic state at the utterance time. The falsity of the antecedent was then shown to be a scalar implicature. Turkish conditionals provided a strong argument in favor of my analysis.

Notes * This is a shorter and modified version of the paper “Imperfect Modality” that I presented at the International Roundtable of Tense and Aspect held at the Université de Paris VII, November 2000. I am indebted to I. Heim, S. Iatridou, D. Pesetsky, and an anonymous re-

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viewer for discussions and suggestions. The Turkish data were kindly given to me by Meltem Kelepir for. All mistakes are mine. . See Stalnaker (1975), von Fintel (1998) and references cited there for discussions of this issue. . And maybe others. The authors mentioned in the text discuss the phenomenon of mismatched past counterfactuals at different levels, mostly informally. The only exception is Ogihara: he provides a formal and explicit analysis of this kind of counterfactuals based on focus. Elsewhere I have discussed and refuted his proposal on a principled and empirical basis (Ippolito 2001a, 2000). . This material is a shorter version of what I discussed in Ippolito (2001b). . As we saw above, a future adverb can occur with the perfect but, if it does, the counterfactuality of the conditional becomes stronger. Notice that this flexibility is not a property of subjunctive conditionals in general but of past subjunctive conditionals (see Ippolito 2001b). . See Bazzanella (1990), among others, for informal discussion of these data. . The modal is not necessary in the “politeness” example, even though it is preferred. The discourse in (i) is also quite acceptable: as you can see in B’s response, the Imperfect occurs on the lexical verb prendere ‘take.’ Crucially, the example has the same politeness flavor of the modal counterpart in the text. A:

B:

Cosa desidera? What do you desire? ‘What would you like? Prendevo un caffè, grazie. I takeimp a coffee, thanks. ‘I would like a coffee’

. Iatridou (2000) argues at length that the imperfective morphology is often an epiphenomenon of modal interpretation. . Lecture notes by K. von Fintel and I. Heim, 2001. . Work on “hidden modality” includes Kratzer’s work on conditionals, to which we will return, and – among many – specific studies such as Dowty (1977) and Copley (2000) on planning modality. . I particular, I discussed the problem of presuppositions projection (Heim 1992). . As an anonymous reviewer pointed out, the reasoning above requires that context sets be epistemic states, rather than doxastic states. In other words, the common ground is what the speaker and the participants in the conversation know or assume to know. Sometimes, we may be wrong, and have false beliefs. However, this is not problematic for the argument presented in this paper. If I do not know that you hold a false belief, then I will assume that what you say you know is actually true, and I will draw all the consequences that I would have drawn, had you been right. If I do know that you hold a false belief, I may either correct you or decide to “ignore” your mistake. In the latter case, nothing that would have followed, had I believed you were right, will follow. . Thanks to an anonymous reviewer for urging me to be explicit on this point.

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A pragmatic analysis of Imperfect Conditionals  . A similar hypothesis is made by G. Aygen (1999) for Turkish. . <s,t> is the type of a proposition (a function from worlds to truth-values); the node β composes with the antecedent by means of Predicate modification; the type of the modal operator is <<st>,<st,t>>, which strictly parallels the type of traditional quantifiers, every <<et>, <et,t>>; t is the type of the truth-value.

References Anderson, Alan Ross (1951). A note on Subjunctive and Counterfactual Conditionals. Analysis, 12, 35–38. Aygen, Gulsat (1999). Turkish Conditionals. Ms. Harvard University. Copley, Bridget (2001). On the Syntax and Semantics of futurate readings. In Elena Guerzoni & Ora Matushansky (Eds.), A view from building E39 (pp. 23–42). MITWPL 36. Cambridge, MA. Dowty, David (1977). Towards a semantic analysis of verb aspect and the English ‘imperfective’ progressive. Linguistics and Philosophy, 1, 45–77. Dudman, V. H. (1984). Conditional Interpretations of if-sentences. Australian Journal of Linguistics, 4, 143–204. Enç, Murvet (1987). Anchoring Conditions for Tense. Linguistic Inquiry, 18(4), 633–657. Von Fintel, Kai (1998). The Presupposition of Subjunctive Conditionals. In U. Sauerland & O. Percus (Eds.), The Interpretive Tract, MITWPL 25 (pp. 29–44). Grice, H. Paul (1975). Logic and Conversation. In Peter Cole & J. Morgan (Eds.), Syntax and Semantics 3: Speech acts (pp. 41–58). New York: Academic Press. Heim, Irene (1994). Comments on Abush’s theory of tense. In H. Kamp (Ed.), Ellipsis, Tense and Questions. University of Amsterdam. Heim, Irene (2000). Degree Operators and Scope. In Proceedings of SALT 10. CLC Publications, Cornell University. Iatridou, Sabine (2000). The Grammatical Ingredients of Counterfactuality. Linguistic Inquiry, 31(2), 231–270. Iatridou, Sabine & David Embick (1994). Conditional Inversion. Proceedings of the NELS, 24. Ippolito, Michela (2001a). On the Temporal Dimension of Counterfactuality. In Mako Hirotani (Ed.), Proceedings of NELS 32 (NYU and CUNY Graduate center). Amherst, MA: GLSA. Ippolito, Michela (2001b). Imperfect Modality. To appear in Jacqueline Guéron & Jacqueline Lecarme (Eds.), The Syntax of Tense. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Ippolito, Michela (2002). Presuppositions and Implicatures in counter/actuals. Forthcoming in Natural Language Semantics. Kratzer, Angelika (1981). The Notional Category of Modality. In H.-J. Eikmeyer & H. Rieser (Eds.), Words, Worlds, and Contexts (pp. 38–74). Berlin: Walter de Gruyter. Kratzer, Angelika (1986). Conditionals. In A. M. Farley, P. Farley, & K.-E. McCullough (Eds.), CLS 22: Papers from the Parasession on Pragmatics and Grammatical Theory (pp. 1–15). Chicago: Chicago Linguistic Society, University of Chicago.

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Kratzer, Angelika (1991). Modality. In Arnim von Stechow & D. Wunderlich (Eds.), An International Handbook of Contemporary Research (pp. 639–650). Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. Kratzer, Angelika (1998). More Structural Analogies Between Pronouns and Tenses. Proceedings of SALT VIII. Lewis, David (1973). Counterfactuals. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Lewis, David (1975). Adverbs of Quantification. In Ed Keenan (Ed.), Formal Semantics of Natural Language (pp. 3–15). Cambridge, MA: Cambridge University Press. Ogihara, Toshi (2000). Counterfactuals, Temporal Adverbs, and Association with Focus. To appear in Proceedings of SALT 10. CLS Publications, Cornell University. Partee, Barbara (1973). Some Structural Analogies Between Tense and Pronouns. The Journal of Philosophy, 601–609. Pesetsky, David (1989). Language Particular Processes and the Earliness Principle. Ms. MIT. Pesetsky, David & Ester Torrego (2000). T-to-C Movement: Causes and Consequences. In Michael Kenstowicz (Ed.), Ken Hale, A Life in Language (pp. 355–426). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Stalnaker, Robert (1975). Indicative Conditionals. Studies in Logical Theory. American Philosophical Quarterly. Monograph: 2. Blackwell. Reprinted in Robert Stalnaker (1999) Context and Content (pp. 63–77). Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press. Stowell, Tim (1982). The Tense of Infinitives. Linguistic Inquiry, 13, 561–570.

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Indirect objects in ditransitive constructions in Brazilian Portuguese* Heloisa Maria M. Lima Salles and Maria Marta P. Scherre Universidade de Brasília

.

Introduction

As is well known, in various contexts where European Portuguese (EP) chooses the preposition a, Brazilian Portuguese (BP) may choose another preposition – such as para and em – giving rise to a variable context, as illustrated in (1) and (2), with a clear tendency to eliminate a. In other contexts, such as genitive constructions, only the preposition de is found, as illustrated in (3), the change from a to de being already established: (1) a.

Maria vai ao cinema. Maria goes [aprep + article] cinema. b. Maria vai pro cinema. Maria goes [paraprep + article] cinema. c. Maria vai no cinema. Maria goes [emprep + article] cinema. “Maria will go to the movies.”

(2) a.

Maria deu um livro ao filho. Maria gave a book [aprep + article] son. b. Maria deu um livro pro filho. Maria gave a book [paraprep + article] son. “Maria has given a book to her son.”

(3) a.

Maria cortou as unhas ao filho. Maria cut the nails [aprep + article] son. b. Maria cortou as unhas do filho. Maria cut the nails [deprep + article] son. “Maria has cut her son’s nails.”

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Interestingly, variation (or change) between EP and BP is found neither in monotransitive constructions with a prepositional complement, nor in benefactive contexts, as illustrated in (4a) and (4b), respectively: (4) a.

Recorre ao (*pro) mais velho. Turn [aprep + article] (*[paraprep + article]) oldest. “Turn to the oldest.” b. Pedro fez uma festa pra (*a) ela. Pedro made a party [paraprep + article] her. “Pedro made a party for (*to) her.”

The contrast between (1)–(3) and (4) indicates that the choice of the preposition is not a matter of lexical ban, but can be attributed to syntactic distribution. Variation and change in the choice of the preposition in BP have been discussed in various studies (cf. Mollica 1996; Ribeiro 1996; Gomes 1999; Berlinck 2001; Ramos 2000; Salles 2000). Presently, we shall examine the choice of the preposition introducing indirect objects in ditransitive constructions in a variety of BP spoken in Fortaleza. In this capital of the Northeastern state Ceará, the elimination of a is less radical.1 It will be demonstrated that the variation between a and para is embedded in the linguistic matrix in terms of two statistically significant variables, namely the features [+/–(potentially) light] on the verb and [+/–referential] on the nominal in the direct object position (henceforth DO nominal). It will be further shown that these features are encoded in the conceptual structure of the predicate. The discussion will be developed as follows: in Section 2, the quantitative analysis will be provided, with respect to the statistically significant independent variables; in Section 3, the results of the quantitative analysis will be discussed in terms of the conceptual structure of the predicate. This discussion will follow Hale and Keyser’s (1993, 1998) theory of argument structure and Salles’ (1997) analysis of the dative alternation in English, in which a correlation between affectedness and referentiality is proposed. Finally, in Section 4, we will draw some conclusions relating the analyses provided for Brazilian Portuguese and English.

. The data and the quantitative analysis The corpus consists of data collected from spoken Brazilian Portuguese of 18 Northeastern native speakers, aged from 18 to 54 years old, with low to medium level of education (cf. Aragão & Soares 1996). In the analysis, the dependent variable was para (para/pra/pr/p) vs. a. The variants were found in 76 tokens, with the following distribution: 51 tokens of para (67%) and 25 tokens of a (33%). Two

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independent variables turned out to be statistically significant, with a level of significance of .05 (cf. Sankoff 1988a; Pintzuk 1988) – even with only 76 pieces of data: i. the feature [+/–(potentially) light] on the verb ii. the feature [+/–referential] on the DO nominal. In the next subsections, we will consider each independent variable separately.

. The feature [+/–(potentially) light] on the verb The feature [+/–(potentially) light] on the verb arises from the observation that among the constructions examined, the verb and the direct object may have a lexical counterpart, as in (5) and (6): (5) a. b. c. d.

dar apoio / apoiar ‘give support / support’ dar alegria / alegrar ‘give pleasure / please’ dar assistência / assistir ‘give assistance / assist’ dar valor / valorizar ‘give value / value’

(6) fazer pergunta / perguntar ‘make question / question’ According to Jespersen (1954), referring to equivalents to (5) and (6) in English, the verb in the periphrastic expression is semantically vague or thematically empty, being therefore a light verb. Instead it is the nominal that provides the lexical and thematic information. In BP, these verbs can be assigned the same properties and, as shown in Scher (1999), the constructions in which they appear display aspectual properties that are also found in other languages.2 Looking at these cases, Higginbotham (1995) argues that the periphrastic variant realizes the syntactic structure of the event, indicating its complex nature, an idea to which we shall return. Assuming this approach and also observing that in some constructions the lexicalized counterpart may not be an actual item in the vocabulary, the verbs dar (= give), fazer (= make), ter (= have) are taken to be potentially light in Portuguese, as they may occur in the above-mentioned alternating pairs. It should be pointed out that the label ‘potential’ captures the fact that the same verb may or may not be light.3 The results are then as follows: the preposition para is significantly found with the feature [–(potentially) light]; conversely, the preposition a is significantly found with the opposite feature [+(potentially) light]. This is illustrated in (7) and (8), respectively. (7) a.

(. . . )Aí manda roupa, sapato pra gente (. . . ). “[She] sends us clothes, shoes.” b. (. . . )Ele mostrou pro advogado os retrato da mãe dela (. . . ). “He has shown her mother’s photography to the lawyer.”



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c.

(. . . )Aí ele pede pro Didi (. . . ). “So he asks [this] to Didi.” d. (. . . )Escrevi pra minha cunhada. “I have written to my sister-in-law.” (8) a.

(. . . )O país não dá assistência a essas pessoa (. . . ). “This country doesn’t give these people assistance.” b. (. . . )Dou um maior valor a música dele (. . . ). “[I] give his song much value.” c. (. . . )Nós tamos cum quatro noite que nós faz quarto a ela (. . . ). “For four nights we gave her assistance.” d. (. . . )Aí o advogado fez um horror de pergunta a ele. “Then the lawyer has asked him a lot of questions.”

Examples in (9) and (10) in turn illustrate the opposite pattern, which is less frequent: the preposition para is found with the feature [+(potentially) light]; and a, with the feature [(potentially) light], pointing to a case of Labovian variation (cf. Labov 1975; Sankoff 1998b): (9) a.

(. . . )Nós damos o maior apoio pra ela (. . . ). “We give her much support.” b. (. . . )A mais nova dá conselho pra mais velha (. . . ). “The youngest sister gives the eldest sister advice.” c. (. . . )Aí ela deu um drinque pra ele (. . . ). “Then she has given a drink to him.”

(10) a.

(. . . )A Universidade ofereceu aqui a gente um curso (. . . ). “The University has offered us a course here.” b. (. . . ) ela pediu a Odete (. . . ). “He has asked [this] to Odete.” c. (. . . )Num tem verba . . . pede a um, pede a outro, coitada (. . . ). “There is no financial support . . . [one] asks someone [for it], [one] asks someone else [for it], poor woman.”

The quantitative results are presented in Table 1 below: Table 1. Results for the rate of para according to the feature [+/–(potentially) light] in ditransitive constructions in Northeastern Brazilian Portuguese Factors

Frequency of para

Relative weight

[–(potentially) light] [+(potentially) light] Total

35/42 = 83% 16/34 = 47% 51/76 = 67%

0.74 0.22

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. The feature [+/–referential] on the nominal in the direct object position The idea of relating the choice of the preposition to semantic features in the syntactic environment has been already discussed in the literature.4 As already pointed out, in the present study, we will consider the feature [+/–referential] on the DO nominal. This feature relates to the denotational properties of entities, such as definiteness and specificity, and a more elaborate discussion of this issue would take us too far afield. As is well known, if the nominal is not introduced by an article, then it has a non-referential interpretation, i.e., the [–referential] feature is assigned. If, on the other hand, the nominal is introduced by a definite or an indefinite article, it can be either [+referential] or [–referential], a more general property of definite and indefinite articles in Portuguese.5 In the latter case, feature assignment is therefore determined in the context.6 The results are then as follows: the preposition para is significantly found with the feature [+referential] on the DO nominal, and the preposition a, with the opposite feature [–referential]. This is illustrated in (11) and (12) respectively. (11) a.

(. . . )Aí ela deu um drinque pra ele (. . . ). “Then she has given him a drink.” b. (. . . )Ele mostrou pro advogado (. . . ) o retrato da mãe dela. “He has shown his mother’s photography to the lawyer.”

(12) a.

(. . . )O país não dá assistência a essas pessoa (. . . ). “This country doesn’t give these people help.” b. (. . . )O Ceará só deu alegria, né?, a sua torcida, ao povo cearense. “The Ceará team has given his supporters pleasure, (has given) the people of Ceará state pleasure.” c. (. . . )Nós tamos cum quatro noite que nóis faz quarto a ela. “For four nights we gave her assistance.”

Examples in (13) and (14) in turn illustrate the opposite pattern: the use of a with the feature [+referential], and of para with the feature [–referential], which is less frequent, also suggesting a case of Labovian variation: (13) (. . . )Deu um cachorrinho a ele. “She has given him a pet.” (14) a.

(. . . )Nós damos o maior apoio pra ela. “We give her much support.” b. (. . . )A mais nova dá conselho pra mais velha. “The youngest gives the oldest advice.” c. (. . . )Aí manda roupa, sapato pra gente. “[She] sends clothes, shoes to us.”



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d. (. . . )Eu acho que o governo devia dar mais (+) condições de sobrevivência pras crianças. “I think that the government should give the children better survival conditions.” The quantitative results are presented in Table 2: Table 2. Results for the rate of para according to feature [+/–referential] on the nominal in the direct object position in ditransitive constructions in Northeastern Brazilian Portuguese Factors

Frequency of para

Relative weight

[+referential] [–referential] Total

19/23 = 83% 11/24 = 46% 30/47 = 64%

0.70 0.31

The quantitative results become more interesting if the independent variables are combined: in the alternating pairs such as dar apoio/ apoiar (‘give support / support’), the verb is necessarily light, and, as a corollary, the DO nominal is necessarily non-referential. This correlation is borne out by the quantitative results: the preposition a is mostly retained in constructions combining the features [+(potentially) light] on the verb and [–referential] on the DO nominal, a clear case of linguistic embedding of the variation. Considering that the quantitative results are expressed with respect to para, the relative weights favoring para are assigned for the opposite features, namely 0.74 for [–(potentially) light] on the verb and 0.70 for [+referential] on the DO nominal (cf. Tables 1 and 2). In the next section, these two properties are discussed in a crosslinguistic perspective, in terms of the mapping of arguments in the syntactic structure. In particular, it will be demonstrated that the licensing of the dative alternation in English encodes the features [+/–referential] on the DO nominal, and [+(potentially) light] on the verb.

. Complex events, light verbs and the theory of argument structure A well discussed topic in the literature is the mapping of argument structure to syntax. In Hale and Keyser’s (1993: 53) theory of argument structure, it is proposed that “each lexical head projects its category to a phrasal level and determines within that projection an unambiguous system of structural relations holding between the head, its categorial projections and its arguments (specifier, if present, and complement).” This configuration and the system of relations associated with

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it define a lexical relational structure (LRS), which in turn corresponds to the argument structure of the lexical head. Argument structure is therefore “a syntax within the lexical domain,” and should be distinguished from the sentential syntax, which involves the lexical item, its arguments (the LRS) and the functional categories associated with the projection of a sentence.7 Thematic roles are thus properties of the configurations projected by lexical categories. According to Hale and Keyser, denominal verbs in English (e.g. calve, shelve, saddle) are derived from nouns, and thus word formation is not only lexical, but also syntactic. Thus unergative verbs such as sneeze, laugh, calve, the simplest class of denominal verbs (all called simply (true) intransitive verbs), are claimed to have the same initial lexical structure as verbs such as make, have, and do in make trouble, have puppies, do a jig.8 For example, the N trouble incorporates to the head bearing the categorial property V, as illustrated in (15): (15) [VP trouble [NP Ntrouble ]] The difference between denominal verbs (e.g., trouble) and their periphrastic counterparts (e.g., make trouble) is that in the latter the complement NP is a categorial variable in the LRS representation of make, whereas in the former the complement NP dominates a constant, “the nominal source, through incorporation, of the denominal verb” (Hale & Keyser 1993: 73). Denominal verbs are thus derived syntactically under incorporation of the head N into an abstract V, subject to the usual locality constraints (cf. Baker 1988 on syntactic incorporation).9 On this view, unergative verbs have the initial lexical structure of transitive verbs. Deadjectival predicates such as redden are taken to involve a similar movement, this time of an adjectival source A into an abstract V, giving rise to the intransitive type, with an argument position in the lexical projection (the sky reddened). A second movement of the complex head [V + A] into an upper empty light verb derives the transitive type (the sun has reddened the sky), giving rise to a VP shell (cf. Larson 1988; Chomsky 1995; among others). This is illustrated in (16): (16) [VP the sun vredden [VP the sky [V’ Vredden [AP Ared ]]]] Locative constructions, as in (17a), and constructions with location/locatum verbs, as in (17b), are licensed in the same way, this time in a configuration projected by a preposition selecting a VP shell, given its transitive type, as illustrated in (18a) and (18b), respectively: (17) a. John put the book on the shelf. b. John shelved the book. (18) a. b.

. . . [VP put [VP the book [V’ Vput [PP on [NP the shelf]]]]] . . . [VP shelve [VP the book [V’ Vshelf [PP Pshelf [NP shelf ]]]]]



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Accordingly, in (17b), the complement of P crucially dominates a constant (‘the nominal source of the denominal verb’), and shelve is derived syntactically under N incorporation, through the heads P, V, and the light v (cf. 18b); in (17a), instead, N incorporation to V is blocked (although incorporation proceeding from V into light v takes place, giving rise to the right word order) (cf. (18a)).10 The same condition holds for incorporation of the nominal in the unergative construction (cf. (15)). We shall return to the role of denotational properties of the nominal in the synthetic and periphrastic alternants in Section 3.1. In particular, we shall propose that in light verb constructions, the DO nominal is a constant (exactly as the source of denominal verbs, although incorporation does not take place), hence its non-referential intepretation. Hale and Keyser (1998) further propose that dative constructions are projections of P and [v-V], exactly as locatives are, llustrated in (19a–b). However they differ from locatives because they alternate with the double object construction (DOC), which involves recursive projections of V (20a–b): (19) a. Mary gave the book to the student. b. . . . [VP give [VP the book [V’ V give [PP to [NP the student]]]]] (20) a. Mary gave the student the book. b. . . . [VP give [VP the student [V’ V give [VP Vgive [NP the book]]]]] Given the syntactic relation itself, namely the conditions on phrase structure, and the elementary notions associated with V and P (namely, event and interrelation, respectively), the syntactic embedding in ditransitive constructions is taken to correspond to a causal relation implicating an interrelation between two arguments, giving rise to a predicate of change. Crucially, the specifier position of the embedded VP is saturated by the affected argument, and the thematic role associated with the specifier position in the upper VP (headed by the light verb) is that of agent, given that it corresponds to the specifier relation in the structure projected by the causative verb. This is illustrated in (21): (21) [VP agent [v’ V [VP affected/theme [V’ V [P [ . . . .]]]]] As observed in Salles (1997), Hale and Keyser’s (1993) theory does not explain why locatives only project the construction with the overt preposition (cf. (22a–b)); or, alternatively, why constructions such as (23b) display the opposite pattern, only projecting DOC: (22) a. John put the book on the shelf. b. *John put the shelf the book. (23) a. Mary gave John a kiss. b. #Mary gave a kiss to John.11

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This issue will be examined in Section 3.1. In particular, it will be demonstrated that the restrictions on the occurrence of the alternating pairs in (22) and (23) can be accounted for in terms of the role of the features [(potentially) light] on the verb and [referential] on the DO nominal.

. On the licensing of [(potentially) light] and [referential] features in the projection of lexical heads Going back to the examples in (23), it is readily observed that they allow for the alternation give a kiss/kiss. Assuming the correlation between the features [+/–referential] and [+/–(potentially) light] in these pairs in Brazilian Portuguese, as formulated in Section 2, we will argue that these features are also relevant in the licensing of the dative alternation in English, accounting for the impossibility of the alternating pairs in (22) and (23). Assuming that (23a) is the periphrastic realization of the event structure, as discussed in Section 2.2, and following Hale and Keyser’s (1993, 1998) theory of argument structure and Salles’ (1997) discussion of these constructions, it could be said that give a kiss and kiss have the same projection (cf. (24a–b)), the synthetic form being derived under incorporation of the nominal into the relevant verbal heads, as in (24b): (24) a. [VP give [VP John tV [VP tV [NP a kiss]]] (= give John a kiss) b. [VP kiss [VP John Vkiss [VP Vkiss [NP Nkiss ]]] (= kiss John) As a corollary, in both (24a) and (24b), the higher V is necessarily a light verb, being therefore assigned the feature [+/–(potentially) light]. Moreover, a distinction between (20) and (23a) is readily drawn: in the former, but not in the latter, the nominal book does not incorporate (*Mary booked the student = Mary gave the student a book), hence its interpretation as a (logical) constant is excluded. We then assume Jackendoff ’s (1992: 65) distinction between locative and possession (ditransitive) constructions, according to which “location in physical space ranges over three continuous and orthogonal degrees of freedom, whereas what we might call ‘possessional space’ ranges over the discontinuous unstructured set of individuals.”12 As pointed out in Salles (op. cit.), locative predicates involve a transfer of location affecting the nominal interpreted as the theme argument, namely the book, in (17), repeated as (25), below, whereas possessive predicates involve a transfer of possession affecting the argument interpreted as goal, namely the student, in both (19) and (20), repeated as (26a) and (26b), below – accordingly, transfer of possession does not necessarily imply transfer of location affecting the nominal in the object position, as desired:13 (25) John put the book on the shelf.

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(26) a. Mary gave the book to the student. b. Mary gave the student the book. In Jackendoff ’s terms, the dative argument the student in (26) is an individual, and can therefore be interpreted as an affected argument. As a consequence of this property, it can appear in the (direct) object position, namely the specifier of the lower VP, which is the position par excellence of the affected argument (cf. (21)). This can also account for the impossibility of double object constructions with locatives (cf. (22b)). The idea is that the locative argument, being interpreted as a position in space, is incompatible with the direct object position, which is the locus of affectedness, requiring an individual. We can thus naturally link the notion of an individual, which is required for affectedness, to referentiality, that is [+referential] properties operate on an individual. In the construction give John a kiss, the nominal kiss is assigned the feature [–referential], exactly as in BP (cf. Section 2.1).14 This is due to the fact that it has the properties of an event, as it corresponds to the periphrastic realization of the event. If the availability of a referential reading is a prerequisite for affectedness (i.e the presence of the DP in the direct object position), then we can account for the ungrammaticality/oddness of (23b), repeated as (27): (27) */?Mary gave a kiss to John. In the sentence above, a kiss would necessarily have a referential reading. In fact, it is possible to find the above construction, but then kiss is necessarily understood as a concrete (referential) nominal.

. A correlation between Brazilian Portuguese and English dative constructions The previous discussion has shown that the features [+/–referential] and [(+/–potentially) light] play a crucial role in the licensing of arguments in the relevant constructions in English. As far as the facts of BP described in Section 2 are concerned, the same features turned out to be at stake in the choice of the preposition introducing the indirect object. In fact, a crucial difference between English and Portuguese is that the latter does not have the dative alternation. Accordingly, in Brazilian Portuguese, the construction with the overt preposition is the only option. Another way to look at the facts of Portuguese is to suppose that the relevant constructions involve two different projections, as illustrated in (28a–b): (28) a. b.

. . . [vP deu [VP o livro [Vdeu [PP Ppara João]]]] . . . [vP deu [VP Vdeu [NP apoio [PP Pa João]]]

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Accordingly, (28b) is not a ditransitive construction, given that the prepositional phrase is a complement of the nominal. In the structure provided in (28b) this is accounted for straightforwardly on the basis that NP and PP enter some sort of possessive relation. Due to this configuration, the event describes a transfer (or application) of the event itself to the goal argument, by which the goal argument becomes permanently affected. It is interesting to note that we find a similar pattern in inalienable possession constructions, in which the goal/possessor argument may be realized as a dative pronoun, exactly as in (28b).15 This is illustrated in (29a) and (29b), respectively: (29) a.

Maria cortou-lhe os cabelos (= cabelos a João). Maria cut-3pdat the hair (= hair aprep John). b. Maria deu-lhe apoio (= apoio a João). Maria gave-3pdat support (= support aprep John).

A more detailed study of inalienable possession constructions would take us too far afield.16 At this point, we refer the reader to Vergnaud and Zubizarreta’s (1992) and Jorge’s (2001) discussions of these constructions in Romance languages, the latter including BP constructions, as particularly relevant to the present discussion.17

. Conclusion The study examined the variation between the prepositions a and para introducing indirect objects in Brazilian Portuguese. It was shown that the domain of variation is embedded in the linguistic matrix: the preposition para tends to be selected in contexts involving the features [–(potentially) light] on the verb and [+referential] on the DO nominal, whereas the preposition a tends to be found with the opposite features. The linguistic embedding of the variation in BP captures a difference in the conceptual representation of the predicates: the preposition a tends to be found with constructions involving a periphrastic expression of the event, the verbal head being analysed as a light verb and the nominal as bearing the lexical information of the predicate: noun incorporation to the verbal head gives rise to the synthetic counterpart: dar apoio / apoiar (‘give support / support’). It was shown that this difference is also encoded in the licensing of the dative alternation in English: constructions involving a periphrastic expression of the event do not alternate with the one with the overt preposition (give John a kiss / *give a kiss to John). It was also shown that in BP the constructions with the periphrastic event are projections of two lexical heads, namely [v-V] and N, the preposition a being a case marker introducing the argument of N. Accordingly, this preposition has a grammatical, not a lexical, role. It is then possible to draw a correlation with the



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semantic properties of the noun: the preposition a, being deprived of its semantic import due to its status as a case marker, is preferred in contexts where the verb is likewise more semantically empty. European Portuguese in turn does not display any grammatical process encoding the above-mentioned differences in the conceptual representation of the predicates, as the preposition a is pervasively found in the relevant contexts. The cases of Labovian variation in the quantitative analysis of Brazilian Portuguese point to the possibility of a similar pattern becoming established, with the opposite preposition, namely para. At this point we are left with the grammatical embedding of the variation, a significant fact for the investigation of on going linguistic change.

Notes * The work reported in this paper was started by the first author with the financial support of FAP/DF (Grant no. 193.000.203/98), which we would like to thank. We would also like to thank Ian Roberts, Anthony Naro, Lurdes Jorge, and specially Anna Roussou, who made comments on the manuscript, and Roberto Araújo, an under-graduate student, who helped in the collection of the data. We are grateful to the audiences of GELNE and XXXII LSRL, where earlier versions of this paper have been presented, and to anonymous reviewers for illuminating comments. . Apparently, it is possible to extend the conclusions in the present study to other dialects in the Northeastern region. . In particular, following Diesing’s (1998, apud Scher) analysis of Yiddish, Scher points out that in BP, these constructions undergo ‘singularization,’ a reduction in the aspectual interpretation of the event due to operator-like properties of the indefinite article that is applied to the (direct object) nominal denoting the event (e.g. give John a kiss). We shall return to this property which will be formulated in terms of the feature [+/–referential] on the direct object nominal. . We shall not go into the possibility of taking each occurrence as a different lexical item (i. e., homonyms). . In earlier work going back to 1982, MaryEllen García (p. c.) argued that the feature [familiarity, closeness] is significant in the choice of para (as opposed to a) used to introduce the locative argument in constructions with verbs of movement in Spanish spoken in the United States. . Cf. Mateus et al. (1985), for a discussion on the properties of definite and indefinite articles in operations of determination in Portuguese. . Needless to say, if the nominal is introduced by a deictic or a possessive pronoun, the referential interpretation is assigned. . As pointed in Hale and Keyser (1993: 53), “[T]he paucity of lexical categories and the restricted number of structural relations determined in the theory of phrase structure (namely, complement and specifier) should explain the limited number of arguments that a given cat-

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egory may have and the rather small number of theta roles that may be associated with the arguments of a given lexical category.” . As noted by an anonymous reviewer, the argument structures of trouble and make trouble have different syntactic and semantic restrictions (contrary to apoiar and dar apoio, of Portuguese): the former can take clausal subjects and non-agentive subjects; the latter is awkward with clausal subjects, and is not as felicitous with non-agentive subjects. This should not have a direct impact on the present study. . Since incorporation is constrained by syntactic principles, it is also expected that the range of possible denominal verb types will be constrained by the syntactic conditions on incorporation. This is the case of hypothetical constructions such as *It cowed a calf, in which verb formation under incorporation of the subject is ruled out given the constraint stating that a subject cannot incorporate into the verb that heads its predicate (cf. (i)): (i) *[XP [NP Ncow ] X [VP V]] . In Hale and Keyser (1998: 9), V incorporation to light v is a special case of incorporation, referred to as conflation, and is defined as follows: “a process according to which the phonological matrix of the head of a complement C is introduced into the empty phonological matrix of the head which is a sister to C.” . Given that (23b) is a grammatical sentence of English, the symbol # indicates that (23a) and (23b) are not synonymous. However, this judgment is not uncontroversial. As noted by a reviewer, there are speakers of English who accept “give a kiss to John” as a paraphrase of “give John a kiss.” We refer the reader to Larson (1988) and Pinker (1989) for discussions on “give X a headache / a cold / a black eye; give John a kiss / a kick; give the rope a pull” which exclude their prepositional counterparts. . In Jackendoff ’s (1992) discussion, the independence of these concepts is taken as an argument for refuting the hypothesis that all the repertoire of human concepts gradually evolves from sensorimotor concepts to abstract concepts of pure logic, as proposed in Piagetian constructivism: ownership being among the innate stock of primitives indicates the possibility of having abstract concepts that are not built upon sensorimotor experience. . It is assumed that the NP is selected by a D category bearing properties of a determiner. . This is further supported by the fact that the definite article is not found in this construction (cf. (i)) – apart from the contexts involving a modified nominal which imply different properties and, possibly, a different reading (cf. (ii)): (i) *Mary gave John the kiss. (ii) Mary gave John the kiss that he had always dreamed of. . A piece of evidence for this analysis comes from passives: in the passive counterpart of (29b), the subject may include the prepositional phrase, whereas this is not possible with that of (28a), as illustrated in (ia) and (ib), respectively: We leave aside changes in the semantics of fronted (non-referential) DO to subject position (to a referential reading), which was pointed out to us by an anonymous reviewer, as we are concerned with the internal structure of the NP.

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(i)

a.

Apoio a João foi dado (sempre). Support to John was (always) given. b. *O livro para João foi dado. The book to John was given.

. Notice that these constructions are quoted in the Introduction to illustrate a contrast between BP and EP with respect to the choice of the preposition which is already established, BP using de, not a, to introduce the possessor argument (cf. Ramos 2000). Interestingly, in BP the construction with the dative clitic is also lost. In (29), we want to show that in both cases the verb takes a noun with a dative argument as its complement. . Jorge’s (2001) work is particularly relevant as she discusses the semantic properties of inalienable nouns in terms of their cardinal properties.

References Aragão, Maria do Socorro & Maria Elias Soares (Eds.). (1996). A Linguagem Falada em Fortaleza. Fortaleza: Universidade Federal do Ceará. Baker, Mark (1988). Incorporation. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Berlinck, Rosane de A. (2001). Dativo ou Locativo? Sobre os Sentidos e Formas do Dativo do Português. Letras, 56, 159–175. Chomsky, Noam (1995). The Minimalist Program. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press. Gomes, Christina A. (1999). Directionality in linguistic change and acquisition. Language Variation and Change, 11, 213–230. Hale, Ken & Samuel J. Keyser (1993). On Argument Structure and the Lexical Expression of Syntactic Relations. In Ken Hale & Samuel J. Keyser (Eds.), The View from the Building 20 – Essays in Linguistics in Honour of Sylvain Bromberger (pp. 53–109). Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press. Hale, Ken & Samuel J. Keyser (1998). Double Object Constructions. Unpublished manuscript. MIT. Higginbotham, James (1996). Class notes. Girona: GLOW Summer School. Jorge, Lurdes T. (2001). Posse Inalienável: Considerações sobre o Movimento no Português Europeu e no Português Brasileiro. Talk presented at the II International Conference of ABRALIN, Fortaleza. Jerpersen, Otto (1954). A Modern English Grammar on Historical Principles. London: George Allen & Gunwin, and Copenhagen: Ejnar Muksgaard. Jackendoff, Ray (1998). Languages of the Mind. Essays on Mental Representation. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press. Labov, William (1975). Sociolinguistics Patterns. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. Larson, Richard K. (1988). On the Double Object Construction. Linguistic Inquiry, 19(3), 335–391. Mateus, Maria Helena M. et al. (1985). Gramática da Língua Portuguesa. Lisboa: Caminho.

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Mollica, Maria Cecília (1996). A Regência Variável do Verbo IR de Movimento. In Giselle M. O. Silva & Maria Marta P. Scherre (Eds.), Padrões Sociolingüísticos – Análise de Fenômenos Variáveis do Português Falado no Rio de Janeiro (pp. 147–167). Rio de Janeiro: Tempo Brasileiro. Pinker, Steven (1989). Learnability and Cognition – The Acquisition of Argument Structure. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Pintzuk, Suzan (1988). VARBRUL Programs. Unpublished manuscript. Ramos, Jânia (2000). Dativos de Posse: o Percurso Diacrônico da Perda de [aNP] Pleno. Talk presented at the Annual Meeting of CELSUL, Curitiba. Ribeiro, Antônio J. C. (1996). Um Caso de Uso Variável de Preposições na Chamada Fala Culta Carioca: a Regência do Verbo Ir de Predicação Incompleta. Master Dissertation. Universidade Federal do Rio Janeiro. Salles, Heloisa Maria M. L. (1997). Prepositions and the Syntax of Complementation. PhD Dissertation. University of Wales. Salles, Heloisa Maria M. L. (2000). Preposições Introdutoras de Objeto Indireto: um Estudo da Variedade Nordestina do Português do Brasil. Afrikasien, Brasilien, Portugal, 56–66. Sankoff, David (1988a). Variable rules. In Ammon Ulrich, Norbert Dittmar, & Klauss J. Mattheier (Eds.), Sociolinguistcs – An International Handbook of the Science of Language and Society (pp. 984–998). Berlin/New York: Walter de Gruyter. Sankoff, David (1988b). Sociolinguistics and Syntactic Variation. In Frederick Niewmeyer (Ed.), Linguistics: the Cambridge Survey, Volume IV (Language: the socio-cultural context) (pp. 140–161). New York: Cambridge University Press. Scher, Ana Paula (2001). Dois Verbos Leves: Evidências das Construções com Verbo Leve Dar em Português Brasileiro. São Paulo: UNICAMP. Unpublished manuscript. Vergnaud, Jean-Roger & Maria Luiza Zubizarreta (1992). The Definite Determiner and the Inalienable Constructions in French and English. Linguistic Inquiry, 23, 592–652.

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Pragmatic variation in Spanish External request modifications in Peninsular and Uruguayan Spanish Rosina Márquez Reiter University of Surrey

.

Introduction

Several studies in Hispanic pragmatics have focused on speech act realization.1 Within these studies some have explored the realisation of one or more speech acts in one variety of Spanish.2 Others have contrasted one or more speech acts in one variety of Spanish with a variety of a different language using English as the contrasting language par excellence.3 Very few, however, have investigated pragmatic variation in Spanish; that is to say, how different varieties of Spanish vary in their use of language in context (Levinson 1983; Placencia 1998). Fant (1996) and Curcó (1998) compared the communicative style of Mexicans and Spaniards and their perceptions of politeness, respectively; while Bravo (1998) examined the role of laughter as a negotiating strategy between the two cultures. Placencia (1994, 1998) and Puga Larraín (1997) added an Andean dimension to studies of pragmatic variation; the former by analysing requests in Ecuadorian and Peninsular Spanish and the latter by observing the use of mitigation in Chilean and Peninsular Spanish. The results of the above mentioned studies of pragmatic variation were based on the analysis of the results of questionnaires, interviews and role-plays as well as informal conversations with native speakers of different varieties of Spanish. These results point to possible misunderstandings between speakers of different linguistic varieties. Most of the (possible) communication problems reported seem to stem from differences in politeness systems, which may cause speakers of Latin American varieties to regard Spaniards as quite direct and rather abrupt. Likewise, Spaniards may consider some Latin American speakers to be rather formal, sometimes even to the point of being comical. There appears to be some kind of assump-

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tion by which Latin American speakers of Spanish are perceived as more indirect and in some cases more deferential than Spaniards. In the light of these comments it may be appropriate to distinguish between the two interrelated concepts: indirectness and tentativeness. Indirectness works at the structural level of the utterance, and in the case of requests it affects the core request or head act, that is to say, the minimal units with which the request can be realized (Blum-Kulka et al. 1989). Tentativeness, on the other hand, is more flexible than indirectness, in that in can occur in the head act and/or in the peripheral elements of the request; thus it can modify the request internally or externally. Examples (1) and (2) taken from the Uruguayan Spanish (US) corpus will be used to illustrate this distinction. (1) ¿Podés atender el teléfono mientras salgo a hacer un mandado? [S2, US] “Can you answer the telephone while I pop out to run an errand?” (2) ¿Podés atender el teléfono por favor mientras salgo a hacer un mandadito? [S2, US] “Can you please answer the telephone while I pop out to run a little errand?” (1) and (2) are equally indirect in that first, the speaker is not asking the addressee to answer the telephone directly and second, the request is realized by means of a socially recognised convention, that of questioning the hearer’s ability to perform the act. However, the fact that (2) has been mitigated by means of a politeness marker (por favor) and a diminutive (-ito) makes it less forceful than (1). The fact that some of these indirect requests have been strategically mitigated by different linguistic means will (probably) affect the perlocutionary effect of the utterance.4 Both requests express, in fact, the same level of indirectness: conventional indirectness. Conventional indirectness has proved to be the most preferred requesting strategy in a number of (contrastive) speech act studies including related and unrelated languages such as English, German, French, Hebrew, Spanish (Blum-Kulka et al. 1989), Tamil, Tzetal (Brown & Levinson 1978, 1987), English and Greek (Sifianou 1992), Indonesian (Hassall 1999), and English and Spanish (García 1991; Márquez Reiter 1997, 2000; Márquez Reiter et al., in press; Placencia 1994, 1998; Vázquez Orta 1995). The explanation for the preference can be found in politeness theory since the strategy amalgamates the speaker’s need to convey the requesting force of the utterance without appearing coercive with his/her desire to ensure that the utterance will have the right interpretation and impact (Brown & Levinson 1987; Márquez Reiter et al., in press). The lack of coerciveness is achieved through questioning the addressee’s ability to perform the act as in examples (1) to (2), and the addressee’s wish, desire and/or willingness as in ¿Te gustaría atender el teléfono?

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“Would you like to answer the telephone?”, ¿Quieres atender el teléfono? “Would you like to answer the telephone?”, ¿Te importaría atender el teléfono?,5 “Would you mind answering the telephone?”, etc. In employing this strategy, the speaker softens the force of the request by means of its indirectness and is certain that the addressee will interpret the utterance as a request and not as a yes/no question due to its conventionality. Having established the difference between indirectness and tentativeness, we will now proceed to describe the methodology employed to generate comparable requests in both language varieties. Upon analyzing the data, we will consider whether the evidence gathered here supports or rejects lay claims of Peninsular Spanish ‘directness’ and ‘abruptness’ relative to other varieties of Spanish, namely Uruguayan Spanish.

. The study This study examines the similarities and differences in the realization of conventionally indirect requests in Uruguayan Spanish (US) and Peninsular Spanish (PS). The US corpus was collected in Uruguay in 19976 and the PS corpus in England in 2000. The requests were collected via a non-prescriptive open role-play taken from Márquez Reiter (2000). The population of the study consisted of 64 (31 females and 33 males) Uruguayan and 23 (18 females and 5 males) Spanish undergraduate university students. The US data were collected in Uruguay, and the PS data were collected in England immediately after the arrival of a contingent of Spanish undergraduate university students on a European study exchange programme. The role-play was comprised of six scenarios representing everyday social situations of the type expected to be familiar to both groups of subjects. Four informants were recruited per set of role-plays (a total of 6 situations). The first informant couple role-played the first three situations, alternating the roles of requester and requestee, and the second couple followed the same pattern for the other three situations. The object was to avoid possible cumulative effects of the situations and to prevent the informants from getting too comfortable in their roles and start developing natural personal relationships. No considerations of gender were taken into account due to the disparity in Uruguayan and Spanish numbers. For an example of the tasks given to the informants, as well as for the language elicited, see the Appendix. While the Uruguayan data were audio-recorded, the Spanish data were videorecorded. In both cases, prior consent was gained from all informants. Although the Uruguayans knew they were being recorded, they could see neither the tape recorder nor the microphone. The interaction of the Spaniards was recorded in

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Table 1. Combination of social variables Situation

Social distance

Social power

Ranking of imposition

1 – borrow book 2 – cover telephone calls 3 – help with moving 4 – swap bus seats 5 – ask for pay advance 6 – borrow laptop

+SD +SD +SD +SD +SD +SD

SH S=H S=H SH

Low Low High Low High High

SD = social distance; S = speaker; H = hearer

a two-way mirror observation-and-recording suite with closed circuit TV from three hidden remote control cameras. Hence, it could be argued that the ‘imposing’ presence of a recording device was thus minimised for both groups of subjects. Prior to the carrying out of the role-play, the role-play situations were discussed with different groups of native speakers of US and PS. Furthermore, a multiple-choice questionnaire assessing the context-internal and context-external factors of the situations was administered to 30 university undergraduates in Uruguay and 20 Spanish undergraduate university students on a European study exchange programme in 1999. The purpose of this exercise was to ensure comparability and ‘sameness’ of meaning in both cultures. A pilot test of the instructions and execution of the role-play was deemed unnecessary since the instrument had been successfully employed in previous studies (Márquez Reiter et al., in press). The six situations of the role-play vary according to the relative social power between the participants, the ranking of imposition, and the social distance between the interlocutors. It should be noted that the social distance or familiarity between participants was kept constant since this variable has been shown to correlate negatively with indirectness; that is to say, the less familiar the participants are, the more likely it is for them to request indirectly (Márquez Reiter 2000). The other two remaining variables, namely, relative social power and total ranking of imposition7 were alternated so as to generate conventionally indirect requests in all possible combinations of the two variables as shown in Table 1.

. Results and discussion The data collection instrument generated only conventionally indirect requests in both varieties of Spanish as opposed to direct and non-conventionally indirect requests. Therefore, it seems that the negative correlation found between (in)directness and familiarity for US university students (Márquez Reiter 2000) also applies to PS university students. In other words, both PS and US university

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students are more likely to be indirect when interacting with people they are not (too) familiar with than when interacting with those whom they know (very) well. For analytical purposes the requests generated by the instrument will be divided into their core components, namely external modifications, head act and internal modifications. In this paper only the external modifications will be analyzed. Example (3) below has its head act underlined. Head acts are generally preceded and/or followed by peripheral elements which do not change the propositional content of the request but modify it either by aggravating or mitigating its force. (3) Oye, ¿eres nueva aquí, verdad? ¿te importaría prestarme el ordenador por un minuto?, así puedo continuar con este trabajo [S6, PS] “Excuse me, you’re new here, aren’t you? Would you mind lending me your computer for a minute so that I can continue with this job?” Oye, ¿eres nueva aquí, verdad? and así puedo continuar con este trabajo work as external modifications, the former as a precursor of the attention-getting type and the latter as a grounder to justify the request; whereas the inclusion of por un minuto in the head act works as an internal modifier downgrading the force of the request.

. External modifications This type of modification is achieved by optional clauses which either downgrade or upgrade the force of the utterance. The vast majority of external modifiers found in the literature are of the downgrading or softening type. The most frequently found in this study were precursors, grounders and disarmers.

.. Precursors Precursors, or alerters as they are sometimes called (cf. Blum-Kulka et al. 1989), draw the addressee’s attention to the ensuing act, in this case a conventionally indirect request. Although precursors can be realized in a number of ways, the ones found in the data were: discourse markers of the attention-getting type such as Oye, Oiga in PS and Mire and Mirá8 (“Look”) in US; apologetic formulae such as Disculpe, Disculpá, Perdón (“Excuse me”); first names, nicknames, or titles such as Profesor (‘Professor’), Sra. (“Mrs”), Srta. (“Miss”), and Sr. (“Mr”) to attract the addressee’s attention. Greetings of the ¡Hola! Buen(os) día(s) type (“Hello! Good morning”) were also commonly used in both language varieties, as were combinations of the aforementioned precursors. Both Uruguayans and Spaniards employed precursors in all their requests. The main differences found in both varieties reside in the frequency with which some precursors were used and in the range employed by both cultures. While Spaniards tended to employ mainly greetings and discourse markers of the attention-getting



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type, showing a very low incidence of apologetic formulae, Uruguayans not only employed a wider range of precursors but combined them, producing longer preambles to their requests. Let us now examine the most notable pragmatic differences between these language varieties.

... Oye, oiga, mire y mirá. Oye and mirá are attention-getting devices which focus mainly on the addressee. In this study they were found in more than half of the situations of the role-play in PS and US, respectively. They were found preceding either other external modifiers or head acts to which they co-referred. It should be noted that Oye and mirá can be considered independent utterances. Although they are minimal units, they can stand on their own and convey a series of contextual meanings. Martín Zorraquino and Portolés Lázaro (1999: 4184) explain that oye, to a lesser extent than mira, has lost its full literal semantic meaning of ‘to perceive from the ear’ and/or ‘to pay attention to whoever is talking to us’ in PS. Mirá still retains its literal meaning of ‘to look at’ in US although, like its PS counterpart, it is also used with the purpose of drawing the addressee’s attention to the speaker. The markers can be conjugated to show the distinction between tú and usted in PS (oye, oiga) and between tú, vos and usted in US (mira, mirá and mire). Whereas both particles can be employed in PS to gain the hearer’s attention, in US only mirá is used to perform that function, since oir has retained its full literal meaning. Martín Zorraquino and Portolés Lázaro (1999) claim that one of the main differences between oye and mira in PS is that the latter appears to provide some kind of support for the speaker’s point of view or speaker’s preferences. It is thus, they claim, more often employed with declaratives than with interrogatives. The authors observe that when mira precedes interrogatives in PS it has a mitigating function, that of downgrading the force of the utterance. They add that in PS it also works as a way of getting closer to the interlocutor, and they provide the following example, among others, to illustrate their point: Mira, ¿qué te gustaría ver? (p. 4182) with the meaning of “Look, what would you like to see?”. Due to the fact that there were an insufficient number of instances of mirá in the US corpus, we are unable to attest whether this attention-getting device has a similar function to its PS counterpart. Interestingly enough, however, it was only employed with declaratives as evidenced in examples (4) and (5) below. Also interestingly, both oye and mira in PS and mirá in US can be used to signal the appearance of an utterance expressing conflict, as in: Oye, no digas tonterías. (“X, don’t talk nonsense.”) And Mira/mirá, X, no me parece que tengas razón.9 (“Look, X, I don’t think you’re right.”) Although both oye and mira are possible in PS, the data only had incidences of the former, as shown in example (3) above. As previously explained, only mire,

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mira and mirá are used in US. The data showed instances of addressing the hearer as usted and as vos. Thus there are only cases of mire and mirá as in examples (4) and (5) below: (4) Mire profesor, disculpe pero necesito un libro para terminar un trabajo y la biblioteca está cerrada y, no sé, quería saber si me lo podría prestar. [S1, US] “Excuse me Professor but I need a book to finish this assignment and the library is closed and I don’t know, I wanted to know if you could lend it to me.” (5) Mirá, disculpá que te moleste, ¿te podría pedir un favor? [S1, US] “Excuse me, sorry to bother you, could I ask you a favour?” It would thus seem that oye and mirá have similar pragmatic meanings in PS and US, respectively. The only difference between them could derive from their semantic meaning. Since oye is hearer-oriented and mirá speaker-oriented, in employing the former, the speaker maybe indicating a wish to enter the hearer’s realm, while in utilizing the latter, the speaker wishes the hearer to enter his/her realm. As previously mentioned, the data showed instances of mirá with declaratives and when prefacing some kind of problem or conflict by the speaker. In this sense, it could be argued that its function is that of inviting the addressee to express his/her opinion on a particular problem/issue; in other words, asking the addressee to put him/herself in the speaker’s shoes. However, more data is needed in order to consider such claim.

... Perdón and Disculpá. Spanish has a range of formulaic remedies such as lo siento, lo lamento, permiso, con permiso, perdón, perdoná, disculpe, disculpá. Due to the scope of this paper only those which occurred in the corpus will be discussed. Both perdonar and disculpar are transitive verbs which can be employed before or after an infraction has taken place. They are generally used pre-event with the same meaning as ‘excuse me’ in British English. The main difference between these two formula verbs in US is a question of frequency and formality; Uruguayans perceive perdonar as more formal than disculpar and thus tend to use the latter in their interactions.10 What is interesting about their use is that although both apologetic verbs can be used as attention-getters in PS, their incidence is very low compared to US. It should be noted that in those cases where apologetic formulae were employed as precursors (in less than a 1/5 of the total number of requests), Spaniards preferred perdonar to disculpar. The data also showed that when apologetic formulae were employed as precursors in US, Uruguayans preferred a combination of them, especially with greetings or titles as shown in examples (6) and (7) below:

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(6) Disculpe señor, ¿no me cambia de asiento? [S4, US] “Excuse me, sir. Can you swap seats with me?” (7) Buen día, disculpeme, ¿me podría cambiar de asiento? [S4, US] “Good morning, excuse me, could you swap seats with me?” This observed difference in the use of a combination of precursors is supported by the results of a paired t-test showing a borderline significant difference at p > 0.06 in favour of US with df = 5 and at 95% confidence interval. The use of more precursors and, in particular, the use of apologetic formulae as attention-getting devices by the Uruguayans, could be taken as an indication that they are relatively more conscious about their space and that of the addressee. Likewise, the linguistic behaviour of the Spaniards could be taken as a sign that they appear to be relatively more ‘space-tolerant’ than their Uruguayan counterparts.

... Titles and combinations. This type of precursor had a similar incidence in both language variants. The main difference in the use of address terms between the two groups of informants was found in situations 4, 1 and 5. In situation 4 the speaker asks a complete stranger – another bus passenger – to swap seats with him/her. Nearly half of the US speakers explicitly mentioned the addressee’s title at some point in their precursors, as shown in example (6) above. The Spaniards, on the other hand, did not once mention the addressee’s title. They did, however, accompany their precursors with apologetic formulae. In fact, almost half of the PS precursors in situation 4 have an apologetic formula, as shown in example (8). (8) Perdone, ¿le importaría sentarse en otro lado? [S4, PS] “Excuse me, would you mind seating somewhere else?” While the Uruguayans felt the need to display a combination of apologetic formulae and titles in this situation, the Spaniards found it necessary to employ only apologetic formulae with some of their precursors, thus sounding less formal. Situations 1 and 5 depict asymmetrical scenarios where the addressee had been vested with institutional power over the speaker; namely, in situation 1 where a student addresses a university lecturer, and in situation 5 where an employee addresses his/her manager. More than half of the precursors employed by the Uruguayans in situation 1 and over a third of those employed in situation 5 included the addressee’s (working) title as shown in examples (9)–(11), as against none by the Spaniards: (9) Mire profesor, disculpe, estoy buscando un libro sobre . . . [S1, US] “Look, professor, excuse me, I’m looking for a book on . . . ” (10) Disculpe jefe, le venía a plantear un problema . . . [S5, US] “Excuse me, chief, I wanted to talk to you about a problem . . . ”

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(11) Hola Sr. Gerente, necesito hablar con Ud . . . [S5, US] “Hello Mr Manager, I need to talk to you . . . ” Despite the fact that in situations 1 and 5 both groups of informants felt the need to address their hearers as usted, only the Uruguayans saw it appropriate to explicitly acknowledge the hearer’s authority over them. The slightly more formal, deferential and ‘authority-conscious’ linguistic behaviour of the Uruguayans in relation to that of the Spaniards could be explained by the score gained by both cultures in Hofstede’s (1983) power distance and uncertainty avoidance dimensions. Power distance is the extent to which members of a society accept that power is distributed unequally (p. 295). Uncertainty avoidance, on the other hand, is the level of anxiety that members of a society feel in the face of unstructured and/or ambiguous situations (p. 295). In Hofstede’s seminal study, Uruguayans scored higher than the Spaniards on power distance (28 against 23) and on uncertainty avoidance (47 against 36–41) thus expressing more feelings of social inequality and more of a need for structure and formalisation, respectively.

.. Grounders and disarmers Grounders or reasons can precede or follow the request head act. As illustrated by the term, the speaker gives reasons justifying his/her request.11 Disarmers,12 on the other hand, are external modifications employed with the purpose of ‘disarming’ the addressee to avoid the possibility of refusal. Disarmers can be realized in a number of ways; in this study we found only instances of reasons as the method used for ‘disarming.’ PS and US showed parallels not only in the choice of grounders and disarmers as their most preferred external modification devices, but also in the frequency with which these devices were employed. Whereas the use of disarmers by the Spaniards is slightly higher than that of the Uruguayans, both cultures employed a very similar number of grounders. It is, however, worth noting that the Uruguayans showed more explicitness in stating the justifying reasons in their grounders. In other words, in giving reasons Uruguayans were more ready to disclose (personal) information about themselves than the Spaniards, as exemplified in (12) and (13) below: (12) ¡Hola, buenos días! Soy la chica que trabaja en el departamento de aquí al lado. Estoy teniendo un pequeño problema. Necesito pagar un par de recibos que he recibido y no puedo pagarlos por ahora. Me preguntaba si Ud. podría darme un anticipo . . . [S5, PS] “Hello, good morning! I’m the girl that works in the office next door. I’ve got a little problem. I need to pay a couple of bills which I’ve received and

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I can’t pay them for the time being. I was wondering if you could give me an advance.” (13) ¡Buenos días Sr. Gerente! Venía a pedirle a ver si no me podía ayudar en la situación en la que estoy. Me llegaron las cuentas de la luz, de la intendencia y todo y tengo que pagar. Si no pago, la verdad que me echarían de la casa y eso sería bravo porque no tengo a quién pedirle prestado. Quería pedirle por favor, si Ud. no me podría adelantar algo de sueldo. [S5, US] “Good morning Mr Manager, I came to ask you if you could help me due to the situation I’m in. I’ve got the electricity bill and the town hall bill and everything to pay. If I don’t pay, the truth is they would throw me out and that would be grave because I don’t have anyone to borrow from. I wanted to ask you if you could give me an advance of some of my salary.”

. Conclusion The analysis of the data showed similarities and differences in the way in which speakers of Peninsular and Uruguayan Spanish externally modify their conventionally indirect requests. Despite the fact that Spaniards tend to be seen as more direct and abrupt than Latin Americans, there were no differences at the level of the linguistic encoding of the utterances analysed. In fact, this study has provided further support for the negative correlation found between social distance or familiarity and indirectness in that both Spanish and Uruguayan university students have been shown to be indirect with people they do not know well. The findings of this study have also pointed out that one of the possible explanations as to why Spaniards are regarded as more direct could reside in the lack of tentativeness conveyed by their requests relative to other varieties of Spanish. In contrast with PS speakers, US speakers showed a preference for more external modification of the downgrading type, thus making their requests longer than those in PS and more tentative. The tentativeness expressed in US, as opposed to that of PS, is reflected in the slightly higher levels of formality of US formulaic expressions. One possible explanation for this is that US speakers have more awareness of their space and that of the other. It could be argued that the difference in linguistic formulae creates the basis for generalizations about people. Just as Spaniards might interpret the use of apologetic verbs as attention-getting devices as (slightly) formal, Uruguayans see it as everyday since in their linguistic variety. They are accustomed to hearing these verbs employed in such contexts for such purposes. Likewise, Uruguayans might

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consider the use of discourse markers such as oye as too intruding an attentiongetting device, since in US the particle has retained its full semantic meaning. Thus it would appear that negative generalizations of the type described stem from the different pragmatic functions which similar lexical items realize in different cultures. Unfamiliarity, rather than any actual typological difference, appears to be the main force at work.

Notes . In this paper a condensed version of the results of a more detailed study Márquez Reiter (2002) are discussed. Both articles are based on an analysis of conventional indirect requests collected via an open role-play. While the present study only deals with the external modifications to the requests, in Márquez Reiter (2002) the distinction between indirectness and tentativeness is further explored with particular reference to Haverkate’s (1994) analysis of (in) direct requests. The latter study also deals with the internal modifications to the requests as well as with the requests head acts. . See for example Price (1987) on Ecuadorian Spanish; García (1991) on Peruvian Spanish; Haverkate (1994), Krüger (1996) and Hernández Flores (1999) on Peninsular Spanish. . See for example Walters (1979) on Puerto Rican Spanish and American English; García (1989) on Venezuelan Spanish and American English; Placencia (1992, 1995) on Ecuadorian Spanish and British English; Mir (1992) on Peninsular Spanish and American English; Koike (1994) on Mexican Spanish and American English; Vázquez Orta (1995) on Peninsular Spanish and British English; Márquez Reiter (1997, 2000) on Uruguayan Spanish and British English, and Ruzcicowka (1999) on Cuban Spanish and American English. . Bearing in mind the reported negative correlation between social distance and indirectness (Márquez Reiter 2000), it could be counter argued that in certain cases, indirectness could be interpreted/perceived as a form of tentativeness when used in favour of direct requests, especially among people who know each other well. . These examples were not taken from the corpus but were constructed for explanatory purposes. . The original US corpus consisted of 12 requesting situations, out of which those in which the interlocutors were not familiar with each other were chosen for this study since familiarity has been shown to correlate negatively with indirectness (Márquez Reiter 2000). While 64 Uruguayan university undergraduate students participated in the open role-play, generating 16 requests per situation, only those which elicited conventionally indirect requests were selected for the purposes of the present study. . The three explanatory variables employed are based on Brown and Levinson (1978, 1987). The values given to the variables reflect the responses to the multiple-choice questionnaire and the results of discussions with native speakers. In the case of binary values, namely +SD, –SD, and high vs. low imposition, it could be argued that there could be more than two values. It is worth noting, however, that the informants were not given the val-

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ues. This is something they interpreted for themselves, and they responded accordingly by varying their requesting strategies. . This conjugation corresponds to vos. In Uruguayan Spanish, and in particular in Montevidean Spanish. There are three pronouns which represent the second person singular, namely tú, usted and vos. Montevideans tend to use vos in their informal interactions, and when addressing the hearer as tú they employ the form of the verb which corresponds to vos instead of the one corresponding to tú, producing utterances such as Tú tenés que entender lo que te estoy diciendo instead of Tú tienes que entender lo que te estoy diciendo. (“You’ve got to understand what I’m talking about.”) . These two examples were not taken from the corpus. I am grateful to Professor Hickey for having provided them. . This is based on the results of a questionnaire on the use of apology verbs in Uruguayan Spanish. The questionnaire was administered to 30 university students studying at the Universidad de la República in Montevideo in 1997. . The giving of reasons has been associated with showing co-operation and consideration between the interlocutors. Grounders stand out as the single most frequent supportive move in request studies (House & Kasper 1987). . The term has been taken from Blum-Kulka et al. (1989).

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Searle, John (1975). Indirect speech acts. In Peter Cole & Jerry Morgan (Eds.), Syntax and Semantics 3: Speech Acts (pp. 59–82). New York: Academic Press. Vázquez-Orta, Ignacio (1995). A contrastive study of politeness phenomena in England and Spain. Applied & Interdisciplinary Papers, 267. Duisburg: L.A.U.D. Walters, Joel (1979). The perception of politeness in English and Spanish. In Carlos K. Yorio & Jacqueline Schachter (Eds.), On TESOL ’79 (pp. 288–296). Washington, DC: TESOL.

Appendix Situation 2 (from the US corpus) Informante A: Sos empleado/a de una companía para la cual trabajás hace ya bastante tiempo. Entre tus tareas tenés que atender el teléfono. Te acercás al escritorio de un/a aprendiz y le pedís que atienda el teléfono mientras salís a buscar unas cosas. ¿Qué le decís? Informante B: Sos un/a nuevo/a aprendiz en una compañía. Uno/a de los/las empleados/as que está a cargo de atender el teléfono se acerca a tu escritorio y te habla. Respondele.

A: Tengo que salir un segundo/ no te animás a atenderme el teléfono un minutito cuando/ cuando salga B: Bueno bueno yo te lo atiendo/ no/ no hay problema/ vas a demorar mucho A: No/ voy a ir hasta/ ahí/ tengo que dar unas vueltas y/ vuelvo B: Trata de no/ de no demorarte mucho porque yo/ me tengo que ir en un rato/ así que A: Ta/ sabés utilizar la central o B: No/ la verdad que no tengo mucha idea/ si me decís A: Bueno/ si apretás éste botón/ se la pasas a / Gerencia/ si apretás éste se la pasas a Secretaría y/ bueno/ acá tenés la lista de/ todas las demás Secciones B: Ta/ ta ta A: Bueno gracias

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Clitic simplification in a contact variety of Spanish Third person accusative pronouns in the Mexican-American community of Houston* N. Ariana Mrak University of Houston-Downtown

.

Introduction

In situations where speakers have to deal with two or more linguistic systems, they attempt to lighten the cognitive load by reducing the number of forms in their repertoire. One process that allows for such a reduction is simplification, the higher frequency of use of a form X in context Y (i.e. generalization) at the expense of a form Z, usually in competition with and semantically closely related to X, where both X and Z existed in the language prior to the initiation of simplification. Thus X is an expanding form, while Z is a shrinking or contracting form. If simplification reaches completion, its final outcome is reduction or loss of forms and elimination of alternatives, i.e. a simplified system with fewer forms and possibly, though not necessarily, loss of meanings (Silva-Corvalán 1994: 3, emphasis in the original). One area of Spanish grammar that would seem to lend itself to such a process is the third person accusative pronominal paradigm. Its complexity derives on the one hand from the gender and number markings of its forms, and on the other from the historically challenging differentiation between accusative and dative third person forms (Lapesa 1968). Concerning the former problem, the accusative forms are more marked than the dative, and given a choice, speakers prefer less marked forms (Seliger 1996). On the latter, the assignment of accusative versus dative roles in Spanish has a muddled past that dates as far back as the twelfth and thirteenth centuries in texts such as Cantar de Mio Cid (Montaner 1993: 108) and poems by Berceo (1983: 31).

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Once a noun phrase (NP) has been established in the discourse, coreferentiality carrying the accusative function can be signaled through one of four accusative clitics, lo/la/los/las. The choice varies depending on the gender and the number of the NP. In other words, every time speakers want to produce an accusative clitic, they must make gender and number choices. In order to do so, these features have to have been previously assigned to the NP. Additional complications are added by the semantic opaqueness created by the existence of accusative as well as dative forms, all of which leads to difficulties in the selection process. Various studies of clitic production in situations of language contact have shown alterations in this paradigm. Korkostegi (1992) reports omission of clitics for speakers of Basque Spanish in situations where the referent has the feature [–human] and duplication of a referent with its coreferential pronoun when the NP is [+human]. Fernández-Ordóñez (1994) also finds cases of omission with inanimate referents in this same variety. In addition, she encounters dative clitics in accusative contexts for referents that are [+animate], either [±masculine] and [±singular]. Landa (1995) reconfirms that speakers of Spanish in the Basque Country produce dative forms in place of accusative ones for animate referents. Two phenomena that this author considers related are omission of clitics with inanimate objects and duplication of an NP with a clitic. She points out that duplication occurs in cases where dative clitics replace NPs having the feature [+animate]. The work by Urrutia Cárdenas and Fernández Ulloa (1995) documents duplication with [–human] NPs. Studies conducted in Latin America have looked at varieties of Spanish in contact with Quechua, Aymara and Guarani. In the case of the latter, Granda (1982) reports the use of the singular dative le for all accusative cases. In Ecuador, García and Otheguy (1983) find bilingual speakers with an accusative paradigm of only two forms: lo and le. These speakers use the singular masculine accusative form in plural and/or feminine contexts. They also produce the dative singular form in accusative situations. Godenzzi (1986) shows that in Puno, Peru, speakers whose L1 is Spanish tend to replace accusative forms with dative ones, while speakers with Quechua or Aymara as their L1 both prefer lo for all four accusative contexts and present cases of duplication. Also in Peru, Klee (1990) and Escobar (1994) find not only the same use for lo that exists in Puno but also omission of accusative pronouns, while Caravedo (1990) reports both of these phenomena along with dative usage. The Spanish spoken in the U.S. is also a contact variety, but it is not in the position of being the dominant language as it is in Spain and Latin America. In addition, while clitics do not appear in the surface structure of languages such as Quechua, English object pronouns fill the direct object category. The difference between the contact languages may result in changes that are not identical. Schaff (1982) investigates accusative production in Arizona and northern Mexico and re-

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Clitic simplification in a contact variety of Spanish 

ports a preference for dative forms. Gutiérrez and Silva-Corvalán (1993) find cases of omission of accusative pronouns in Mexican Spanish in Los Angeles as well as a preference for dative over accusative forms. They also find masculine in place of feminine and singular when plural pronouns are expected. Hernández (1997) discovers, among Mexican speakers in Houston, a drop in the frequency of use of third person accusative clitics that overwhelmingly favors the reiteration of the NP. The present study attempts to determine whether or not there is a change in progress within the third person accusative pronominal paradigm of the Spanish spoken by the Mexican-American community of Houston. In order to do this, the study quantifies the production of accusative forms by three groups of speakers divided according to the age of first contact with English. Our hypothesis suggests that the frequency of accusative clitics will decrease as the amount of contact with English increases. The reduction in the number of accusative pronouns will lead to an increase in frequency of use of the following forms: (1) the reiteration of the NP, (2) the use of the pronoun eso, (3) dative clitics in accusative contexts, (4) duplication, (5) the reassignment of gender and/or number, and (6) the omission of the clitic.

. Methodology In order to determine whether a change is taking place in the Mexican-American variety of Spanish spoken in Houston, the speakers were divided into three groups based on their ages of arrival in the U.S.1 Thirty tape-recorded interviews were conducted and the principal characteristics of the speakers are shown in Table 1. An additional restriction placed on the bilingual speakers was a minimum residence length in Houston of ten years, so that they would speak a Houston variety of Mexican-American Spanish. In order to have a control group that had no interaction with English, ten interviews of speakers of the popular speech of Mexico City were taken from Lope Blanch (1976).2 All constructions in which the verb assigns an accusative function to an NP previously introduced into the discourse were coded. They were divided into categories and the frequency of use was calculated for each one. In order to determine the statistical significance of the results, analyses of variance (ANOVAs) were run using the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS).

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Table 1. Coding of bilingual speakers Speaker

Gen.

Sex

Age

Education

Occupation

An Be Sa Lo Ca Fl Ja Va Ma Ge

1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1

F F F F F M M M M M

34 56 37 37 22 31 52 25 26 39

Univ. 3rd year Elem. 3rd year Tech. 1st year Elem. 6th year Univ. 2nd year Tech. 1st year High School Univ. 3rd year Univ. 3rd year Univ. 2nd year

Student Housewife Med. Assistant Deliveries Clerical Maint. Supervisor Clerical Student Student Building Maint.

Ar Gl Pa Mi Do Ad Fe Ri Ge Al

2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2

F F F F F M M M M M

21 24 37 21 28 19 31 23 22 33

Univ. 3rd year Univ. 3rd year University Univ. 3rd year Univ. 3rd year Univ. 3rd year Univ. 3rd year Univ. 3rd year Univ. 3rd year High School

Student Student Librarian Student Student Student Student Student Student Clerical

Ju Ca Is Cl Is En Le Pe Ni To

3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3

F F F F F M M M M M

42 55 26 58 38 23 22 24 32 44

Tech. 1st year Tech. 1st year Univ. 2nd year 8th grade Univ. 2nd year Univ. 2nd year Univ. 3rd year Univ. 3rd year University Univ. 2nd year

Clerical Clerical Student Assembler Carpenter Student Student Student Policeman Military

. Results The coding of all the accusative constructions produced by the bilingual speakers in our sample appear in Table 2 under generations 1, 2 and 3, while the control group is labeled generation 0.3 The production of expected accusative clitics is displayed in the column labeled 1. These are the cases in which one of the four accusative pronouns was used and the one selected agrees in gender and number with the coreferential NP, as in example (1).

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Table 2. Production in accusative contexts by generation G

1 EA

2 RN

3 RE

4 RD

5 DC

6 GN

7 OC

0

87%/361a

3%/11 (1.29)b

0%/3 (.48)

6%/25 (2.42)

0%/3 (.67)

2%/10 (1.56)

1%/4 (.70)

414

1

80%/421

6%/33 (2.71)

3%/14 (2.07)

5%/29 (2.51)

1%/7 (.82)

4%/20 (1.63)

1%/4 (.52)

521

2

59%/298

14%/68 (5.92)

3%/17 (1.77)

6%/30 (2.40)

2%/9 (.74)

12%/62 (7.47)

4%/18 (1.62)

493

3

58%/362

15%/95 (4.93)

5%/28 (2.53)

9%/53 (3.92)

1%/6 (.70)

8%/50 (2.75)

4%/26 (2.67)

613

Totals

Note. G = generation, 1 = Expected accusatives, 2 = Reiteration of the NP, 3 = Replacement with the pronoun eso, 4 = Replacement with datives, 5 = Duplication of the clitic with its coreferential NP, 6 = Reassignment of gender and/or number, 7 = Omission of the clitic. a = Number of tokens. b ( ) = Standard deviation.

(1) Mi papá está un poco indeciso pero mi mamá lo convence. (Ca/F/22/1/9)4 My dad be-pres a little undecided but my mom him-acc convince-pres5 “My dad is a little undecided but my mom will convince him.” Even though we can observe in column 1 that monolingual speakers do not produce expected clitics one hundred percent of the time, the frequency of expected clitics decreases for the groups with more time in the U.S., where there is a difference of 29% between the monolingual and the third generation speakers. Meanwhile, the next five columns contain forms other than the expected accusative pronouns. Each one of them shows an increase in use among the bilingual speakers. The second column represents situations such as the one in example (2), in which the speaker repeats the NP instead of replacing it with a clitic. (2) No quiero boda, y mi novio sí quiere boda, sí yo no quiero boda porque es mucho dinero y prefiero gastarlo en otra cosa. (Gl/F/24/2/9) neg want-pres-1st-sg wedding, and my boyfriend yes want-pres wedding, yes I neg want-pres wedding because be-pres-3rd-sg much money and prefer-pres-1st-sg spend-inf-it-acc-masc-sg in other thing “I do not want a wedding, and my boyfriend does want a wedding, yes I do not want a wedding because it is a lot of money and I prefer to spend it on something else.” This reiteration occurs with [±animate] NPs. It does not create an ungrammatical utterance. It does, however, cause semantic-pragmatic changes in the discourse

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Table 3. ANOVAS Variable

Sum of Squares

df

Mean Square

F

Sig.

RN

BG WG

414.675 615.100

3 36

138.225 17.086

8.090

.000

RE

BG WG

31.700 126.200

3 36

10.567 3.506

3.014

.043

RD

BG WG

48.275 299.500

3 36

16.092 8.319

1.934

.141

DC

BG WG

1.875 19.500

3 36

.625 .542

1.154

.341

GN

BG WG

180.300 623.600

3 36

60.100 17.322

3.470

.026

OC

BG WG

35.600 94.800

3 36

11.867 2.633

4.506

.009

Note. RN = Reiteration of the NP, RE = Replacement with the pronoun eso, RD = replacement with datives, DC = Duplication of the clitic with its coreferential NP, GN = Reassignment of gender and/or number, OC = Omission of the clitic, BG = Between the groups, WG = Within the groups.

from the interlocutor’s point of view. A second occurrence of the NP may go unnoticed, but a case such as the one in (2) may seem redundant to the hearer.6 The results of an LSD post hoc test indicate that there are significant differences between the control group and generations 2 and 3 as well as between the first generation and groups 2 and 3. The ANOVA values appear in Table 3. A way of avoiding the redundancy issue has been adopted by the bilingual speakers. The pronoun eso, which fills the accusative function without making gender and/or number demands is exemplified in (3) and (4). As can be seen in these examples this pronoun is not limited to [+masculine, +singular] NPs.7 (3) Se enojan cuando los japoneses dicen cosas de nosotros, pos es verdad. Yo no creo que los japoneses hagan de decir eso. (Is/F/26/3/7) ref get mad-3rd-pl when the Japanese say-pres things of us, well bepres-3rd-sg true. I neg believe-pres that the Japanese do-subj of say-inf that. “They get mad when the Japanese say things about us; well it is true. I do not believe that the Japanese say that.” (4) Ahorita nos está enseñando mucho de los verbos, los verbos con diferentes conjunciones con ar, er, ir. Y yo nunca ha conocido eso. (Le/M/32/3/9) Now us-dat teach-prog-3rd-sg much of the verbs, the verbs with differ-

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Clitic simplification in a contact variety of Spanish 

ent conjunctions with ar, er, ir. And I neg know-perf-3rd-sg that “Now he is teaching us a lot about the verbs, the verbs with different conjugations with ar, er, ir. And I have never known that.” According to the ANOVA, the level of significance for this variable is .043, which points to notable differences, as the confidence level is 95%. The LSD post hoc test confirms that the significance lies between the control group and the third generation. Both the reiteration of the NP and the use of eso seem to fall under what Schachter (1974) termed avoidance, where speakers do not produce a particular linguistic variable of which they are unsure, thus getting around the risk of forming an ungrammatical utterance. Replacement of accusative pronouns by dative ones is a phenomenon known as leísmo, common to some varieties of peninsular Spanish. It can be found in literary forms of Latin American varieties but it is not common in the speech of this area. Before we can determine if there is an increase in dative usage within accusative contexts, we need to demonstrate that our monolingual group of speakers did not belong to such a variety of Spanish.8 This was confirmed by the control group, which displays a frequency of dative usage of 6% under the ‘Replacement by Datives’ category in Table 2. Constructions in which le or les appear when an accusative pronoun is expected, as in (5), vary from the type of leísmo found in Spain, as pointed out by García (1990) for Andean varieties of Spanish. The difference is that dative replacement in our corpus is not limited to [+masculine, +singular, +human] NPs, but also occurs with NPs that have the features [–animate, +feminine, –singular], as in (6), (7) and (8). (5) Mi mejor amigo ahorita está en al militá, está en the Air Force [ . . . ] Le conocí desde que estuvimos niños. (Pe/M/24/3/5) My best friend now be-pres in the military, be-pres in the Air Force. Himdat know-pret-1st-sg from that be-pret children. “My best friend is now in the military, he is in the Air Force [ . . . ] I have known him since we were children.” (6) Desde entonces no hablaba en español. Sí, lo entiendo y le hablo un poquito, no muy bien pero, no sé escribirlo ni a leerlo. (Is/F/38/3/2) Since then neg speak-impf in Spanish. Yes, it-acc understand-pres-1stsg and it-dat speak-1st-sg a little, neg very well but, neg know-pres-1stsg write-inf-it-acc neg to read-inf-it-acc. “Since then I would not speak in Spanish. Yes, I understand it, and I speak it a little, not very well but, I do not know how to read it or write it.” (7) También como tenemos una visitante de Rusia, [ . . . ] entonces la, ella le, le llevamos a conocer algunas restaurants y todo. (Ge/M/22/2/5) Also since have-pres-1st-pl a visitor from Russia, then her-acc, she her-

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dat, her-dat take-1st-pl to know-inf some restaurants and all. “Also since we have a visitor from Russia, we take her to see new restaurants and all.” (8) Eso debía de ayudarles a las escuelas en el estado de Tejas. (Al/M/33/2/16) That should help-inf-them-dat to the schools in the state of Texas “That should help the schools in the state of Texas.” The two dative pronouns do not have the degree of popularity with our group that they demonstrated in other contact situations, and the ANOVA proved not to be significant at the .05 level. However, a slight increase does exist for the third generation speakers, confirmed by a significance of .037 in the post hoc test. As was mentioned earlier, constructions in which both the clitic and the coreferential NP appear in the same utterance have been reported for other contact varieties. Duplication of the direct object (DO) with a clitic in standard Spanish is mandatory when the DO is pronominal, as in example (9). It is optional when the DO has the features [+animate] and [+specific], as in (10). It is not permitted when the DO is [–animate], as in (11) (Jaeggli 1982). However, if the NP is left-dislocated, duplication is needed, as in (12) (Rini 1992). (9) *Encontré a él. Lo encontré a él. him-acc find-pret-1st-sg to him-acc “I found him.” (10) Encontré a Jorge. ?Lo encontré a Jorge.

“I found Jorge.”

(11) Encontré el libro. *Lo encontré el libro.

“I found the book.”

(12) El libro lo encontré.

“I found the book.”

Our data contain utterances in which an inanimate NP appears in the same construction with its coreferential clitic, as can be seen in example (13). (13) La voy abriendo la carta bien despacito, mi mamá ni se da cuenta, que está pasando aquí. (Ju/F/42/3/5) It-acc go-pres-1st-sg open-prpart the letter very slowly, my mother neg ref notice-pres, what happen-prog here. “I start opening the letter very slowly, my mom does not even realize, what is happening here.” It can be seen in Table 2 that the frequency of duplication for the bilingual speakers does not deviate from the control group. Moreover, the results given by the ANOVA do not show significant differences, and the low standard deviation value highlights

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the homogeneity found among the speakers. We can tentatively speculate that if the intention of the U.S. born speakers is to decrease the number of options created by two linguistic systems through a process of simplification, the duplication of clitic and NP would not be part of a reduction in the number of forms. Quite the contrary, the presence of the clitic demands the selection of the features [gender] and [number]. The situations in which the clitic that appears on the surface structure does not agree in gender, number, or both, with its coreferential NP are presented in the ‘Reassignment’ column. Example (14) presents a clitic change that affects both features, where the expected clitic is las but the one produced by the speaker is lo. Besides this case in which both the gender and the number have been changed, there are also situations in which only one feature is affected, such as (15). It is worthwhile to note that the change does not necessarily favor the singular masculine form, as can be seen in (16). (14) Hay cosas que no le van a gustar a uno pero lo tienen que estudiar como quiera. (Ju/F/42/3/3) Have-imps things that neg him-dat go-3rd-pl like-inf to one but it-acc have to-3rd-pl study-inf as want-3rd-sg “There are things that one is not going to like but you need to study them anyway.” (15) Amistades, sí allá los hice cuando yo llegué, pus no conocía yo a nadie. (VI/M/42/0/82) Friendships, yes there them-acc make-pret-1st-sg when I arrive-pret, well neg know-impf I to no one “Friendships, yes I made them there when I arrived, because I did not know anybody.” (16) Cuando ellos agarran yo creo que a una persona empiezan a entrenarlos y demás, entonces ella tiene futuro ahí. (Ca/F/22/1/2) When they take-pres I think-pres that to one person begin-pres-3rd-pl to train-inf-them-acc and else, then she have-pres future there “When they hire, I think, a person, they begin to train them and all, then she has a future there.” Significant differences were found between the groups and within the groups and the post hoc test found these differences between generation 0 and generations 2 and 3 as well as between 1 and 2. One last phenomenon that appears in this corpus is omission of accusative pronouns. It is permitted in standard Spanish when the object has the feature [–definite], as in example (17) (Campos 1986). In our data, however, we also

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have examples such as (18), where the clitic needed to replace a definite NP does not appear. (17) Entrenamiento, pus aquí en el equipo, no (*lo) tenemos. Training, well here in the team, neg have-pres-3rd-pl “Training, well, here in the team, we do not have it.”

(I/M/19/0/16)

(18) Él me había dado su número antes y la razón que me Ø había dado antes era porque yo tenía, era como un mes antes que yo le había dado el número. (Ca/F/55/3/13) He me-dat give-perf his number before and the reason that me-dat giveperf before be-impf because I have-impf, be-impf like a month before that I him-dat give-perf the number “He had given me his number before and the reason that he had given it to me before was that I had, it was like a month before that I had given him the number.” Significant differences found by the ANOVA between the control group and the third generation, and between first and third generation speakers, were confirmed by the post hoc test. In general terms, the largest difference among speaker groups appears between generations 0 and 1 on the one hand, and between 2 and 3 on the other. The one exception can be found in the use of eso, where the significant difference lies between the control group and the third generation. Because the use of this form is limited to [–animate] NPs, the topics introduced by the speakers in the third generation may have contributed to a higher number of this type of NP, which in turn would allow for more contexts in which the pronoun would be acceptable.

. Conclusions Just as an NP is the necessary form used to introduce a new referent into the discourse when it has been assigned accusative function by the verb, one of the four accusative clitics is the expected form for previously mentioned NPs. As such, lo/la/los/las are the most widely used accusative forms in the Mexican-American community under study here. If, however, the speaker does not wish to produce one of these four forms, repeating the NP proves to be the most popular choice of our second and third generation speakers, with a frequency of 14 and 15% respectively. This is followed by the production of accusative clitics that do not agree in gender and/or number in surface structure with their coreferential NPs, with an average of 10% for both groups. Third in order of preference is the use of datives, with an average of approximately 8%.

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The results of the quantitative analysis confirm that there is a process of simplification at work within the third person accusative pronouns in the MexicanAmerican variety of Spanish spoken in Houston. Repeating the NP, and the use of eso, are options which allow speakers to avoid both gender and number selections otherwise mandated by the accusative pronouns. Gutiérrez and SilvaCorvalán have previously pointed out the “strong psychological reality” of the pronoun system and the reluctance of the bilingual speakers to do away with the clitics (1993: 219, my translation). Situations in which the clitic appearing in surface structure does not agree with its coreferential NP, and constructions that omit the clitic, might both be indicative of speaker difficulties in assigning these features. A case in point may be example (19), in which the speaker omits the accusative pronoun needed next to the verb tengo to refer to the NP la familia mía and later on does produce a clitic, but not la, the one expected. (19) Toda la familia mía y la de mi esposo y la mía. [ . . . ] Yo Ø tengo aquí en la frontera, en Valle Hermoso y en Aguas Calientes y aquí, pos también tengo pero no los visito. (Be/F/36/1/1) All the family mine and the of my husband and the mine. I have-pres here in the border, in VH and in AG and here, well also have-pres-1st-sg but neg them-acc visit-pres-1st-sg “All my family and my husband’s and mine. I have it here in the border, in Valle Hermoso and Aguas Calientes and here, well I also have (relatives) but I do not visit them.” The duplication present in other contact varieties did not materialize for the Mexican-American speakers. This does not seem surprising since we expected these speakers to try to reduce the number of forms. It does bring us back to a comparison with Basque and Andean Spanish. All three contact varieties are going through a simplification process, but the end result is not the same for the MexicanAmerican speakers. The fact that Spanish in the U.S. is a subordinate language with intense pressure from English might be one factor that contributes to explain the difference in outcomes. In sum, the reduction in accusative clitic use is greatest in the third generation speakers. It is important to point out that even though 42% of the expected accusative clitic production for this group of speakers is in a state of variation, only 22% constitutes what standard Spanish would consider to be ungrammatical utterances. A line of research that was not followed here but that might prove to be helpful is the notion of optional imprecision (Otheguy 2000, my translation). This could explain examples such as (20), in which the speaker produces duplication with the expected NP as he introduces two NPs to the discourse, but changes to the dative



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form when the proximity of the NPs decreases the need to assign gender to the clitics. Cases of gender and/or number reassignment and of omission might also fall under this category. (20) ¿Por qué no los ayudan a los mexicanos así? ¿Por qué no los ayudan a los negocios latinoamericanos, o los negocios negros? ¿Por qué no les ayudan a ellos? (Le/M/22/3/15) ¿Why neg them-acc help-pres-3rd-pl to the Mexicans like that? ¿ . . . to the businesses Latin American, or the businesses black? ¿Why neg themdat help-pres-3rd-pl to them? “Why do they not help Mexicans that way? Why do they not help Latin American businesses, or black businesses? Why do they not help them?” Many questions still remain. Is there an order in this process in which changes in the form of the clitic give way to replacement by non-pronominal forms? Does the type of NP force the selection or does, perhaps, the type of verb? Further studies controlling for these variables could help determine in which direction the changes in this system are headed. What the data here demonstrate is a 29% drop in third person accusative clitic usage between the monolingual variety of Spanish and the U.S. born bilinguals. This allows us to confirm that some of the pronouns are being lost in favor of other forms. How far this reduction will continue remains the subject of future investigations.

Notes * My sincerest thanks to an anonymous reviewer for comments that have much improved the final draft of this paper. All errors remain my own. . Speaker groups were determined as follows: 1st generation – speakers born in Mexico that arrived in the U.S. after age 11; 2nd generation – speakers born in Mexico that arrived in the U.S. before age 6 or that were born in the U.S. with parents from the 1st generation; 3rd generation – speakers born in the U.S. with at least one parent belonging to the 2nd generation. . This book contains transcriptions of tape-recorded interviews conducted with speakers of the popular variety of Spanish of Mexico City as part of the ‘Estudio coordinado de la norma lingüística de las principales ciudades de Iberoamérica’. A more appropriate control group would have been made up of monolingual speakers from the same geographic areas as the bilingual speakers. Unfortunately, I did not have access to such data. . Constructions in which the verb assigns an accusative role to a new NP are not reported, as the NP in such a case is obligatory. . The examples are coded as follows: Speaker identification, sex, age, generation and page number on the transcription.

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Clitic simplification in a contact variety of Spanish  . The abbreviations used in the glosses are as follows: acc = accusative, pres = present, neg = negation, 1st = first person, 3rd = third person, sg = singular, pl = plural, inf = infinitive, ref = reflexive, subj = subjunctive, prog = progressive, dat = dative, pret = preterite, prpart = present participle, imps = impersonal, impf = imperfect, perf = perfect. . It needs to be pointed out that because the repetition of the NP might carry a discourse function, some of these constructions were excluded from the coding. Constructions in which the NP was first produced by the interviewer and then repeated by the interviewee were not counted, (i), as this mirroring may be used by the speaker to provide continuity. Situations in which the NP was repeated after one or more non-coreferential NPs were introduced were not counted either, (ii), as they may be needed for clarification purposes. (i)

P: I: P:

A mí me gusta estudiar por mi propia cuenta, o sea que yo también he estudiado por mi propia cuenta, estudios independiente. Sin tomar clases. Sin tomar clases, sólo leer, escuchar discos, este tipo de estudios. (Pa/F/37/2/17)

(ii) [ . . . ] matemáticas y pues todo eso, pues no se necesita inglés y pues estaba haciendo bien en mis materias y me sorprendía de muchas otras personas que, que tal vez sabían inglés y estaban en esa clase y hacían menos que yo.

(Ca/F/22/1/2)

. The majority of the constructions in this category use the pronoun eso. However, there is a small number in which variations on this form appear. (i)

Me gustan los cowboy movies. Tombstone. No sé si has visto ese.

(ii)

. . . Independence Day, quien no ha visto esa.

(En/M/23/3/9) (Mi/F/21/2/9)

(iii) Esta gente no sabe, no tiene, no tiene concepto de valor, y no saben, no tienen concepto de valor de la vida, y de la vida de ellos es donde empieza, y si no les enseñas esto. (Le/M/22/3/12) . The very similar frequencies between the control group and the first generation group were of particular importance in this category because we did not have a control group that was truly representative of the variety spoken by the Houston speakers as discussed in Note 2.

References Berceo, Gonzalo De (1983). Milagros de Nuestra Señora ed. by Vicente Beltrán Pepió. Barcelona: Planeta. Campos, Héctor (1986). Indefinite object drop. Linguistic Inquiry, 17, 354–359. Caravedo, Rocío (1992). Espacio geográfico y modalidades lingüísticas en el español del Perú. In C. Hernández Alonso (Ed.), Historia y presente del español de América (pp. 719–741). Valladolid: Junta de Castilla y León y PABECAL. Escobar, Ana María (1994). Andean Spanish and bilingual Spanish: Linguistic characteristics. In Peter Cole, Gabriella Hermon, & Mario Daniel Martín (Eds.), Language in the Andes (pp. 51–73). Newark, DE: LAS.

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Fernández-Ordóñez, Inés (1994). Isoglosas internas del castellano. El sistema referencial del pronombre átono de tercera persona. Revista de filología española, 74, 71–125. García, Erica C. (1990). Bilingüismo e interferencia sintáctica. Lexis, 14, 151–195. García, Erica C. & Otheguy, Ricardo (1983). Being polite in Ecuador: Strategy reversal under language contact. Lingua, 61, 103–132. Godenzzi, Juan Carlos (1986). Pronombres de objeto directo e indirecto del castellano en Puno. Lexis, 10, 187–201. Granda, Germán De (1982). Origen y formación del leísmo en el español del Paraguay. Ensayo de un método. Revista de filología española, 62, 259–283. Gutiérrez, Manuel J. & Silva-Corvalán, Carmen (1993). Clíticos del español en una situación de contacto. Revista Española de Lingüística, 23(2), 207–220. Hernández, José Esteban (1997). La retención clítica y la duplicación acusativa nominal del español méxico-americano en Houston, Texas ante una situación de contacto. Unpublished master’s thesis, University of Houston. Jaeggli, Osvaldo (1982). Topics in Romance Syntax. Dordrecht: Foris. Klee, Carol A. (1990). Spanish-Quechua language contact: The clitic pronoun system in Andean Spanish. Word, 41, 35–46. Korkostegi Aranguren, María Jesús (1992). Pío Baroja y la gramática: estudio específico del leísmo, laísmo y loísmo y la duplicación de objetos. San Sebastián: Facultad de Filosofía y Letras, Universidad de Deusto. Landa, Miren Alazne (1995). Conditions on null objects in Basque Spanish and their relation to leísmo and clitic doubling. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of Southern California. Lapesa, Rafael (1968). Sobre los orígenes y evolución del leísmo, laísmo y loísmo. In Kurt Baldinger (Ed.), Festschrift Walther von Wartburg I (pp. 521–551). Tubingen: Max Niemeyer. Lope Blanch, Juan M. (1976). El habla popular de México: Materiales para su estudio. México: UNAM. Montaner, Alberto (Ed.). (1993). Cantar de Mio Cid. Barcelona: Crítica. Otheguy, Ricardo (2000). Mi lengua en tu tierra: función e identidad en la comprensión del español en los EE.UU. Paper presented at the XVIII National Conference on Spanish in the United States, Davis, CA. Rini, Joel (1992). Motives for Linguistic Change in the Formation of the Spanish Object Pronouns. Newark, DE: Juan de la Cuesta. Schachter, Jacquelyn (1974). An error in error analysis. Language Learning, 24, 205–214. Schaff, Gerald Gerard (1982). Leísmo in Arizona and northern Mexico. Unpublished master’s thesis, Arizona State University. Seliger, Herbert W. (1996). Primary Language Attrition in the Context of Bilingualism. In William C. Ritchie & Tej K. Bhatia (Eds.), Handbook of Second Language Acquisition (pp. 605–626). San Diego: Academic Press. Silva-Corvalán, Carmen (1994). Language Contact and Change: Spanish in Los Angeles. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Urrutia Cárdenas, Hernán & Fernández Ulloa, Teresa (1995). Duplicación de clíticos en el español: Chile y País Vasco. Lingüística Española Actual, 17, 77–106.

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The expression of topic in spoken Spanish An empirical study* Francisco Ocampo University of Minnesota at Twin Cities

.

Introduction

The goal of this paper is to find out empirically if the notion of topic is linguistically manifested in spoken Spanish. I will attempt to demonstrate that in spoken Spanish, for lexical noun phrases, the expression of topic correlates with word order and with given referent. It does not correlate with prosodic prominence. Also, topic shift and topic continuity do not correlate with primary stress placement. I will also try to establish a cognitive motivation for the word order of the topical NP. Finally, I will discuss a construction-type in which the topic appears in last position in the sentence. This study is based on a corpus of 20 hours of informal conversations with a total of 32 middle class speakers, natives of La Plata, Argentina. In order to avoid the influence of additional factors, only simple clauses were considered in the analysis. This work is based on the following construction-types: SV, AV,1 VO, AVO, AVAdv, VOAdv, NPsubject Copula Adj. In this article the label topic exclusively refers to sentence topics. In the analysis of the data I adopt with modifications the definition of sentence topic present in Lambrecht (1994: 131), expressed in terms of the relation of aboutness between a referent and a proposition: “A referent is interpreted as the topic of the proposition if . . . the proposition is construed as being about this referent”. My difference with Lambrecht’s definition is that he considers the notion of sentence topic a pragmatic one, in which the context plays a role. Based on conversational data, I claim that, at least for Spanish, the notion of sentence topic refers to a relationship between a referent and the rest of the proposition expressed by the sentence in which this referent appears. In other words, the domain of the sentence topic is the proposition expressed by the sentence. This same label, topic, as well as the adjective topical

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may also informally refer to the constituent whose referent stands in this aboutness relation with the rest of the proposition.

. Topic and word order In spoken Spanish the lexical noun phrase whose referent holds a topic relationship with the rest of the proposition appears in preverbal position in the sentence. (1) and (2) are examples of constructions with a transitive verb, a subject and an object. In (1) Marisa, the subject of the AVO construction whose referent is the topic of the sentence, appears first; the direct object, having low topicality comes out in post verbal position:2 (1) 25a16 A: E:: hablando d e: de: - un poco de tu fa: e: hablando de un poco de tu familia. Por ejemplo Marisa, que siempre me acuerdo de ella. Qué es de la vida de Marisa. [ [ S: bueno Mari˝sa tiene sus buenos proble´mas In (2), on the other hand, the direct object is the topic and the subject has low topicality, as a consequence the word order is OVA: (2) 16a6 L: esto es alfombra a mano, sí. Cada pedacito trabajado así: [... ] A: y entonces ¿qué le hicieron ahora:? E: la pegamos en: telgopol () así con alfilere:s () A: a:h E: el telgopo˝l nos dio Pe´pa, que era de la calle, de uno que se había comprado un televisor y andaba este todo tirado. Ella lo había juntado. I expressed above that only simple sentences had been considered in the analysis. Notice that this sentence is followed by a relative clause. I decided to keep this example because the relative is not integrated within the main clause: it appears after the whole clause, is separated by a comma intonation, and does not immediately follow the constituent it modifies. Intuitively it looks as if the speaker, after uttering a simple sentence, changed her mind and decided to attach the relative clause to it. Examples (3) and (4) are constructions with an intransitive verb and a subject NP. In (3) the NP subject el gordo is topical (the sentence is about it) and it appears first:

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The expression of topic in spoken Spanish 

(3) 22b4 P: y el otro gordo no pudo dormir toda la noche A: [se ríe] P: y a la mañana después, que era en un lago del sur, un lago hela:do. () Y el gordo salió, se levantó de la carpa A: qué ¿se fue a bañar? P: y se metió en el lago. Dice que andaba - parecía una foca. Nada:ba el go:(rdo) así lará: flotando In contrast with the previous case, in (4) the intransitive construction is a presentational one: it introduces the subject referent for the first time into the discourse. The sentence is not about the referent of the subject NP el médico, which consequently appears in postverbal position. (4) 15a4 Q: todo: () el día de acá para allá s no sé si les contó Myrna había ido a otra clínica y: no fui a la guardia () estuve una hora ahí: tocando timbre salió˝ el mé´dico [ A: sí? Q: ni siquiera me preguntaron este:: usted llamó:: qué dese::a qué le pa::sa F: ¿qué te dijo el m= Q: =me dio tanta bronca que me di vuelta y me vine Examples (5) and (6) are constructions with a transitive verb. In (5) the subject is the topic of the sentence and it appears in preverbal position: (5) 9a16 M: entonces se va a la casa de esta señora, A: mhmh M: y le dice que venía a bus buscar el televisor que había hablado para que se lo arreglara. () Y la seño´ra se lo entre´ga. In (6) the topic of the string of sentences is the referent of the direct object, el pulóver. The transitive lexical subjects have low topicality, consequently they appear in post verbal position.

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(6) 13a17 A: el pulóver sin mangas () [ . . . ], era de Fred ese pulóver. () Después lo usó Ana. () Lo usó Fre´d, [ F: ¿y cómo te quedó a vos? A: lo usó A´na, lo usé yo, lo usó tu mamá´, lo usaste vos una vez, y ahora viene a pasar a mi mamá [risueña] Examples (7) and (8) are constructions with a preverbal adverb, a lexical NP subject, and a transitive verb. In (7) the topical subject appears in preverbal position: (7) 2b5 N: el otro día, por ejemplo, el otro día que estaban todos los chicos, (0.2) e: cómo es que se llama, J Joaquín es - es testarudo, lo - le dicen, andá para allá, y no se va, se queda. P: vos tenés que ser imparcia:l, cumplir el rol de abuela, no mete:rse en eso. [ N: y - y Leo - Leo le decía andate para allá y no se iba, entonces Le´o le pega´ba. In (8), on the other hand, the topic of the sentence is the referent of the direct object la casa, represented in the construction by a clitic. As the subject el dueño has low topicality, it appears in post verbal position. (8) 10a13 J: Es divino. Esa zona a mí me encanta. La zona de Regatas es hermo:sa F: Es li:nda J: Sí. () Cuando vivíamos allí realmente eso era precioso pero: () era alquilada esa casa. Despué´s la vendió´ el due˝ño y nos tuvimos que cuando se terminó el contrato nos tuvimos que ir. In the previous examples we can see that the term topic designates a relationship that occurs within the proposition expressed by the sentence. The context does not play a role, in the sense that this relationship is contained within the sentence. From this it does not follow that to study this notion it suffices to consider the sentence in isolation. The discourse context is necessary to understand the role that the sentence plays in it, to see that the expression (or the absence) of a particular sentential topic in a particular sentence is coherent with the ongoing conversation.

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The expression of topic in spoken Spanish 

. Topic and the cognitive status of the referent I will now refer to the correlation between the notion of topic and the notions of new and given referent. But first it is necessary to clarify the issue. On the one hand, the notion of topic is a relation that holds between a referent and a proposition. On the other hand, the notions given and new are not relations but cognitive states of referents. They designate the assessment of the speaker about the cognitive statuses assigned to referents by speakers and/or hearers. I utilize for the analysis Prince’s (1981) typology of new and given referents. I consider new referents her categories brand-new, brand-new anchored, inferred and unused, and given referents her categories textually evoked and situationally evoked. Table 1 shows the correlation between the relation topic and the status new or given of the topical referent of the subject in AVO constructions with noncontrastive subjects. These constructions have a lexical NP subject and a lexical NP direct object. Table 1. Status of topical NP subject referents in constructions with a lexical NP subject, a transitive verb and a lexical NP direct object (AVO word order) Referents

Tokens

Percent

New Given Non referential

30/118 87/118 1/118

25.42 73.73 0.85

As Table 1 indicates, the majority of the subject referents are given: 87/118, 73.73%. Table 2 shows the status of topical NP subjects in constructions with a lexical NP, a copula and an adjective: Table 2. Status new or given of topical NP subject referents in constructions with a lexical NP subject, a copula and an adjective (NPsubject Copula Adj word order) Referents

Tokens

Percent

New Given

18/129 111/129

13.95 86.05

We can see that the majority of the topical subjects are also given: 111/129 86.05%. The percentages present on Tables 1 and 2 agree with the topic acceptability scale postulated by Lambrecht (1994: 165). The most acceptable topics are those whose referents are located towards the given end of the scale. This correlation responds to a functional principle (Shibatani 1991): in order to add information about a referent, the hearer must be able to identify it. This correlation also responds to a

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cognitive principle (Lambrecht 1988, 1994; Ocampo 1993). There are two cognitive tasks: the first one is determining the intended referent, and the second one is processing information about it. These two tasks are distinct. Utilizing a computer analogy, to determine the intended referent the hearer searches her memory for stored information. In the case of a given referent, the mind has already a file on it. On the other hand, if the referent is new, a file has to be created, which supposes more processing effort. As a consequence, when the mind retrieves/creates the referent, the newer the referent, the heavier the task. The second task involves processing a predication about the referent; in other words, understanding what the speaker says about the referent. When the verb only predicates the existence of the referent, the task is light. In Spanish this is the case of constructions with haber, estar, existir, tener3 which have a presentative function (Ocampo 1993). A construction with a topical subject, a transitive verb and a direct object entails a greater cognitive effort. The hearer must process a predication about the subject referent (the information conveyed by the verb), and relate this predication to a second referent (the direct object). As expressed above, the hearer must deal with these two cognitive tasks. A construction with a new topical subject referent and a transitive verb poses two heavy cognitive tasks to the hearer: determine a new referent and process a predication about it. The correlation of topics with given referents accomplishes the job of diminishing the processing effort by easing the first cognitive task: to determine the intended referent.

. Topic and stress placement The data do not indicate any definitive correlation between topical referent and stress placement. The constituent whose referent is topical may receive primary, secondary or tertiary stress.4 It may also appear unstressed. In (5) and (7) the topical NP receives primary stress, while in (1) and (2) it receives secondary stress. In (9) below, the NP subject Ernesto is topical and receives tertiary stress: (9) 1b3 M: Y lo saludaron a Franco unos sí, otros no, Ernesto no lo saludó no sé por qué, el de Artola que: que a que a Franco [ [ A: sí sí ¿no lo saludaron? M: no lo saludó:. No saluda, cuando lo ve a Franco no lo saluda no sé por qué, [ A: ¿no? M: no A: pero ¿hace mucho? o

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The expression of topic in spoken Spanish 

M: sí, hace bastante, sí. De cuando falleció Papá. De cuando ( . . . ) () , no lo saluda. (0.8) No sé, no se me ocurre por qué - por qué Franco lo dejó de saludar si de Bartola lo compraba y: y Erne^sto lo atendía a Barto´la. (0.2) Él nos confesó In (10) the topical subject NP éste is unstressed: (10) 6b6 C: - pero yo - lo que había que hacer es - aumenten el sueldo, no? Pero, viejo (0.8) los profesores, observaciones pedagógicas todas las semanas. F: claro C: y yo voy a ver, el nivel en que está cada curso, y por qué unos van más y otros menos. Y v v voy a visitar e l los nive:les y voy a (0.2) a visitar el método, ¿no? Y quiero ver resulta:dos. F: claro C: y éste no ha:˝ce la vigila´ncia pedagó´gica. It has been shown above that the topical constituent may receive any stress type or may remain unstressed. The question to ask now is whether there is any statistical correlation between stress and topic. Tables 3 and 4 show the stress pattern of topical subjects in AVO word order constructions, and topical objects in OVA word order constructions, respectively. Table 3. Stress patterns of subject topics in AVO word order constructions Primary stress Secondary stress Tertiary stress Unstressed

36/118 47/118 24/118 11/118

30.51% 39.83% 20.34% 9.32%

Table 4. Stress patterns of object topics in OVA word order constructions Primary stress Secondary stress

5/8 3/8

62.5% 37.5%

In Table 3, a slight majority of topical subjects receives secondary stress: 47/118, or 39.83%. Table 4 indicates that 5/8, or 62.5%, of topical objects receive primary stress. Unfortunately, with so few tokens it is not possible to establish whether or not these results are relevant. Table 5 indicates the stress pattern of topical subjects in constructions with a lexical subject, a copula and an adjective:

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Table 5. Stress pattern of topical subjects in constructions with a lexical subject, a copula and an adjective (NPsubject Copula Adj word order)5 Primary stress Secondary stress Tertiary stress Unstressed

51/124 61/124 7/124 5/124

41.13% 49.19 5.65% 4.03%

In Table 5, the majority of the topical NPs receive primary or secondary stress. This generalization is also valid for Tables 2, 3, and 4, which shows that a topical constituent has more chances than not of receiving primary or secondary stress. There is some correlation between stress placement and the status – new or given – of the NP topical referent in AVO constructions with non-contrastive subjects, as Table 6 indicates. Table 6. Correlation between stress and new or given referent in AVO word order constructions6 Referent

Primary stress

Secondary stress

Tertiary stress

Unstressed

New Given

15/30 21/87

7/30 39/87

6/30 18/87

2/30 9/87

50.00% 24.14%

23.33% 44.83%

20.00% 20.69%

6.67% 10.34%

We can see that 15/30, or 50% of subjects with a new referent receive primary stress, and that 39/87, or 44.83% of subjects with a given referent receive secondary stress.

. Primary stress and topic shift Lambrecht (1994: 325) claims that for topical constituents with given referents, especially pronouns, prosodic prominence (primary stress) indicates topic shift. As I have not analyzed enough data with personal pronouns, I can neither confirm nor disconfirm Lambrecht’s claim for constructions with pronouns. In the case of constructions with lexical noun phrases, there are some cases in the data where there is a topic shift and the topical NP receives primary stress, as in (11): (11) 6a14 [Speaker C narrates his father’s cremation, which made a strong impression on his younger brother] C: y después cuando vienen las cenizas el tipo la aplasta y pasan un rodi:llo, todo lo lo hacen - muelen. Era desagradabilísimo. F: feo

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The expression of topic in spoken Spanish 

C: y el ti´po lo metie^ron ade˝ntro y vio eso. Y le cuento que quedó mal, mi hermano quedó mal. F: y claro= C: =era mi hermano menor. (1) Quedó como la mona el tipo. Here the NP subject el tipo makes reference to speaker C’s brother, and it constitutes a topic shift. (Note that the previous occurrence of el tipo has a different referent.) But there are also many cases that do not show such correlation. In (9) there is topic shift and the constituent receives tertiary stress, and in (10) where there is also topic shift, the NP constituent is unstressed. Table 7 does not show any strong correlation between stress placement and topic shift in AVO constructions. On the other hand, there is a correlation between topic continuity and stress: 16/32, or 50% of continuing topics receive secondary stress. Table 7. Correlation between stress and topic shift or continuity in AVO word order constructions7 Topic status

Primary stress

Secondary stress

Tertiary stress

Unstressed

Topic shift Topic cont

28/84 7/32

31/84 16/32

16/84 8/32

9/84 1/32

33.33% 21.88%

36.90% 50.00%

19.05% 25.00%

10.72% 3.12%

There is a relationship between the categories new referent, given referent, and topic shift, topic continuity, present on Tables 6 and 7, respectively. This relationship is schematized on Table 8. Table 8 new referent

topic shift

given referent

topic continuity

The referents present in the category topic shift can be new or given. Although new referents are dispreferred as topics, as seen on Tables 1 and 2, when they occur they signal topic shift only. Also, during a conversation a speaker can shift the topic to a referent that has been previously mentioned, and therefore is given. For example, in (2) the previous topic is a rug. Then, speaker E shifts the topic to styrofoam, which is present with a non-topical status in the previous sentence. On the other hand, as schematized on Table 8, topic continuity is composed only by given referents. The category topic shift receives new referents, which have a majority of primary stress, and given referents, which have a majority of secondary stress (Table 6). Consequently, in Table 7, most topical subjects that perform a topic shift receive primary or secondary stress (33.33% + 36.90% = 70.23%). In contrast, the

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category topic continuity receives only given referents, which have a majority of secondary stress (Table 6). As a consequence, in Table 7 the majority of subjects that continue a previous topic receive secondary stress (50%).

. The cognitive motivation of topic Topic is the syntactic exploitation of a general cognitive process that also underlies non-linguistic tasks: the structure-building framework. According to the Structure Building Framework, comprehension involves building coherent, mental representations or structures. These structures represent clauses, sentences, passages, and so forth. Building mental structures involves several cognitive processes. The first cognitive process is laying a foundation for their mental structures. The next cognitive process is mapping: Incoming information that coheres or relates to previous information is mapped onto the developing structure. (Gernsbacher & Hargreaves 1992: 87)

The notion of topic exploits this process. The first position of the topical constituent can be linked to the aforementioned cognitive principle: “First mentioned participants form the foundation of their sentence-level structures, and, therefore, the remainders of the sentence are represented vis-à-vis those initial participants” (p. 89). These claims are supported by experimental data. “A consistent finding in . . . word-by-word reading time experiments is that the first word of a sentence takes longer to read than later-occurring words” (Gernsbacher & Hargreaves 1992: 84). “Laying the foundation for a mental structure requires some mental effort; therefore less mental effort is available to read words” (p. 88). Also, first words content produce N400 brain waves that are larger than average. This kind of brain wave is associated with difficulty in processing (p. 86). Moreover, other experiments show that “After comprehending a sentence involving two participants, it is easy to remember the participant mentioned first in the sentence” (p. 88). Gernsbacher and Hargreaves (1992: 89) state that “First mentioned participants are more accessible both because they form the foundations for their sentence-level structures, and because it is through this foundation that subsequent information is mapped onto the developing mental structure.” It has been stated that the proposition expressed by the sentence is about the topic. The rest of the proposition is anchored by the topic constituent. Therefore, the initial position of the topic is related to the fact that it constitutes the foundation of a mental structure. The preverbal position of the topic is then the syntactic exploitation of a cognitive process.

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The expression of topic in spoken Spanish 

One possible counterexample to this cognitive motivation is present in (7). Here the topical subject appears in preverbal position but in second place, after the adverb. The first position of the adverb correlates with its function as a link: it relates the proposition expressed by the clause to the previous discourse context. This relational function of the adverb provides a frame of reference for understanding the proposition, and it thus can be understood in terms of the aforementioned cognitive process (Ocampo 2001: 15). Here it could be argued that both constituents, the adverb and the NP, form the foundation and consequently both appear preverbally. If this is true, then what needs to be explained is why the adverb appears in first position and the NP in second position. We can have recourse to the notion of iconicity. The adverb appears first because, as a link, it is iconically in contact with the words that constitute the previous discourse. Also, since it is a non-central argument of the verb, it is in a position at the beginning of the sentence as a whole, rather than forming a part of any phrase-structure element within. The NP, on the other hand, is centrally related to the verb and for this reason appears immediately before it.

. The gradation of topic saliency An interesting construction-type appears in the data with some frequency. Its interest resides in the fact that the topical NP appears in last position: (12) 11a9 Sí, sigue mal. () René sigue mal (0.8) porque: () tá muy deprimi:da, qué sé yo, este: si estará con un terapeuta como la gente o no pero: () pasa de médico en médico, () o sea, va por los o este: - porque le duele la cintura, a uno, después tiene turno con este:, qué sé yo, con otro, () y después va al al siquiatra y está () llena de pastillas y no - y no tie˝ne ningún incenti´vo la po˝bre René´. No tiene ganas de vivir. In this construction the subject referent René is still the topic, but it appears in last position. Lambrecht (1994: 203) refers to these topics as antitopics. He states that in this position the lexical NP indicates topic continuity only. That is, it does not indicate topic shift. These observations are confirmed for Spanish in my data. In contrast to English and French, where it is deaccented, in Spanish this topical constituent can receive stress, as seen in (12). This construction is located on a scale of topic saliency. There is a mechanism by which speakers can express different grades of topic saliency. Locating a topical lexical NP in preverbal position is utilized to establish a topic or to give saliency to an already established topic. Once a topic has been established, the speaker might

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 Francisco Ocampo

choose to make it less salient by uttering the lexical NP in last position. Note that when the topical referent is already in the mind of the hearer, the forward anchoring position is no longer cognitively necessary. Therefore, in cases of topic continuity, the preverbal position is necessary only to indicate saliency. The least salient topic referent is referred to by the means of pronouns or by verb morphology. This gradation is partially present in (6), reproduced here as (13): (13) 13a17 A: el pulóver sin mangas () [ . . . ], era de Fred ese pulóver. () Después lo usó Ana. () Lo usó Fred, [ F: ¿y cómo te quedó a vos? A: lo usó Ana, lo usé yo, lo usó tu mamá, lo usaste vos una vez, y ahora viene a pasar a mi mamá [risueña] The NP referent of el pulóver is an ongoing topic. As topic continuity progresses, the topic becomes less salient and is postponed, then referred to by a clitic, and finally noted only by verb morphology. Notice that this is a stylistic mechanism that can be utilized to decrease as well as to increase saliency. In (12) the topical referent of René, which earlier in the utterance was being referred to by verb morphology, increases in saliency in the penultimate construction by the utilization of a lexical NP in last position. This next-to-final sentence constitutes a summary of the information conveyed. This construction type is fairly common in the data. In (11) it is possible to observe the stylistic increase and decrease of saliency of the topical referent of hermano (referred to also by the NP el tipo).

. Conclusions To conclude, we see that the notion of topic is linguistically manifested in Spanish. Empirical data show that the lexical constituent whose referent has a topic relationship with the rest of the proposition appears in first position in the sentence and tends to be given. Topical constituents may receive any type of stress or be unstressed, while statistically they tend to receive primary or secondary stress. Topical subjects with new referents tend to receive primary stress. Topical subjects with given referents tend to receive secondary stress. No correlation between topic shift and stress placement has been found in AVO constructions. Continuing topics are more likely to receive secondary stress in AVO constructions.

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The expression of topic in spoken Spanish 

Notes * I would like to thank the participants of LSRL31 for their useful questions and comments. Special thanks to Ricardo Otheguy and Anna María Escobar. I also want to express my deep gratitude to Carmen Silva-Corvalán for her sound input, and to the anonymous reviewer for her/his helpful suggestions. Final responsibility is mine. . I am utilizing here the traditional notation: S for subjects of intransitive verbs, and A for subjects of transitive verbs (Comrie 1981). . The numbers and letters for each example indicate its location in the corpus. The conventions used in the transcription are as follows. A single bracket ‘[’ between two utterances indicates that they overlap. The sign ‘=’ marks partial overlapping between the end of a turn and the beginning of another. Utterances appear between parentheses when I am not sure of the accuracy of the transcription. Three periods between parentheses ‘( . . . )’ mean that it was impossible to ascertain what the speaker said. Three periods between square brackets ‘[ . . . ]’ indicate that data is omitted. A hiatus of any kind in the speech flow is marked by ‘-’. A pause is indicated by parentheses ‘()’. A number between parentheses ‘(1.4)’ shows the length of the pause (in seconds and tenths of seconds). Words or utterances underlined mark that this portion is perceived as salient (strong primary stress, or high pitch, or uttered with a louder voice, etc.). Lengthening is indicated by ‘:’ after a vowel or a consonant. The symbol ´ stands for primary stress, ˝ stands for secondary stress, ^ for tertiary stress. Any additional information appears between square brackets ‘[risas]’. The construction relevant for the analysis is shown in italics. . when this verb is used as a presentative, as in: tengo un amigo que cría elefantes which does not express possession but existence. . Stress was obtained impressionistically; it was realized as an increase in loudness, pitch, duration, or as a combination of these factors. The difference between primary, secondary, and tertiary stress has to do with relative saliency within the utterance. . The total of S Copula Adj word order constructions is 129. There are 5 constructions in the corpus for which it was not possible to ascertain stress placement. . The total of AVO constructions with non contrastive subjects is 118. Here the total is 117 because there is a non referential NP subject. . Two tokens were not included because it was not possible to establish whether they were cases of topic shift or of topic continuity.

References Comrie, Bernard (1981). Language universals and linguistic typology. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. Gernsbacher, Morton Ann & David Hargreaves (1992). The privilege of primacy. Experimental data and cognitive explanations. In Doris Payne (Ed.), Pragmatics of word order flexibility (pp. 83–116). Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins.

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Lambrecht, Knud (1988). Presentational cleft constructions in spoken French. In John Hyman & Sandra Thompson (Eds.), Clause combining in grammar and discourse (pp. 135–179). Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Lambrecht, Knud (1994). Information structure and sentence form. Topic, focus, and the mental representations of discourse referents. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Ocampo, Francisco (1993). The introduction of new referents in French and Spanish discourse: One constraint two strategies. In William Ashby, Marianne Mithun, Giorgio Perissinotto, & Eduardo Raposo (Eds.), Linguistic perspectives on the Romance languages (pp. 351–362). Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Ocampo, Francisco (1995a). The word order of two-constituent constructions in spoken Spanish. In Pamela Downing & Michael Noonan (Eds.), Word order in discourse (pp. 425–447). Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Ocampo, Francisco (1995b). The word order of a construction with a verb, a subject and a direct object in spoken Spanish. In Jon Amastae, Grant Goodall, Mario Montalbetti, & Marianne Phinney (Eds.), Contemporary research in Romance Linguistics (pp. 291–305). Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Ocampo, Francisco (2001). Word order variation in constructions with a verb and two adverbs in spoken Spanish. In Bok-Bennema, Robert de Jonge, Brigitte KampersManhe, & Arie Molendijt (Eds.), Adverbial modification. Selected papers from the Fifth Colloquium on Romance Linguistics. Groningen, 10–12 September 1998 (pp. 12–29). Amsterdam/Atlanta: Rodopi. Ocampo, Francisco (forthcoming a). Word order variation in spoken Spanish in constructions with a verb, a direct object, and an adverb. Proceedings of the 6th International Columbia School Conference. Ocampo, Francisco (forthcoming b). La incidencia de factores pragmáticos, sintácticos y prosódicos en la variación del orden de palabras en construcciones con un verbo transitivo, un sujeto y un adverbio. Actas del XII Congreso Internacional de la Asociación del Lingüística y Filología de la América Latina. Santiago de Chile, agosto de 1999. Prince, Ellen (1981). Toward a taxonomy of given-new information. In Peter Cole (Ed.), Radical Pragmatics (pp. 223–255). New York: Academic Press. Shibatani, Masayoshi (1991). Grammaticization of topic into subject. In Elizabeth Closs Traugott & Bernd Heine (Eds.), Approaches to grammaticalization, Vol. 2 (pp. 93–133). Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins.

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An adaptive approach to noun gender in New York contact Spanish Ricardo Otheguy and Naomi Lapidus Graduate Center, City University of New York

.

Introduction

In the study of Spanish in the United States, scholars have proposed descriptions of contact-induced change that draw on the notion of simplification (Silva-Corvalán 1994: 207). Similar descriptions have been made of developments in many other contact situations, including that of French in contact with English in Canada (Mougeon & Beniak 1991: 91). Some scholars have cautioned that simplification in one component of the grammar often leads to complication in another, and that no generalization about simplification as the over-all result of contact is tenable (Thomason & Kaufman 1988: 28). But others continue to find the construct useful for describing, if not necessarily the overall impact of contact, at least many of the more localized changes taking place in the subordinate varieties of language in bilingual settings. Simplification, moreover, appears to offer the hope of not only describing but explaining many contact-induced changes. Simplification portrays the behavior of speakers of subordinate contact varieties as a reaction to the higher cognitive loads and increased storage and retrieval demands brought about by bilingualism. Simplification gains additional explanatory force by connecting changes in contact varieties to similar simplificatory processes in acquisition, foreigner talk, pidginization, and language loss, all of which are said to be linked to psycholinguistic universals (Silva-Corvalán 1994: 207ff., 213ff.). We propose here a modest but significant extension of the explanatory value of simplification. We suggest that contact-induced changes should additionally be understood in terms of the notion of adaptation. We outline how an adaptive model adds to a simplificatory one, and apply the notion of adaptation to the study of the most common of all contact phenomena, namely cross-language lone lexical

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insertions, in one of the most complex contact settings in North America, New York City (henceforth NYC). Specifically, we apply the notion of adaptation to the study of English lexical insertions (henceforth ELIs) in the Spanish spoken in NYC. Our ELIs are lone English-origin words that appear in an otherwise Spanish discourse. For reasons that we discuss in the Limitations section below, we do not distinguish in our ELIs between borrowings and single-word codeswitches. This distinction is controversial, but it appears increasingly feasible after the results of research by Poplack and her followers (cf. Poplack & Meechan 1998; Turpin 1998; Budzhak-Jones 1998; and other studies in the same volume). As in nearly all contact situations, most of the ELIs in NYC Spanish are nouns. We use adaptive reasoning to test specific predictions regarding simplificatory changes involving these nouns, focusing on the nearly complete lack of applicability of the Spanish arbitrary gender system to this portion of our informants’ vocabulary. We see the new facts revealed by these predictions as useful expansions of our empirical knowledge regarding Spanish in NYC, and as support for the idea that contact-induced change is adaptive.

. The corpus Our corpus is taken from 33 sociolinguistic interviews conducted with NYC Latinos. These interviews are part of the much larger City University of New York (CUNY) Project on the Spanish of New York, initiated by Ana Celia Zentella and currently led jointly by her and Ricardo Otheguy.1 The internal characteristics of our sample are not directly germane to the point of this paper, but we have nevertheless looked for balance and representativeness on the relevant parameters. With regard to age upon arrival in NYC: 13 of our informants came to NYC as adults (age 20 or older) and 13 were born in NYC. The remaining seven are also balanced: three came to NYC as children and four arrived as teenagers. With regard to national origin, the sample reflects the make-up of the NYC Latino population, diminishing in number, in the sample as in NYC, from Puerto Ricans (13), to Dominicans (6), Mexicans (5), Colombians (4), Cubans (3), and Ecuadorians (2). We collected all ELIs found in the transcripts, ending up with 535 tokens, which included 477 noun tokens. These 477 noun tokens were the items used to form our corpus. In order to qualify as an ELI for this study, items had to be characteristic of Spanish in NYC and not already adopted in the countries of origin. Items in active use in Latin America most likely are current in New York Spanish not because of contact with English, but because the communities represented in the study brought the word from Latin America or acquired it through dialect borrowing from other Latino groups in NYC. So, for example, we excluded from our cor-

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An adaptive approach to noun gender in N.Y. Spanish

Table 1. ELI tokens in 33 informants, by word category ELIs used as:

N Tokens

%

Verbs Interjections Adjectives Nouns TOTAL INSERTIONS

11 9 38 477 535

2 2 7 89 100

pus such words as cake, chance, closet, estándar, Internet, OK, lonchar, and rolo. While these words are not all current in all countries of origin, they are common in enough of them to make it unlikely that their importation from English has taken place in NYC. The 477 ELIs that we found in the corpus of our Spanish-speaking informants consist for the most part of single words. But following the practice of most researchers, we also include among our ELIs some NPs that are slightly heavier than a word (cf. Poplack 1982: 9; Turpin 1998: 224; among many others). We try to formalize the criteria for inclusion of these NPs in the study. To qualify as an ELI here, the additional weight of the NP can consist only of (a) nominal or adjectival modifiers, such as credit in un credit card, or elementary in elementary school, producing NPs consisting of noun + modifier, or (b) conjoins of such NPs, like for example the daily word and the daily bread, or (c) lists that appear to function as a unit, such as drugs, rock’n’roll and love, all of which we counted as ELIs. Not regarded as ELIs and excluded from the study are (a) English-origin NPs consisting of nouns modified by prepositional phrases, such as un credit card with miles, (b) English-origin NPs consisting of nouns modified by relative clauses, such as un credit card that gives you miles, (c) English-origin PPs such as in all fairness, and (d) temporal and locative adverbial phrases such as most of the time, or somewhere between Manhattan and Brooklyn. We also excluded from our original collection of 535 ELIs all occurrences of tags and tag clauses, such as so and you know, which are ubiquitous in the Spanish of many of our informants but not relevant to our study.

. Adaptation The notion that the changes taking place in a bilingual community’s subordinate language are adaptive is not new. Nearly twenty years ago Poplack urged that the study of bilingualism “shed light on the language adaptations of speech communities in complex demographic social conditions” (1983: 125, our emphasis). In a more explicit appeal to adaptation, Nettle (1999: 449) has drawn a parallel between the biological adaptiveness hypothesis and the linguistic adaptiveness hypothesis. The



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former says that “the reproductive success of organisms is related to their adaptedness to their environment,” while the latter says that “the probability of adoption of linguistic forms into a grammar is related to their communicational or cognitive utility.” This idea of utility that is at the center of adaptive thinking is itself reminiscent of the early construct high functional yield, first advanced in the study of phonology by Martinet (1952: 8ff.). While Martinet did not propose that high functional yield explained the adoption of forms, he did suggest that it favored the related phenomenon of their retention over time. Our proposal centers on two general principles of adaptive change and retention. First, we bear in mind the well-known adaptive generalization that structure is, to a considerable extent, determined by function. Second, we study costbenefit balances, and see a tendency in simplificatory adaptive change to proceed economically, obtaining large cost savings with small losses of benefits. The first principle, that function is the central determinant of structure, is used here to explore its converse. We are led to hitherto unknown facts of function through predictions based on newly found facts of structure. The facts of structure in turn gain a larger measure of explanation by the previously unknown functional facts. With regard to the second principle, having to do with cost-benefit balances, the term cost here refers to cognitive load. In simplificatory changes, cost savings are produced by eliminating, diminishing, and automatizing or reducing to general rule, elements that otherwise would require individual storage; benefits refers to the selective realization of these simplificatory changes in those parts of the grammar where the changes save the most while disrupting communication the least. These two principles of adaptive reasoning are used here to shed light on the lack of stored masculine-feminine gender contrasts in the English-origin part of the Spanish vocabulary of our informants. We show that this simplification of the language’s overall gender structure is tied in predictably specific ways to the very limited gender-related functions carried out by this portion of the vocabulary; that is, we show that the structural gender contrast is missing because the function performed by that contrast is also missing. Analogous situations that are routinely understood in adaptive terms in biology are ready at hand. Animal species that are blind (a fact of structure) often dwell in dark ocean depths or caves where it is impossible to see (a fact of function that explains the structure), while related species whose structural make-up includes eyes live in lighted environments where the seeing function is possible (Futuyama 1998). Bony surfaces whose structure is large, dished out, and roughened tend to anchor muscles whose function is to exert great force when contracted (and that thus need large rough surfaces to fasten their ligaments), while bones holding muscles that function to exert less force tend to develop smaller and smoother structures (Lieberman 1998: 53).

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An adaptive approach to noun gender in N.Y. Spanish 

. Addressing circularity in adaptive reasoning The adaptive approach to contact-induced change should heed the warnings by Nettle (1999: 451) regarding the danger of circularity in adaptive explanations in both biology and linguistics. In biology, the trap of the evolutionary tautology springs when the explanation for surviving structures is that they are the fittest, and the fittest structures are identified by their having survived (Nettle 1999: 451). To avoid the trap, adaptive structures have to be described independently of the observed facts, constructing a functionally explanatory model that can then be checked against the observed inventory of survivors. In adaptive approaches to contact phenomena, similar dangers of circularity loom, and similar solutions need to be adopted. The most secure protection against circularity is for the factual observations that check a prediction to be, not only conceptually independent of the predicting principles, but also chronologically posterior to them. In the sections that follow, we attempt to inch away from circularity in precisely this way. We make predictions regarding contact-induced simplifications that are independent of the two predicting principles outlined above. In addition, we use the two principles of adaptive reasoning to anticipate contactinduced patterns that we have not observed.

. Applications of the gender system As is well known, in Spanish in general, nouns are assigned to two gender classes. For animates, nouns referring to males are for the most part masculine and those referring to females are for the most part feminine. For nouns referring to inanimate objects, gender assignment is in part based on several generalizations that users of Spanish can make regarding word endings, the clearest among them being that many a-ending nouns are feminine. But these generalizations, even including that of a-ending feminines, have many exceptions (e.g. masculine planeta, cometa ‘planet, kite’). Thus the process of gender assignment for inanimates is ultimately arbitrary and dependent on memorization. While violín, vaso, planeta, fuerte (‘violin, glass, planet, fort’) are masculine, crin, moto, casa, suerte (‘mane, motorcycle, house, luck’) are feminine. Among our informants this general Spanish pattern of dividing nouns into masculines and feminines has been strongly retained for their Spanish-origin, native nouns. But as we shall see, the pattern has not been extended to their ELIs. The pattern for native nouns is shown in Table 2a. The table shows that, in spoken texts studied in the countries of origin by Navarro Tomás, roughly half of Spanish nouns are masculine and half feminine (45 vs. 55 percent). We sampled three of the spoken texts produced by our informants and found similar results for their Spanish-origin nouns: 53 percent mascu-

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Table 2a. Proportion of masculine and feminine nouns in general Spanish

Native words, Corpus a Native words, Corpus b

Masc %

Fem %

45 53

55 47

Corpus a = Navarro Tomás (1968), in Poplack (1982) Corpus b = From 3 of our 33 informants, 300 nouns

Table 2b. Proportion of masculine and feminine ELIs in contact Spanish

ELIs, Corpus a ELIs, Corpus b ELIs, Corpus c

Masc %

Fem %

87 87 88

13 13 12

Corpus a = Poplack (1982) Corpus b = 234 noun tokens from our 33 informants Corpus c = Carlos Mota: 98 nouns

line, 47 percent feminine. But a very different result is obtained when we compare this pattern of native words in contact speakers to that of their ELIs, as shown in Table 2b. The table shows that, among ELIs, the vast majority of words are masculine. A count by Poplack and one performed by us on ELIs in the corpus used for the present study obtained identical results.2 The counts in Table 2a take into account every native noun in a transcription, whether the native noun appears by itself, with an article or with a modifier. The investigator simply relies on his knowledge of Spanish to tally some native nouns as masculine and others as feminine. If the word metro ‘subway’ appears in a transcript without articles or modifiers, as in the phrase se fue en metro ‘he went by subway’, the investigator can tally it as masculine simply based on his knowledge that metro is a masculine word. But a different method must be used to calculate gender in ELIs. Investigators can only reliably establish gender in those ELIs that appear with an article or a modifier. When the ELI subway appears in a Spanish transcript, as in the phrase se fue en subway, it cannot be tallied for gender, for we have no reliable knowledge of whether subway is masculine or feminine. The ELI subway appearing in a Spanish text can only be tallied for gender when we find el subway or la subway, subway sucio or subway sucia, etc. Both the count by Poplack (1982) and our own count reported in Table 2b take this into account. This is why our calculation is not based on the 477 ELIs in our corpus, but only on the 234 that could be used for this purpose.

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To check these findings, and to attempt to solve the problem of not being able to ourselves determine the gender of ELIs appearing in isolation, we had our graduate research assistant Carlos Mota ask a group of NYC Latino high school students to list as many ‘Spanglish’ words as they could think of, along with the article el or la (so we could establish gender). This experimental corpus produced strikingly similar results to Poplack’s and our natural corpora. In Mota’s corpus, 88 percent of ELIs are masculine and, as was the case in Poplack’s 1982 study, there was near unanimity in gender assignment when the same word was produced by different students. All three corpora agree, then, that the vast majority of ELIs in New York Spanish are masculine. Two processes, one based on phonology and the other on animacy, explain why this preference for masculine gender for ELIs does not reach 100 percent. A procedure that is independent of memorized gender assignment makes feminine most ELIs ending in /-a/. These are words that in their original English form usually ended in schwas, or in schwas followed by consonants that are deleted as the words are phonologically adapted to Spanish. This final scwha appears to be systematically perceived by Spanish-speaking New Yorkers as a Spanish /-a/. Through this process are derived feminines like la boila, la repocá, and la experience, from English boiler, report card and experience. (We think that this process extends not only to words ending in /-a/ but also to those ending in /-ay/, and that this is why we get the very common la high, referring to a high school.) These feminines are the result of a general rule, and not of a memory-based process of arbitrary assignment like the feminines suerte, moto, mano (recall masculines fuerte, vaso, beso). As such, these a-ending feminines do not represent the sort of cognitive burden that becomes fodder for contact-induced simplifcation. The second process that produdces ELIs in the feminine is the familiar Spanish pattern of assigning gender to nouns referring to animates on the basis of sex. Through this process we get una lush (a woman who drinks heavily), una teenager, una school aid, and, merging with the a-ending process, la principá or la principala. Both the tendency to assign gender to animates on the basis of the sex of the referent, and to assign feminine gender to words perceived as ending in /-a/ have been widely noted in most studies dealing with English loanwords in English. It is significant, however, that even this pattern is losing hold among our contact speakers. Many of them, in a usage that is very unlike that of non-contact speakers, use masculine ELIs to refer to females, as in un social worker or los midwives. In addition, and though not attested in the present corpus, we often hear in NYC el student teacher, el baby sitter, el travel agent, etc for references to women. Our informants’ reluctance to make ELIs feminine (unless they end in /-a/) even in some references to females is especially notable in cases of repairs. In (1), the informant refers to a female with a masculine ELI, and then, seemingly wanting to use the feminine for this female, finds it necessary to switch to Spanish.3

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(1) ¿Y tú mamá? Ella es un social worker, una trabajadora social . . . 228D “And your mother? She is a social worker, a social worker.” Our informants, then, have essentially suspended the application of the common Spanish pattern of arbitrary, memory-dependent gender distinctions when it comes to their ELIs. They have preserved for these words only the automatic, rulebased assignment of a-ending (and perhaps ay-ending) words to the feminine, as well as the equally rule-based pattern of assigning ELIs referring to females to the feminine, even though this latter process is itself considerably eroded. Our findings run counter to those of scholars who point out that, in Spanish and other languages where ELIs are found, the arbitrary assignment of gender to inanimates is an active process. Under what has come to be known as the analogical criterion, the ELI is said to take the gender of the word it displaces (cf. Zamora 1975 among others). This suggestion, made long ago by Weinreich (1953: 45), has been repeated with support from anecdotal or experimental data ever since. Some scholars doing empirical work have also thought that their data justified this belief. But even in Poplack’s careful 1982 empirical study of NYC Puerto Rican Spanish, 78 percent of ELIs that would have been feminine under this analogical criterion have in fact come into the Spanish of NYC as masculines (1982: 18). In any case, and setting aside the difficulty of actually establishing cross-linguistic word equivalencies, the prediction that displaced Spanish feminines will be replaced by feminine ELIs does not hold up in our data. We have found masculines los parties, el swimming, el vegetable soup, un full-size bed, un pool table, etc., even though these words are presumably replacing feminines las fiestas, la natación, la sopa, una cama, una mesa. The only sure exception to this general pattern in our data are the following three words: la liquor store (possible analogy to feminine tienda) una deli (possible analogy to feminine tienda) la high school (possible analogy to feminine escuela) While liquor store and deli appeared only in the feminine, the situation is different for high school. We found two tokens of feminine high school, but in addition found five tokens of high school that are identifiably masculine, and 24 tokens where gender cannot be established.

. Adaptive simplification in gender The treatment by our informants of gender assignment in the English-origin part of their nominal lexicon is a classic case of simplification under contact. A process that normally incurs a heavy memory cost is automatized or eliminated in a portion of its range of applicability, thus producing considerable savings in cognitive load. No memorization is involved with ELIs referring to inanimates, all of which

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are masculine unless they are a-ending. For ELIs referring to animates, no memory effort is needed either, just as no effort is needed for animates in the native lexicon. The pattern in the Spanish of our informants, then, is clear. The routines of arbitrary, memory-based gender assignment are applied to native nouns, but are suspended in the processing of ELIs. This bifurcation in structural cognitive investments (spend in the native vocabulary, save in the ELIs) should lead us to predict an equivalent bifurcation in differential functional benefits in communication. By indicating through agreement which words are to be construed together, gender in Spanish serves in general to insure textual cohesion and facilitate the parsing of strings. This cohesion-maintaining function of gender is seen primarily in three environments: – – –

Adjectives in construction with nouns Articles in construction with nouns NPs receiving anaphoric reference from demonstratives, headless articles, and clitics (2) A. la casa de ladrillo roja / la casa es roja “the red house made of brick” / “the house is red” B. la casa de ladrillo rojo / el ladrillo es rojo “the house made of red brick” / “the brick is red” (3) A. El tan esperado premio “the long awaited prize” B. La tan esperada medalla “the long awaited medal” (4) A. ese que costó tanto dinero “the one (brick, prize) that cost so much” B. esa que costó tanto dinero “the one (house, medal) that cost so much” (5) A. el que costó tanto dinero “the one (brick, prize) that cost so much” B. la que costó tanto dinero “the one (house, medal) that cost so much” (6) A. lo perdí “I lost it (brick, prize)” B. la perdí “I lost it (house, medal)”

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 Ricardo Otheguy and Naomi Lapidus

If the adaptive approach is correct, we should expect that, among ELIs, on which large savings in gender marking have been realized, the losses represented by diminished discourse cohesion should be small. Our prediction should be: –

The inserted English vocabulary, which has no assigned gender, should participate in cohesion phenomena much less than the native vocabulary, which does have assigned gender.

This general prediction can be operationalized in the following four specific predictions: – – – –

Bare nouns, appearing without articles or modifiers, should be much more frequent among ELIs than among native nouns. Nouns in construction with articles should be much less frequent among ELIs than among native nouns. Nouns in construction with adjectives should be much less frequent among ELIs than among native nouns. Anaphoric reference from demonstratives, headless articles, and clitics should be directed less frequently to ELI antecedents than to native noun antecedents.

. Prediction with regard to bare nouns In our transcribed texts, we predict that examples like (7), where ELIs appear without agreeing articles or adjectives, should be common, whereas examples like (8), where they appear with agreeing articles and modifiers, should be rare. The prediction is, further, that this pattern is peculiar to ELIs and will not hold in the same proportion for the native words of the same corpus. (7) Common: ELIs, bare: A. ¿Está yendo a la escuela? Sí, estoy en college. 024C “Are you going to school? Yes, I’m in college.” B. Pero ¿Qué pasó? Oh, no querían . . . no . . . son . . . allá, creen las muchachas algunas que son high class. 117D “But what happened? Oh, they didn’t want, they are, the girls, some of them, they think they are high class.” C. Ah deja ver . . . Ah cuando yo fui a The Phillipines . . . yo fuí a Phillipines mi amiga se iba casar y me dijo que si yo quería salir en la boda y yo le dije que sí pues nosotros fuimos para Phillipines. 401P “Let me see when I went to the Phillipines my friend was going to get married and she asked whether I wanted to be in the wedding . . . and we went to the Phillipines.”

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D. Regresé a mi viejo high school, fui con la Sra. W., trabajé con ella como student field observer. 300E “I went back to my old high school, I went with Mrs. W, I worked with her as a student field observer.” (8) Uncommon: ELIs, with articles, modifying adjectives or adjectival complements: A. Regresé a mi viejo high school, fui con la Sra. W., trabajé con ella como student field observer. 300E “I went back to my old high school, I went with Mrs W, I worked with her as a student field observer.” B. El cuarto del nene es grande. Tiene un full size bed. Tiene un hockey, un un juego de hockey de la mesa que se parece como un pool table pequeño. Tiene la televisión, el bureau de él. So, es bien grandecito. 403P “The baby’s room is big. It has a full-size bed. It has a hockey, a hockey game that looks like a small pool table. It has his TV and his chest. So it’s pretty big.” C. Porque yo había oído en otro . . . que en otros lados con . . . le metes un credit card y se abre, verdad, porque si no están bien cerrada las dos . . . 301E “Because I had heard that in other places . . . you put the credit card in and it opens up, ‘cause otherwise both are closed . . . ” D. Y yo dije, yo no puedo dormir en ese cot y yo tengo la espalda mala y eso cot son bien mala. 405P “And I said, I can’t sleep in that cot. I have a bad back and those cots are very bad.” The results of a count testing the prediction are given in Table 3. Table 3. Noun tokens appearing with and without gender-marking articles or adjectives, in ELIs and native words ELIs N, + Art or Adj N, – Art or Adj

N

%

N

236 241 477

49 51 100

458 39 497

Native nouns % 92 8 100

p < .005 ELIs = English-origin lexical insertions in the speech of 33 informants Native nouns = Spanish-origin nouns in the following five informants: 271M, 300E, 301E, 401P, 405P

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 Ricardo Otheguy and Naomi Lapidus

The table confirms the prediction. More than half (51 percent) of ELIs appear bare. In order to place this 51 percent figure in perspective, that is, in order to insure that the bare-noun pattern is not found in ELIs simply because our informants leave all their nouns bare, we also looked at native nouns in a subset of our informants. The table shows that among native nouns, a considerably smaller proportion, 8 percent, occurs bare.

. Prediction with regard to adjectives The same prediction can be refined by looking at nouns occurring with adjectives. The results of the count testing the prediction that ELIs will disproportionately disfavor adjectives are shown in Table 4. The table shows that 95 percent of the ELI tokens used by our informants occur without adjectives. In order to place this 95 percent figure in perspective, that is, in order to insure that the no-adjective pattern is not found in English-origin nouns simply because our informants have lost the capacity to use adjectives altogether, we also looked at native nouns used by a subset of our informants. The table shows that among native nouns, a significantly smaller proportion, 76 percent, occurs without adjectives. Observed cases of discourse repairs lend qualitative support to the findings shown in Table 4. In (9), the speaker appears reluctant to use the combination of ELI + adjective that would yield high school católico, and switches to the Spanish escuela católica, and then, seemingly dissatisfied with that too, switches again to the English catholic high school to accommodate the adjective. (9) Em, en la escuela católica. Es que está en una, em, high school ca . . . es una escuela católica . . . cató . . . eh, high school. High, Catholic high school. 180C

Table 4. Noun tokens appearing with and without adjectives, ELIs vs. native nouns ELIs N, + Adjective N, – Adjective

N

%

N

23 454 477

5 95 100

118 379 497

Native nouns % 24 76 100

p < .005 ELIs = English-origin lexical insertions in the speech of 33 informants Native nouns = Spanish-origin nouns in the following five informants: 271M, 300E, 301E, 401P, 405P

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Table 5. Proportion of nouns with and without articles, ELIs vs native nouns ELIs Nouns + Art Nouns – Art

N

%

N

219 224 443

49 51 100

310 85 395

Native nouns % 78 21 100

p < .005 ELIs = English-origin lexical insertions in the speech of 33 informants Native nouns = Spanish-origin nouns in the following five informants: 271M, 300E, 301E, 401P, 405P Totals are different from the ones in the adjective table because the data are only from articleallowing environments.

. Prediction with regard to articles The next refinement of the prediction applies to articles. As in any Spanish text, many nouns in our transcriptions are blocked from occurring with an article by the presence of other modifiers. Once a word occurs with a possessive, a preposed demonstrative, or a preposed menos ‘less’ or más ‘more,’ no article is possible. Thus a count to establish the proportion of nouns occurring with and without articles in our corpus had to exclude such NPs as su bachelor’s degree, mi boss, menos credits, menos trouble, and este dance. We also excluded nouns that occurred with an English article, such as the Phillipines. The results of the count that tested the prediction that ELIs would occur without articles much more than native nouns are shown in Table 5. The table shows that, out of the slightly more than 400 ELIs appearing in environments where articles can occur, 51 percent occur without articles. In order to place this 51 percent figure in perspective, we also looked at native nouns in a subset of our informants. The table shows that among native words, our informants use a much smaller proportion of their nouns, only 21 percent, without articles.

. Prediction with regard to anaphora Confirming that in work based on naturalistic data in linguistics, no less than in any other empirical science, nature yields its secrets grudgingly, our predictions with regard to anaphora were not confirmed. The table shows that, contrary to our expectation, there is very little difference in the rate of receipt of anaphoric reference between ELIs and native nouns. That is, ELIs are antecedents to anaphoric clitics and demonstratives at rates no smaller than native nouns.

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 Ricardo Otheguy and Naomi Lapidus

Table 6. Proportion of noun tokens with and without anaphoric reference, ELIs vs. native nouns ELIs N + Receive anaphor ref N – Receive anaphor ref

N

%

N

29 448 477

6 94 100

35 462 497

Native nouns % 7 93 100

Antecedent nouns receiving anaphoric reference may occur with or without articles or adjectives

The failure of the prediction may be in part due to the fact that our informants, as Table 6 shows, barely make any use of anaphora at all, using a noun and practically never (in over 90 percent of cases) referring to it anaphorically, regardless of whether its origin is English or native. In addition, the data show that gender distinctions are less operative in anaphoric pronouns than we thought, as shown in Tables 7 and 8. Table 7 shows that, in ELIs and native nouns alike, what little anaphoric referencing that does go on is not by means of pronouns that alternate between masculine and feminine depending on the antecedent. In 90 percent of the few anaphors that we do find, the reference is by means of either a masculine pronoun or the clitic le, which is not marked for gender. Table 8 shows that this situation is not very different when we distinguish between ELIs and native words. Table 7. Proportion of masculine or unmarked and feminine pronouns making anaphoric reference, in both ELIs and native nouns taken together Anaphoric reference is:

Pro

%

by Masc/Unmarked Pronoun by Feminine Pronoun

69 8 77

90 10 100

Table 8. Proportion of masculine or unmarked pronouns vs. feminine pronouns making anaphoric reference, in ELIs vs. native nouns ELIs Anaphoric reference is:

Pro

%

Pro

by Masc/Unmarked Pronoun by Feminine Pronoun

27 4 31

87 13 100

42 4 46

Native nouns % 91 9 100

Antecedent nouns receiving anaphoric reference may occur with or without articles or adjectives

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At present we do not know whether the very scarce use of anaphora, and its operation for the most part on the basis of either masculine or unmarked pronouns, is a fact of Spanish in general or peculiar to contact speakers. But at least among our informants, it may be that the limited use, and the absence of feminine anaphors, does not provide enough functional motivation for structural differences between ELIs and native nouns to emerge.

. Limitations . Codeswitching vs. borrowing In addition to the still not entirely understood issue of gender in anaphora, our study contains several important limitations. We have not distinguished loans from switches, not so much because the distinction is controversial, or because the psycholinguistic status of single-word codeswitches is not at all clear, but because the distinction is not directly relevant to our study. In the important empirical studies summarized in Poplack and Meechan (1998), for example, the investigation into English-origin items in Ukranian by Budzhak-Jones (1998) and in French by Turpin (1998), careful consideration is given to features of contact varieties that are similar to the ones we have investigated here, namely gender, article use, and adjectival modification. These studies succeed in establishing statistical comparisons between the above-mentioned areas of the contact variety and analogous areas in the two possible grammars with which the cross-language lexical items might be associated: that of the target language for words regarded as loans, that of the donor one for the switches. But these considerations are not central to our study. Our concern has been neither the general taxonomic one of classifying single-word foreign-origin items in discourse, nor the developing of theories of codeswitching. Nor were we attempting to define constraints on possible switches that would force us to carefully define what does or does not constitute a switch. Our interest has been rather in establishing the connection between low levels of investment in morphosyntactic structure and scarce incidence of the functions served by that structure. It would thus be outside the scope of our paper to determine how our ELIs would fare under a study of the Poplack-Meechan type. It may very well be that, as in one of the possibilities contemplated in their approach, some ELIs would be loans and others switches. Since our informants deploy ELIs referring to inanimates with a much lower level of engagement of the Spanish gender system than they use for inanimate-reference native words, some of our ELIs may fall, on this test, more toward the codeswitching than the borrowing end of the spectrum. On the other

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hand, the gender system is fully engaged for ELIs referring to animates and, in a sense, also for a-ending words, suggesting that perhaps these ELIs are loans. With respect to articles and adjectives, the ELIs appear as a group to be more like switches. But the picture becomes complicated by the fact that some of the bare ELIs appear to conform to the grammar of English (cf. example (7A)), while others to that of Spanish (cf. example (7D)), while still others may fit with the grammar of both (cf. (7B)) or perhaps of neither (cf. (7C)). Some of these would thus appear to be switches under the Poplack-Meechan criterion, while others might be loans. Moreover, our inanimate-reference ELIs, which might seem to be switches under the criteria constituted by gender, articles, and adjectives, would perhaps be loans under the criterion of anaphora. Additionally, some ELIs in NYC Spanish have some of their tokens appearing in the masculine and other tokens in the feminine, as in the case of high school in our corpus. Our purpose, in short, is neither to evaluate the project of distinguishing loans from switches, nor, at the moment, to try to apply it to our data. Instead, the important consideration for us is that a project which attempts to separate loans from codeswitches frames the problem in a manner that tends to obscure our own explanatory attempts. Consonant with their purposes, Poplack and her followers tend to combine considerations of gender with those of article choice and modifier agreement. But in our adaptive approach, we regard gender as a structural feature that earns its continuing survival in the grammar by contributing to certain communicative-functional purposes, chief among them the maintenance of discourse cohesion in the deployment of articles and adjectives. Thus gender, articles, and adjectival modification fall on two sides of the explanatory dyad. The gender system, its solid engagement with native words and its robust engagement with animate and a-ending ELIs, contrasted with its near inoperativeness with inanimate ELIs, is our explanandum, the structural fact of the contact variety that needs to be understood. The rate of use of ELIs with articles and adjectives, the rate, that is, at which the cohesive function of gender is exploited in discourse when compared to the rate for native words in the same corpus, is our explanans, the functional fact that sheds light on the peculiarities of gender in NYC Spanish. We thus face a familiar situation. By asking a different question, the data take on a different shape. So for example, it is not relevant for us that some of the bare ELIs appear to conform more to the syntax of Spanish while others to that of English. We notice rather that the rate of occurrence of bare nouns, which do not tap the functional utility of gender, is in general much higher for the gender-inhibiting ELIs than for the gender-operative native words of the same corpus. Thus while the switch-versus-loan question is an important one for a variety of theoretical and analytical issues, it is avoided here because it categorizes the data in a way that would make our explanation of structure in the contact variety on the basis of function very difficult to draw out.

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Note, finally, that our study is not prey to dismissal through the argument that the reason that gender is disengaged among our ELIs is that they are not Spanish, but simply English words that, as such, should not be expected to have gender. Speakers of NYC Spanish appear to keep the gender system engaged at all times during their production of discourse, processing all nouns through it, including ELIs, on which the gender system operates as long as this can be done while keeping memory loads under control through the rule-based assignment of gender on the basis of word-ending and referent sex. It is simply not true that ELIs, being in some sense English, do not have gender. They do, as long as they can tap into those parts of the gender system that are less taxing on memory. The dismissal argument would be in the difficult position of regarding animate-reference and a-ending ELIs as Spanish while tagging inanimate-reference ELIs as English, a line of thinking that approaches circularity and does not appear promising. The fact that precisely those areas of gender that create opportunities for adaptive simplifcation are the ones that change in the contact dialect provides strong support for the explanation sketched out in our study. We keep an open mind regarding the possibility that a Poplack-Meechan type analysis might show that our predictions work much better for the switches than for the loans (in fact, the very definition of a switch under Poplack-Meechan may necessarily yield such a result if applied to our data). But if it turned out that words that would be classified as switches retained a less robust gender system than those that would be classified as loans (and, again, this may turn out to be true by definition), we would predict that the switches would appear with articles and adjectives much less than the loans, preserving the structure-function connection that has been of interest here. So while we remain open to the criticism that we may have lumped together very different items under our ELI category, the facts suggest that, with regard to arbitrary gender, ELIs do constitute a single group; and they suggest that, with regard to the issue of adaptation, strong confirmation is found in them for the structure-function connection that we have tried to uncover.

. Excluding words used in the home countries Another limitation of this work is that we have not formalized our native-country adoption as a criterion for excluding an English-origin word from our ELI category. We exclude cake, closet, Internet, etc. simply on the basis of our considerable experience, which tells us that these words circulate widely in Latin America. A possible refinement of this study would involve spelling out a formal criterion for exclusion.

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. Mechanism of change Finally, an important limitation is that no path or mechanism for the functionsensitive structural change is specified. We limit ourselves to establishing that, as in biological adaptation, function appears to play a key role in determining structure. But an analogy is not a mechanism, and we still need to learn exactly how diminished functions lead to structural reductions. Moreover, our analogies themselves have limitations. The comparison with sighted and blind fish is more telling than the one about bone and muscle, but is misleading in that it compares words to organisms, when a better comparison might be of languages to organisms. The bonemuscle analogy is less graphic, but better in that it compares words to substructures (the different bone types) of the same organism.

. Discussion of article and adjective predictions The three versions of our prediction regarding modifiers have been statistically supported with high levels of confidence. Much more so than native nouns, our informants use ELIs without articles or adjectives. The confirmation of the predictions supports adaptive thinking in general, and in particular the principle that structure in language, as in biology, is in large measure a response to function. Finding that the structural gender-distinguishing system was robustly applied to the native-origin lexicon but inoperative in the ELIs, we looked for the functional difference to which the observed structural pattern must be a reaction. Since gender is primarily involved with adjective and article agreement, we predicted that among ELIs, where arbitrary gender is inoperative, there must be disproportionate levels of non-participation in adjective and article agreement. That our expectations were fulfilled in a large sample shows that adaptive expectations, in this case true chronological predictions insulated from the dangers of circularity, can illuminate the behavior of contact speakers. We end by repeating the biological analogy, and spelling it out more fully than when we introduced it above. The functional differences in vision opportunities for fish inhabiting relatively shallow, translucent waters and those inhabiting the darkest oceanic depths explain their structural differences. Through natural selection, the former have ended up investing in a complex vision system, while the latter are blind. A functional difference, namely being able to see in the light versus not being able to see in permanent darkness, explains a structural difference, namely having a vision system versus not having it. In parallel, the functional differences in the degree to which cohesion is maintained through agreement explains the structural differences between gender-operative native words and gender-inoperative ELIs. In native words (the equivalent of fish in the translucent shallows), an agreement-

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mediated, cohesion-maintaining function exists (equivalent to seeing in the light). In response, in native words a structural cost is incurred in the form of memorized gender assignment (equivalent to the structural cost of having a vision system). In ELIs (the equivalent of fish in the dark depths), the cohesion function does not exist (the equivalent of not seeing). In response, in ELIs a structural savings is obtained by not applying the distinction between masculine and feminine (the equivalent of structural savings obtained from eliminating vision).

Notes . Many of the interviews were conducted and transcribed by Ana Celia Zentella and her team of research assistants, under Rockefeller Foundation and PSC-CUNY grants. Others were conducted and transcribed by Nydia Flores as part of her on-going dissertation research. Still others were conducted and transcribed by Ana Celia Zentella and Ricardo Otheguy, and their graduate assistants, under joint CUNY Collaborative (1998–2001) and PSC-CUNY (1999–2000) grants. Transcription and coding work has also been supported by a current joint grant to Otheguy and Zentella from the National Science Foundation (2001–2004). The authors wish to thank these scholars for allowing the use of their data. The support of the funding agencies is also gratefully acknowledged. . The highly diminished role of gender in English insertions in Spanish in New York is not surprising, and neither is the move to a borrowed lexicon whose assigned gender is esssentially all masculine. Gender is known to undergo considerable erosion under contact. Haugen (1969) found a tendency towards masculine-only items among nouns borrowed from English in U.S. Norwegian, and Correa-Zoli (1973) found the same tendency in U.S. Italian. Romaine (1995) reports that Asia Minor Greek has lost much of its gender under heavy contact with Turkish. Closer to our topic, a strong tendency toward masculine gender assignment to English-origin loanwords in Spanish is reported in Prado (1982). Less consistent with our findings are the results of Zamora (1975) and Wagner (1990). More generally, while it is true that inserted nouns in many contact situations do assimilate morphologically, they fail to assimilate in many others. Heath (1989), for example, reports that Berber, French, and Spanish insertions in Moroccan Arabic often fail to acquire the definite marker /l-/. . The number at the end of an example indicates the informant transcript from which it was taken.

References Anderson, R. W. (1982). Determining the linguistic attributes of language attrition. In Barbara Freed & Richard Lambert (Eds.), The loss of language skills. Rowley: Newbury House.

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 Ricardo Otheguy and Naomi Lapidus

Barkin, Florence (1980). The role of loanword assimilation in gender assignment. The Bilingual Review, 7, 105–113. Bloomfield, Leonard (1933). Language. New York: Holt, Rinehart, and Winston. Budzhak-Jones, Svitlana (1998). Against word-internal codeswitching: Evidence from Ukranian-English bilingualism. International Journal of Bilingualism, 2, 161–181. Casagrande, Joseph (1954). Comanche linguistic acculturation, I and II. International Journal of American Linguistics, 20, 140–151, and 20, 217–237. Correa-Zoli, Y. (1973). Assignment of gender in American Italian. Glossa, 7, 123–128. Futuyama, Douglas (1998). Evolutionary biology. Sunderland, MA: Sinauer Associates, Inc. Harper Collins (2000). Spanish Unabridged Dictionary. Sixth Edition. New York: Harper Collins Publishers. Haugen, Einar (1938). [1972]. Language and immigration. Norwegian-American Studies and Records, 10, 1–43. Haugen, Einar (1969). The Norwegian language in America. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Heath, Jeffrey (1989). From code-switching to borrowing: A case-study of Moroccan Arabic. New York: Kegan Paul International. Hockett, Charles (1973). Man’s Place in Nature. New York: McGraw-Hill. Kearney, M. (1995). The local and the global: The anthropology of globalization and transnationalism. Annual Review of Anthropology, 24, 547–565. Kölhler, Reinhard (1993). Synergetic linguistics. In Reihard Köhler & Burghard Reiger (Eds.), Contributions to Quantitative Linguistics. Dordrecht: Kluwer. Lieberman, Philip (1998). Eve spoke: Human language and human evolution. New York: W. W. Norton and Co. Lindblom, Björn (1986). Phonetic universals in vowel systems. In John Ohala & Jeri Jaeger (Eds.), Experimental Phonology. Dordrecht: Foris. Lindblom, Björn & Ian Maddieson (1988). Phonetic universals in consonant systems. In Larry Hyman & Charles Li (Eds.), Language, Speech and Mind. London: Routledge. Martinet, André (1952). Function, structure and sound change. Word, 8, 1–32. Mendieta, Eva (1999). El préstamo en el español de los Estados Unidos. New York: Peter Lang Publishers. Mougeon, Raymond & Édouard Beniak (1991). Linguistic consequences of language contact and restriction: The case of French in Ontario, Canada. Oxford University Press. Navarro Tomás, Tomás (1968). Studies in Spanish phonology. University of Miami Press. Nettle, Daniel (1995). Segmental inventory size, word length, and communicative efficiency. Linguistics, 33, 359–367. Nettle, Daniel (1999). Functionalism and its difficulties in biology and linguistics. In Michael Darnell et al. (Eds.), Functionalism and formalism in linguistics. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Otheguy, Ricardo & Ofelia Garcia (1993). Convergent conceptualizations as predictors of degree of contact in U.S. Spanish. In Ana Roca & John M. Lipski (Eds.), Spanish in the United States: Linguistic contact and diversity (pp. 135–154). Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. Poplack, Shana (1982). Competing influences on gender assignment: Variable process, stable outcome. Lingua, 57, 1–28.

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An adaptive approach to noun gender in N.Y. Spanish 

Poplack, Shana (1983). Bilingual competence: Linguistic interference or grammatical integrity. In Lucía Elías Olivares (Ed.), Spanish in the U.S. setting: Beyond the Southwest. Washington, DC: National Clearinghouse for Bilingual Education. Poplack, Shana, David Sankoff, & Christopher Miller (1988). The social correlates and linguistic consequences of lexcial borrowing. Linguistics, 26, 47–104. Poplack, Shana & Marjory Meechan (1998). How languages fit together in codemixing. International Journal of Bilingualism, 2, 127–138. Prado, Marcial (1982). El género en español y la teoría de la marcadez. Hispania, 65, 258– 266. Pratt, Chris (1980). El anglicismo en el español peninsular contemporáneo. Madrid: Editorial Gredos. Romaine, Suzanne (1995). Bilingualism (2nd edition). Oxford: Blackwell Publishers. Sánchez, Rosaura (1983). Chicano discourse: Socio-historic perspectives. Rowley, MA: Newbury House. Silva-Corvalán, Carmen (1986). Bilingualism and language change: The extension of estar in Los Angeles Spanish. Language, 62, 587–609. Silva-Corvalán, Carmen (1990). Current issues in studies in language contact. Hispania, 73, 162–177. Silva-Corvalán, Carmen (1994). Language contact and change: Spanish in Los Angeles. Oxford University Press. Thomason, Sarah & Terrence Kaufman (1988). Language contact, creolization, and genetic linguistics. University of California Press. Turpin, Danielle (1998). Le francais, c’est le last frontier: The status of English-origin nouns in Acadian French. International Journal of Bilingualism, 2, 221–233. Wagner, Claudio (1990). El enfoque lingüístico de la normativa: El caso de los préstamos. Estudios Filológicos, 25, 55–65. Weinreich, Uriel (1953). Languages in Contact. Publications of the Linguistic Circle of New York. Whitney, William D. (1881). On mixture in language. Transactions of the American Philological Association, 12, 5–26. Zamora, Juan Clemente (1975). Morfología bilingüe: la asignación de género a los préstamos. Bilingual Review, 2, 239–247. Zentella, Ana Celia (1997). Growing up bilingual: Puerto Rican children in New York. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers. Zipf, George (1935). The psychobiology of language. Boston: Houghton and Mifflin.

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Properties of the double object construction in Spanish* Tonia Bleam Northwestern University

.

Introduction

Various authors have argued that the indirect object (IO) clitic doubling construction in Spanish and the double object construction in English share a common derivation (Uriagereka 1988; Masullo 1992; Demonte 1995; Ormazabal & Romero 1999). The sentences in (1) illustrate the dative alternation in English. We will refer to the construction in (1a) as the ‘prepositional dative construction’, and that in (1b) as the ‘double object construction’ (DOC). (1) a. Carmen sent the book to her professor. b. Carmen sent her professor the book. The IO doubling alternation in Spanish is illustrated in (2). In (2b), the goal argument a su profesor (“to her professor”) is doubled by the clitic le; in (2a) there is no clitic doubling of this constituent. (2) a.

Carmen envió el libro a su profesor. Carmen sent the book to her professor. b. Carmen le envió el libro a su profesor. Carmen cl sent the book to her professor

The claim is that (2a) corresponds to (1a), and that (2b) corresponds to (1b). Previous authors arguing for this assimilation, with the exception of Demonte (1995), have assumed a transformational relationship between the (a) and (b) examples in (1) and (2) (following either Larson 1988 or Baker 1988). However, the question of whether the DOC and the prepositional dative are related derivationally remains controversial (see Note 4). Many authors (going back at least as far as Oehrle 1976) have rejected the derivational analysis of the dative alternation, bas-

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ing their objections partly on the claim that the two constructions do not have identical meanings. This paper addresses both of the questions touched on above. The first question is whether the IO doubling construction (IODC) in (2b) should be assimilated to the DOC in (1b). The second question is whether there is a transformational relationship between the prepositional dative and the DOC (and between the corresponding Spanish constructions). In addressing the first question, I show that while these two constructions share various properties, the Spanish IODC does not display all of the properties that the English DOC does. However, despite these apparent differences, I argue that the two structures are the same, and the differences are due to independent properties of the two languages. In answer to the second question, I propose that the (a) and (b) examples in (1) and (2) have independent underlying structures, rather than being derivationally related. Specifically, the proposal is that the tree in (3) is the underlying structure for the DOC and the IODC. In Spanish, this configuration gives rise to the presence of the clitic. (Space precludes a detailed discussion of the relationship between this structure and the clitic, but see Masullo 1992; Demonte 1995; Ormazabal & Romero 1999; and Bleam 1999 for various possibilities.) The tree in (4) is the underlying structure for the prepositional dative in English (1a) and clitic-less constructions in Spanish (2a). (3)

vP DPsubj

v’

vcause

le

PP P’

DPIO

Phave

(4)

DPDO

vP DPsubj

v’

vcause

no clitic

PP

DPDO Ploc

P’ DPIO

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Properties of the double object construction in Spanish 

The relationship between (1b) and (2b), then, is that they share a common underlying structure, but not a common surface structure, as is clear from the difference in word order. I show that the properties that have been previously taken to be criterial to the DOC fall into two classes: those which are due to underlying structure and those which are due to surface structure. Because the DOC is defined by its underlying structure, only those properties which arise from this structure should be considered criterial.

. Properties of DOCs and (non-)parallelisms with IO doubling In this section, I will discuss three properties that have been taken as diagnostics for the DOC (see for example, Baker 1988) and compare the behavior of English DOCs and Spanish IODCs with regard to these properties.

. Goal restrictions The first property of the DOC is that it exhibits certain semantic restrictions on the goal argument that the prepositional dative does not. First, the goal argument must be interpretable as a possessor of the referent of the DO (Green 1974; Oehrle 1976; Pinker 1989; Goldberg 1995). The example in (5) shows that when the goal NP is a place name, it cannot be shifted. According to the generalization, this is because the NP New York cannot be interpreted as a possessor of a book. (5) a. I sent/gave the book to New York. b. *I sent/gave New York the book. This generalization also holds of the clitic doubled construction in Spanish: an IO place name can not be clitic doubled, as shown in (6b). This restriction does not hold of the non-doubled example in (6a). (6) a.

Yo envié un libro a Nueva York I sent a book to New York b. *Yo le envié un libro a Nueva York. I cl sent the book to New York

(Ormazabal & Romero 1999)

Notice that the ungrammaticality of (5b) and (6b) is not due to a simple animacy restriction since it is possible to say (7), in which the goal is inanimate. (To anticipate a bit, notice that the table can be considered the possessor of a coat of paint, in that it is possible to say, “The table has a new coat of paint”.) (7) a.

I gave the table a new coat of paint.

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b. Le puse un techo nuevo a la casa. cl put.1p a roof new to the house “I put a new roof on the house.” Another effect of the possessor generalization is illustrated by the examples in (8). Oehrle (1976) notes that the DOC in (8b) carries the necessary implication that the students learned French, which is absent in (8a). That is, the DOC requires an interpretation in which the goal-entity ends up possessing the theme-entity; the students possess (the knowledge of) French. (8) a. John taught French to the students. b. John taught the students French. The same restriction arises in benefactive sentences, like those in (9) (Oehrle 1976; cf. Jayaseelan 1988). Both sentences in (9) imply that my husband receives the tea kettle. In the prepositional dative (9a), this implication can be canceled by the but clause. In (9b), however, the implication cannot be canceled. Thus, in the DOC, it is entailed that the goal-entity possesses the theme-entity. (9) a. I bought this tea-kettle for my husband, but I decided to keep it. b. I bought my husband this tea-kettle, #but I decided to keep it. (Oehrle’s 1976: 70 examples (7) and (8), slightly modified) Similarly, the possession entailment holds in the Spanish clitic doubled examples in (10b) and (11b), but not in the non-doubled examples (10a) and (11a) (Strozer 1976; Demonte 1995). Example (11) is slightly modified from Strozer (1976: 557, (7a–b)). (10) a.

María está enseñando francés a los niños. Maria is teaching French to the children. b. María les está enseñando francés a los niños. Maria cl is teaching French to the children

(11) a.

Compré el helado para mi marido, pero decidí comerlo. I bought the icecream for my wife but I decided to eat it. b. Le compré el helado a mi marido, #pero decidí comerlo. cl I.bought the icecream to my husband, but I decided to.eat-it

There is a second, related, restriction on the goal argument in a DOC, which can be seen when contrasted with the for-PP in a benefactive. This PP appears to have an intensional or future aspect to it,1 so that (12a) would be felicitous in a situation where John’s grandchildren do not yet exist. In the DOC in (12b), on the other hand, the grandchildren cannot be hypothetical. (cf. Kayne 1975 in which this difference in interpretation between for-PPs and datives is observed in French).

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Properties of the double object construction in Spanish 

(12) a. John bought some toys for his grandchildren. b. John bought his grandchildren some toys. This existence restriction is also present in the Spanish clitic doubled construction in (13b), but not in (13a). (13) a.

Juan compró juguetes para sus nietos. Juan bought toys for his grandchildren. b. Juan les compró juguetes a sus nietos. Juan cl bought toys to his grandchildren

. Binding asymmetries The second property to be discussed concerns the well-known binding asymmetries exhibited by the DOC and the prepositional dative. These asymmetric binding effects suggest that, in each case, the first constituent asymmetrically c-commands the second (Barss & Lasnik 1986; Larson 1988). This is illustrated using quantifiervariable binding in (14) and (15). In the prepositional dative, the DO asymmetrically c-commands the IO. (14a) shows that the DO can bind into the IO, and (14b) shows that the IO cannot bind into the DO. In the DOC, the IO asymmetrically c-commands the DO. (15a) shows that the shifted IO binds the pronoun in the DO, and (15b) shows that the DO cannot bind into the shifted IO. (14) a. The editor sent [every book]i to itsi author. b. *The editor sent heri book to [every author]i . (15) a. The editor sent [every author]i heri book. b. *The editor sent itsi author [every book]i . Spanish ditransitives with no clitic doubling show the same behavior as the English prepositional dative: the DO asymmetrically c-commands the IO. (16) a.

El editor envió [cada libro]i a sui autor. The editor sent each book to its author. b. *El editor envió sui libro [a cada autor]i . The editor sent his book to each author.

A complete parallel between the DOC and the IODC can be found when the word order in Spanish is IO DO (Uriagereka 1988).2 In (17), the IO binds the pronoun in the DO, but the DO cannot bind into the IO. (17) a.

El editor le envió [a cada autor]i sui libro. The editor cl sent to each author his book

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b. *El editor le envió a sui autor [cada libro]i . The editor cl sent to its author each book However, IO DO is not the neutral word order in the IODC. When we have the more normal DO IO order, the parallel with the DOC is no longer present. The example in (18) shows that the DO can bind into the IO even when IO doubling obtains (Demonte 1995). (18) El editor le envió [cada libro]i a sui autor. The editor cl sent each book to its author From the examples in (17) and (18), we see that the surface structure configuration of the two arguments determines their binding possibilities. However, in (19) we see that even with DO IO surface order, the IO can bind the DO, suggesting that the IO c-commands the DO at some level of representation. This is true only when IO doubling obtains, as the contrast between (19) and (16b) shows. (19) (?)El editor le envió sui libro [a cada autor]i . The editor cl sent his book to each author There are two possible explanations for these data. One scenario is that the underlying order is DO IO, and (19) arises because there is further A-movement of the IO past the DO at LF, where the binding relation obtains. In the second scenario, IO DO is the underlying order, (19) is derived by moving the DO past the IO at surface structure, and it is the base position which determines the availability of binding. This first scenario is compatible, for example, with the analysis of Sportiche (1996), in which the full NP IO moves to the specifier of the dative clitic phrase (in IP) at LF. While it is true that this proposed LF A-movement to IP would enable the IO to bind a variable in the DO, it should also enable the IO to bind a variable in the subject, assuming that the subject can (optionally) reconstruct to spec,vP. However, this binding of the subject is not possible, as shown in (20). (20) *Sui abuela le envió un cheque [a cada estudiante]i . His grandmother cl sent a check to each student Thus, I conclude that the binding relation exhibited in (19) is a consequence of the underlying position of the DO below the IO. To account for the DO IO word order in the IODC, I propose that the DO moves overtly past the IO in Spanish, but not in English. Details about the nature of this movement are left for future research, but see McGinnis’s (to appear) analysis of how cross-linguistic differences among applicative (e.g., double object) constructions give rise to different locality relations, which, in turn, allow for further movement of the DO in some languages but not others. For present purposes, I adopt a simplified version of the movement,

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Properties of the double object construction in Spanish 

which is illustrated in (21). It is assumed that this surface configuration gives rise to the binding possibilities illustrated above.3 (21)

vP SUBJ

v’ vcause

PP PP

DOi IO

P’ Phave

ti

. Scope freezing A third property of DOCs is that they exhibit scope freezing effects (Larson 1990; Marantz 1993; inter alia). Whereas the relative scoping between the DO and the IO is free in the prepositional dative, it is fixed in the DOC, with the “shifted” IO necessarily being interpreted with scope over the DO. (22) John sent every book to a relative. a. ∀ > ∃ b. ∃ > ∀

DO∀ IO∃

(23) John sent a relative every book. a. ??/*∀ > ∃ b. ∃ > ∀

IO∃ DO∀

In both examples the DO contains a universal quantifier and the IO is an indefinite. In the prepositional dative in (22), either scope is possible. The sentence can mean that every book went to a possibly different relative (22a), or that there was a single relative who received all of the books (22b). The DOC version in (23) can only have the (b) reading, where the existential of the indefinite IO takes scope over the universal of the DO. The Spanish example (24), with no doubling, patterns with the prepositional dative in allowing either scope interpretation. (24) Juan envió todo libro a un pariente. Juan sent every book to a relative. a. ∀ > ∃ b. ∃ > ∀

DO∀ IO∃

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 Tonia Bleam

In examining the IODC in Spanish, however, we find that scope freezing only obtains in the IO DO order in (25), but not in the more common DO IO order, in (26) (25) Juan le envió a un pariente todo libro (que había robado . . . ). IO∃ DO∀ Juan cl sent to every relative a book (that he.had stolen) a. ??∀ > ∃ b. ∃ > ∀ (26) Juan le envió todo libro a un pariente. Juan cl sent every book to a relative a. ∀ > ∃ b. ∃ > ∀

DO∀ IO∃

If (25) and (26) are derived from the same underlying structure, as we demonstrated in Section 2.2, then the scope freezing effect appears to be a property of surface structure (or LF, see discussion below), and is not due to IO doubling, per se. We can see from examples (24) and (26) that DO IO word order never exhibits scope freezing, regardless of whether the IO is doubled or not. In English, it is not possible to have a DOC with DO IO word order, and so it is impossible to tease apart the effects of underlying structure versus surface structure. Similarly, it is not possible to see the effect in the non-doubling constructions in Spanish, since IO DO order is not possible without IO-doubling (Demonte 1995).

. Conclusions On the basis of the discussion in this section, we conclude that the hypothesis that the IODC is a DOC is correct. With regard to all of the properties that depend on underlying structure, the two languages display parallel behavior. Interestingly, the free word order in Spanish allows us to identify those properties of the English DOC which are due to the underlying structure and those which are due to the surface word order. As we will see below, the DOC is defined not by its surface structure, but by its underlying structure.

. Alternate projection vs. derivation It is a matter of long-standing debate whether the relationship between the prepositional dative and the DOC is derivational or one of alternate syntactic projection.4 The data presented so far leads us to adopt an alternate projection approach, rather than a derivational one. First, if the English DOC is transformationally related to the prepositional dative, then we should expect to see evidence of this un-

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Properties of the double object construction in Spanish 

derlying structure in, for example, the binding possibilities. Following our line of argumentation in Section 2.2, if we were to adopt an analysis along the lines of Larson (1988), then symmetrical, rather than asymmetrical, binding should be possible between the DO and the IO in the DOC.5 This is because, according to that analysis, the DO c-commands the IO in the underlying structure. Therefore, at LF, these constituents should be able to reconstruct to their base positions (May 1985; Lebeaux 1998), and binding of the DO into the IO should be possible. However, what we find is that this binding is not possible. The IO asymmetrically ccommands the DO in the English DOC, as we saw in Section 2.2. Thus, we find no evidence of the underlying structure that the transform approach would predict. The second reason to adopt the alternate projection approach has to do with the different semantic properties associated with the two different constructions discussed in Section 2.1. The fact that the two constructions show differences in meaning is not by itself an argument against the transform approach since we generally assume that transformations such as QR and scrambling can result in meaning differences depending how they apply. However, an analysis that is able explain the semantic differences should be favored over one that does not, all other things being equal. The account of Harley (2000) provides such an analysis.

. Harley’s Alternate Projection Analysis In order to account for the meaning differences between the DOC and the prepositional dative discussed in Section 2.1, we adopt Harley’s (1995, 2000) analysis in which the two constructions have different underlying representations.6 The central idea of this analysis is that verbs of transfer, such as give, send, throw, etc., have two different lexical decompositions, which are given in (27). (27) a. Cause + have b. Cause + go to These two decompositions project different structures in the syntax, as illustrated in (28) and (29).

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(28)

vP DPsubj

v’

vcause

PP P’

DPIO

Phave

(29)

DPDO

vP DPsubj

v’

vcause

PP

DPDO

P’ PP

Ploc P to

DPIO

In both cases, the pieces of verb are realized as two separate heads: the cause component is encoded by the head ‘little’ v (Hale & Keyser 1993; Chomsky 1995; Kratzer 1996), and the have or go component is encoded in a prepositional head, which is the complement of v. Phave is taken to be the Kaynean prepositional component of have (Benveniste 1966; Freeze 1992; Kayne 1993; den Dikken 1995) that encodes possession. The prepositional element Ploc is a directional (or path) element which we will interpret as encoding the GO function of Jackendoff (1990b). Incorporation of P into vcause is spelled out as a verb of transfer {give, send, etc.}, where we are assuming late insertion of morphological material, as in Distributed Morphology (Halle & Marantz 1993, 1994). Thus, the structure in (28) will give rise to the DOC, which as we have seen, has the meaning “cause to have”; and the structure in (29) will give rise to the prepositional dative (which means something like “cause to go to”). Crucially, there are two different underlying structures for the two constructions, rather than one being derived from the other. Because of the different argument structures, the theme and goal arguments are realized in different positions in the two representations.

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Properties of the double object construction in Spanish 

. Accounting for the facts In this section, we show how Harley’s analysis accounts for the various properties of the DOC and prepositional dative construction (including the Spanish versions of these constructions) that were presented in Section 2.

. Goal restrictions The meaning differences in the two constructions arise from the fact that possession is entailed in the Phave construction but not in Ploc construction by the very nature of these sublexical components (den Dikken 1995; Harley 2000). We are assuming that the Phave construction is the only source for sentences like (8b) (repeated here), and so the meaning of possession is entailed by the sentence. It is entailed by the structure in (30) that the students have (the knowledge of) French. (8) b. John taught the students French. (30)

vP DPsubj v’ (John) vcause PP P’ DPIO (the students) Phave DPDO (French)

On the other hand, in the Ploc construction (8a), the knowledge goes in the direction of the children, but it is not entailed that they receive it. (8) a. (31)

John taught French to the students. vP

DPsubj v’ (John) vcause PP DPDO P’ (French) Ploc PP P to

DPIO (the students)

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Given the structure in (28), the semantic restrictions on the goal in the DOC (that is must be a possible possessor) can be stated as selectional restrictions on the subject of the Phave predicate (or the combination of Phave and its complement together, following Marantz 1984). Under this analysis, (5b) is ill-formed for the same reason that (32) is. (32) *New York has the book. This is because the structure in (33) will be (part of) the underlying structure of both sentences, and it is this component that gives rise to the semantic anomaly.7 (33)

PP DP (New York)

P’

Phave

DP (the book)

So far, we have accounted for the possession restriction on the IO in the DOC. The other semantic effect, mentioned above, is the existence entailment in examples like (12b). While the exact nature of this restriction is not clear, we can draw a parallel between (12b) and the example in (34a), in which there is also an entailment that the grandchildren exist. (12) b. John bought his grandchildren toys. (34) a. His grandchildren have the toys. b. ⇒ his grandchildren exist The generalization that I wish to note is that the have relation is not intensional, and so its arguments are not interpreted intensionally (unless, of course, they are embedded under another predicate which is intensional).

. Binding asymmetries The two different underlying hierarchical structures of (28) and (29) give rise to the different binding possibilities in the two constructions. In the prepositional dative, the theme argument (DPDO ) asymmetrically c-commands the goal argument (DPIO ), as in Larson (1988). In the DOC, the goal argument (DPIO ) asymmetrically c-commands the theme argument (DPDO ). In English, the underlying hierarchical relationship between the DO and the IO remains the same at the surface in both the double object and the prepositional dative constructions; or, more precisely, there is no further A-movement in the derivation that would change the binding relations that are established in the underlying structure.

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Properties of the double object construction in Spanish 

The Spanish prepositional dative construction (no doubling) behaves in the same way as its English counterpart. The DO asymmetrically c-commands the goal argument in the underlying structure, and there is no further A-movement to disrupt the binding relation that is established there. In the IODC, on the other hand, we argued that there is further A-movement which gives rise to binding possibilities that are not licensed by the underlying structure of that construction.

. Scope freezing Given Harley’s analysis, it is tempting to tie the scope freezing effects of the English DOC to the underlying position of the goal argument, i.e., the subject of have. It could be argued that the subject of the have relation must be referential (relating to the existential requirement on this argument), and thus appears to take widest scope. However, we saw from the Spanish data in Section 2.3 that the scope freezing effect depends on surface word order, and is not due to the underlying structure. Because scope freezing is not determined by the underlying structure, Harley’s analysis has little to say concerning this property. The data presented here appears to be compatible with Nakanishi’s (2000) analysis of scope freezing in which the different orders (IO DO vs. DO IO) have different information structures. Under this approach, the IO in the IO DO construction must be interpreted as “specific,” which, in the case of indefinites, means being interpreted as a choice function variable, thus giving rise to the apparent wide scope of the IO. (Also compatible with the data presented here would be Bruening’s (2000) analysis, in which scope freezing is taken to be due to locality restrictions on QR. However, Nakanishi presents convincing arguments against this account.)

. Idioms Idiom chunks have often been taken as a source of evidence concerning the underlying structure of certain types of sentences (Rosenbaum 1967; Perlmutter 1970; Chomsky 1981; but see Ruwet 1991 and Nunberg et al. 1994 for objections to this approach). Idiom-based arguments have been used to support both the derivational approach (Larson 1988) and the alternate projection approach (Harley 2000) to DOCs. We show in this section that the range of possible idioms supports the alternate projection analysis of Harley 2000, for both English and Spanish. If we assume that idioms must form a (thematic) constituent underlyingly, then the alternate projection analysis illustrated in (28) and (29) predicts that there are two kinds of (distinguishable) idioms possible. The tree in (28) will give rise to

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idioms consisting of the have component (Phave ) of the verb plus the theme NP (DO) (that exclude the IO). The tree in (29) will give rise to idioms that consist of the Ploc component plus the goal NP (IO) (excluding the DO). Because the verbs are not decomposed on the surface, these idioms will show up as V+DO and V+IO idioms (crucially where the other NP argument is excluded from the idiom).8

. Idioms in English Larson (1988) argues that discontinuous idioms of the form V [DO __] IO, where the DO slot is open, provide evidence for a hierarchical structure in which V and IO form a constituent underlyingly. The verb then moves from the lower V position, past the DO, into a higher VP shell, giving rise to the surface order V DO IO. Examples of such idioms are given in (35). (35) a.

Lasorda sent his starting pitcher to the showers. (Lasorda took his starting pitcher out of the game.) b. Felix threw Oscar to the wolves. (Felix sacrificed Oscar.)

(Larson 1988)

Under Larson’s analysis where the DOC is derived from the prepositional dative, the expectation is that at least some of these V+IO idioms would be able to surface as DOCs. However, this prediction is not borne out, as shown in (36). (36) a. *Lasorda sent the showers his starting pitcher. b. *Felix threw the wolves Oscar. Similarly, Larson’s analysis predicts that we should not find idioms of the form V [IO __] DO, which do not have a prepositional dative counterpart. Again, this prediction is not borne out, as noted by Harley. (37) a. Mary gave John the boot. b. Bill threw Mary a glance. c. The Count gives Ernie the creeps. (38) a. !! Mary gave the boot to John.9 b. *Bill threw a glance to Mary. c. *The Count gives the creeps to Ernie. Harley’s analysis, on the other hand, correctly predicts the range of idioms seen here. Under this account, the idiomatic component of the transfer verb idioms consists of the abstract preposition plus its complement, where these elements form a constituent in the underlying representation (before incorporation of P into v). For the prepositional dative, Harley’s analysis works just like Larson’s. However, because Harley does not posit a transformational relation between the prepositional

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dative and the DOC, she does not make the erroneous prediction that idioms such as those in (36) should exist. For the DOC idioms, the alternate projection analysis also makes the correct prediction. The idioms in (37) are derived from the underlying structure in (28), in which Phave and the DO (i.e., the pieces of the idiom) form a constituent. And, again, the analysis does not generate the prepositional dative variant of these idioms, given in (38).

. Idioms in Spanish The argument from idioms gives us an additional way to test the hypothesis that IO doubling in Spanish should be assimilated to a DOC. This hypothesis makes a number of predictions in concert with Harley’s analysis, all of which seem to be borne out. The first prediction is that we should find V+DO idioms with clitic doubling of the IO. Since clitic doubling represents the Phave structure (28), the DO is the only argument with which Phave can form a constituent. This prediction is borne out by examples such as those in (39)–(43). (39) María le ha dado calabazas a Juan. Maria cl has given pumpkins to Juan “Maria turned Juan down.” (40) María le está dando la lata a Juan. Maria cl is giving the tin-can to Juan “Maria is giving Juan a hard time.” (41) María le echó una mano a Juan. Maria cl threw a hand to Juan “Maria helped Juan.” (42) Juan tiene que hacer-le la pelota a su jefe. Juan has that make-cl the ball to his boss “Juan has to flatter his boss.” (43) Habrá que dorar-le la píldora a Juan. Will.have that to.gild-cl the pill to Juan “The pill (the news) will have to be sugar-coated for Juan.” Not only is clitic doubling expected to be possible with V+DO idioms, it is expected to be obligatory if the Phave construction in (28) necessarily gives rise to clitic doubling. Again, this prediction seems to be borne out. While the examples in (44)–(48) are not ungrammatical without the clitic, the clitic is necessary in order to get the idiomatic reading. This is exactly what is predicted by the have-loc alternate projection analysis.

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(44) María !! (le) ha dado calabazas a Juan. (45) María !! (le) está dando la lata a Juan. (46) María !! (le) echó una mano a Juan. (47) Juan tiene que hacer-!! (le) la pelota a su jefe. (48) Habrá que dorar !! (le) la píldora a Juan. The third prediction is that there should be no V+IO idioms (leaving out DO) where the IO is doubled. The idioms in (49) and (50) bear this prediction out. (49) Juan (*le) mandó a María a la porra. Juan (*cl) sent A Maria to the stick “Juan sent Maria packing.” (50) María (*le) mandó a Juan a-l diablo. Maria (*cl) sent A Juan to-the devil “Maria sent John packing/told John to go to hell.” This prediction is due to the fact that in order to get a V+IO idiom, the Ploc structure (29) is required since this is the only structure in which the IO forms a constituent with a component of the verb. Thus, we are proposing that the idioms underlying (49) and (50) are really GO to the stick and GO to the devil, respectively. That these are really the idioms in Spanish is supported by the fact that the same idioms appear with the verb ir (“to go”), as seen by (51). The verb ir is assumed to be composed of the same GO component as mandar (“to send”). (See Richards 2001 for a similar argument about the relationship between have and the verbs get and give in English.)10 (51) Ve-te a-l diablo! go-refl to-the devil “Go to hell!” An alternative way to describe the data in (49) and (50) is to say that clitic doubling is incompatible with an idiomatic IO, perhaps because of a constraint that clitic doubled elements must be referential. However, this alternative is shown to be false by V DO IO idioms which do allow or, as in this case, require clitic doubling. (52) ¿Quién *(le) pone el cascabel a-l gato? who cl puts the bell to-the cat “Who’s going to break the news?” According to our analysis, (52) must be derived from the Phave structure, since this is the structure underlying the IODC. Here the idiom consists of (at least) the whole PP constituent, including the IO in the spec of Phave . Crucially, here we have

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an example of a non-referential, idiomatic NP which is clitic doubled, showing that there is no independent ban on doubling idiomatic IOs. The idiom data in this section provides further evidence for the conflation of the Spanish IODC and the English DOC, and also provides additional support for the alternate projection hypothesis.

. Conclusions I have provided new data based on idioms to support the conclusion that the Spanish IODC should be assimilated to the English DOC. I have also presented evidence for the alternate projection analysis of DOCs proposed by Harley (2000). By defining DOCs as those constructions having (28) as their underlying structure, I have shown that we can isolate properties which depend on this structure as being defining characteristics of the construction. These properties can then be applied to constructions in other languages to help us detect the Phave structure. We have determined that the semantic factors and the possibility of certain types of idioms are reliable indicators of the Phave structure. We can also use binding to detect underlying structure, but caution must be used since surface movement of the elements will also affect the binding possibilities and obscure the underlying structure. In English, the surface word order lines up with the underlying structure in both the DOC and the prepositional dative. However, in Spanish, the default word order is for the DO to precede the IO independent of the underlying structure. At the same time, the word order in Spanish is fairly free, enabling us to tease apart which properties are indicators of underlying structure and which are not.

Notes * For helpful comments and discussion, I am grateful to Jeff Lidz, Maribel Romero, Tony Kroch, Chung-hye Han, Chris Kennedy, the Double Object Group at Penn (Elsi Kaiser, Kimiko Nakanishi, Tom McFadden, and Kieran Snyder), an anonymous LSRL reviewer, the audience at LSRL 31, and a Language and Cognition audience at Northwestern University. Many thanks to Carmen Rio Rey, Maribel Romero, Juan Carlos Castillo, and Graciela Tesan for their native intuitions. This work was supported by a grant from NSF (NSF_STC SBR 8920230). . Maribel Romero (personal communication) pointed out to me that the for-PPs in these examples have an intensional component, which, once understood, would account for the properties exhibited in (12). This intensionality would not extend to the to-datives, however, and thus, does not account for all the interpretive effects of DOCs.

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 Tonia Bleam . Without the clitic, IO DO order is impossible without special focus structure (Demonte 1995). . While accounting for the surface word order differences between the DOC and the IODC is beyond the scope of this paper, I offer the speculation that the differing case marking properties of the two languages may be responsible. Masullo (1992) argues that dative case is a structural case in Spanish but not in English, and both Masullo and Anagnostopoulou (1999) have tied other differences between the DOC and the IODC to differences in case properties (such as the IO’s inability to undergo passive in Spanish/Greek). . To name just a few, the derivational camp includes Fillmore 1965, Emonds 1972, Green 1974, Larson 1988, Baker 1988; the lexical camp includes Oehrle 1976, Dowty 1978, Jackendoff 1990a, Pesetsky 1995. . That is, we should see the same kind of effect (though reversed) that we see in the Spanish IODC with DO IO order, where this surface order is derived from a structure where the IO c-commands the DO. The result of the differing surface and underlying orders gives us the behavior that we see in Section 2.2, that the DO and the IO appear to symmetrically c-command each other. . Precursors to this analysis can be found in Pesetsky (1995) and den Dikken (1995), for example. The analysis could also be viewed as an extension of Kayne (1981) (see Barss & Lasnik 1986: 351, fn.8). . The generalization seems to be that inanimate objects can only be the subject of possession relations that are “inalienable” or individual-level, rather than stage-level. . Clearly, other idioms are possible and do exist. For example, an idiom could consist of the whole PP constituent, including both the DO and IO arguments. We are not interested in these idioms, however, because they do not allow us to distinguish one or the other of the two trees as the source of the idiom. . Following Ruwet (1991), I use “!!” to indicate that, while grammatical, the example is not interpreted idiomatically. . Chris Kennedy (p.c.) points out that not all verb-of-transfer idioms have an idiomatic go counterpart, as shown by the contrast between the idiomatic (i) and the non-idiomatic (ii). (i) (ii)

Lasorda sent the pitcher to the showers. !! The

pitcher went to the showers.

I propose, first, that in these idioms, the manner component is also part of the idiom, and, second, that the manner component of send-type verbs cannot be spelled out unless associated with a CAUSE component, hence, the ungrammaticality of (iii). (iii) *The pitcher sent to the showers. Due to space considerations, I must leave a fuller exploration of the relationships between the various components of transfer verbs for future research.

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References Anagnostopoulou, Elena (1999). On Double Object Alternations and Clitics. Ms. Baker, Mark (1988). Incorporation: A Theory of Grammatical Function Changing. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Barss, Andrew & Howard Lasnik (1986). A Note on Anaphora and Double Objects. Linguistic Inquiry, 17, 347–354. Benveniste, Emile (1966). Problèmes de Linguistique Générale. Paris: Gallimard. Bleam, Tonia (1999). Leísta Spanish and the Syntax of Clitic Doubling. PhD Dissertation, University of Delaware. Bruening, Benjamin (2000). QR Obeys Superiority: Frozen Scope and ACD. Linguistic Inquiry, 32, 233–273. Chomsky, Noam (1981). Lectures in Government and Binding. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. Chomsky, Noam (1995). The Minimalist Program. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Demonte, Violeta (1995). Dative Alternation in Spanish. Probus, 7, 5–30. den Dikken, Marcel (1995). Particles. New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press. Dowty, David (1978). Governed Transformations as Lexical Rules in a Montague Grammar. Linguistic Inquiry, 9, 393–426. Emonds, Joseph (1972). Evidence that Indirect Object Movement is a Structure-Preserving Rule. Foundations of Language, 8, 546–561. Fillmore, Charles (1965). Indirect Object Constructions in English and the Ordering of Transformations. The Hague: Mouton. Freeze, R. (1992). Existentials and Other Locatives. Language, 68, 553–595. Goldberg, Adele (1995). A Construction Grammar Approach to Argument Structure. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Green, Georgia (1974). Semantic and Syntactic Regularity. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Hale, Ken & Samuel Jay Keyser (1993). On Argument Structure and the Lexical expression of Syntactic Relations. In Kenneth Hale & Samuel Jay Keyser (Eds.), The View from Building 20 (pp. 53–109). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Harley, Heidi (1995). If you have, you can give. Proceedings of WCCFL 15. CSLI. Harley, Heidi (2000). Possession and the Double Object Construction. Ms., University of Arizona. Halle, Morris & Alec Marantz (1993). Distributed Morphology and the Pieces of Inflection. In Kenneth Hale & Samuel Jay Keyser (Eds.), The View from Building 20 (pp. 111–176). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Jackendoff, Ray (1990a). On Larson’s Treatment of the Doubled Object Construction. Linguistic Inquiry, 21, 427–456. Jackendoff, Ray (1990b). Semantic Structures. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Kayne, Richard (1975). French Syntax: The Transformational Cycle. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Kayne, Richard (1981). Unambiguous Paths. In Robert May & Jan Koster (Eds.), Levels of Syntactic Representation (pp. 143–183). Dordrecht: Foris. Kayne, Richard (1993). Towards a Modular Theory of Auxiliary Selection. Studia Linguistica, 47, 3–31.

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Kayne, Richard (1994). The Antisymmetry of Syntax. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Kratzer, Angelika (1996). Severing the External Argument from its Verb. In Johan Rooryck & Laurie Zaring (Eds.), Phrase Structure and the Lexicon (pp. 109–137). Dordrecht: Kluwer. Larson, Richard (1988). On the Double Object Construction. Linguistic Inquiry, 19, 335– 391. Larson, Richard (1990). Double Objects Revisited: Reply to Jackendoff. Linguistic Inquiry, 2, 333–378. Lebeaux, David (1998). Where does the Binding Theory Apply. Ms., NEC Research Institute. Marantz, Alec (1984). On the Nature of Grammatical Relations. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Masullo, Pascual (1992). Incorporation and Case Theory in Spanish: A Crosslinguistic Perspective. PhD dissertation, University of Washington. May, Robert (1985). Logical Form: Its Structure and Derivation. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. McGinnis, Martha (to appear). Variation in the Phase Structure of Applicatives. In Pierre Pica & Johan Rooryck (Eds.), Linguistic Variation Yearbook. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Nakanishi, Kimiko (2001). Indefinites and Frozen Scope in Japanese: Restriction on QR and Choice Functions. In Karine Megerdoomian & Leora Anne Bar-el (Eds.), Proceedings of WCCFL 20 (pp. 101–114). Somerville, MA: Cascadilla Press. Nunberg, Geoffrey, Ivan Sag, & Thomas Wasow (1994). Idioms. Language, 70, 491–538. Oehrle, Richard (1976). The Grammatical Status of the English Dative Alternation. PhD Dissertation, MIT. Ormazabal, Javier & Juan Romero (1999). On the syntactic nature of the me-lui and the Person-Case Constraint. Ms., University of the Basque Country and MIT. Pesetsky, David (1995). Zero Syntax: Experiencers and Cascades. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Pinker, Steven (1989). Learnability and Cognition: The Acquisition of Argument Structure. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Richards, Norvin (2001). An Idiomatic Argument for Lexical Decomposition. Linguistic Inquiry, 32, 183–192. Rosenbaum, Peter (1967). The Grammar of English Predicate Complement Constructions. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Ruwet, Nicolas (1991). On the Use and Abuse of Idioms in Syntactic Argumentation. In John Goldsmith (Ed., Trans.), Syntax and Human Experience (pp. 171–251). University of Chicago Press. Sportiche, Dominique (1996). Clitic Constructions. In Johan Rooryck & Laurie Zaring (Eds.), Phrase Structure and the Lexicon. Dordrecht: Kluwer. Uriagereka, Juan (1988). On Government. PhD dissertation, University of Connecticut.

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Spanish perception verbs and sequence of tenses Aktionsart effects Alicia Cipria University of Alabama

.

Introduction

This article examines perception verbs when used with tensed complements, especially when the complement is in one of the two simple past tenses of Spanish, viz the imperfecto or the pretérito. Past tense complements are particularly interesting due to the different interpretations they receive when embedded under perception verbs. I argue that the temporal relations across a complex clause with a main perception verb are not as simple as claimed in prior literature. Rather, the interaction of aspect/aktionsart and pragmatics with the lexical requirement of the main verb plays a role in the resultant temporal interpretations. Since perception verbs mostly take indicative complements, the issues discussed here bring interesting points to the general issue of “sequence of tense(s)”, which in the Spanish literature, has been dealt mostly within the context of subjunctive complements.1

. The sensory and cognitive interpretations of perception verbs We consider verbs such as ver [‘to see’], oír [‘to hear’], palpar [‘feel by touch’] and and oler [‘to smell’]. Traditional accounts of perception verbs state that the complement verb must have a simultaneous relationship with the main verb of perception. In cases where this does not obtain, the main verb is interpreted as a cognitive rather than a sensory verb of perception (cf. Gili y Gaya 1961 and RAE, to name but a few). Along similar lines, Suñer and Padilla-Rivera (1987) point out that the complement verb has to match the tense specification of the main verb

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(i.e. present-present or past-past), otherwise, again, the meaning of the main verb changes to that of cognition. In this and other traditional accounts, there seems to be the assumption that a simultaneous reading is equal to a combination of like tenses, i.e. it is assumed that whenever there is a combination of past-past and present-present, a simultaneous reading arises. This is true for some of the examples S&RP present (cf. (1a–e) – although cf. discussion of (1b)) but not for the examples (under (2)): (matching tense & sensory) Vi que pasaban. I see-pret that they go-impf by ‘I saw that they were going by.’ Or: ‘I watched as they went by.’ (matching tense & sensory) b. Vi que pasaron I see-pret that they go-pret by ‘I saw that they went by.’ (matching tense & sensory) c. Veo que pasan. I see-pres that they go-pres by ‘I see that they go by/are going by.’ d. Vi que pasarán mañana. (different tense & cognitive) I see-pret that they go-fut by tomorrow ‘I saw that they will go by tomorrow.’ (different tense & cognitive) e. Veo que pasaron I see-pres that they go-pret by ‘I see that they went by.’

(1) a.

Thus, the argument is that (1a–c) only permit combinations with past-past (as in (1a, b)) and present-present (cf. (1c)), when ver is used as a verb of sensory perception. So this is taken to entail that main verbs of perception only admit of tenses that allow a simultaneous reading, when used in the sensory sense. However, not all embedded past forms (under another past form) yield a simultaneous reading under a verb of perception, cf. (2b): (2) a.

Olí que la comida se quemaba. I smell-pret that the food burn-impf ‘I could smell that the food was burning.’ b. Olí que la comida se quemó. I smell-pret that the food burn-pret ‘I could smell that the food burned.’

(simultaneous)

(non-simultaneous)

Both (2a) and (2b) have the same tense specification, viz. past. In (2a), the required simultaneous reading is satisfied but in (2b), with the pretérito (which is also a past form), no simultaneous reading seems to arise. Expanding the context of (2a, b) shows the difference more clearly:

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Spanish perception verbs: Aktionsart effects 

(2) a . Olí que la comida se quemaba pero la pude salvar echándole más agua y aceite. ‘I could smell that the food was burning but I was able to save it by adding more water and oil.’ b . #Olí que la comida se quemó pero la pude salvar echándole más agua y aceite. ‘I could smell that the food burned but I was able to save it by adding more water and oil.’ (2b) can only be uttered after the food has burned, when the subject sees the situation resulting from the burning (i.e., the “smelling” (or detection of the smell) follows the “burning”). So in (2b ), ‘saving the food” at the “smelling time” is futile. The subject of the main clause infers, by the smell, that the food has burned. The subject only sees the result of the burning and does not witness the actual burning. So, in this sense, que la comida se quemó (‘that the food burned (pret.)’) is interpreted as prior to the “smelling”, as similar to something like que la comida se había quemado [‘that the food had burned’]. Furthermore, not everything that is simultaneous or “matching tense” always yields a sensory interpretation, cf.: Oí que entraban en la casa. (simultaneous & sensory) I hear-pret that they enter-impf the house ‘I heard that they were entering the house / I heard them entering the house.’ b. Oí que María estaba enferma. (simultaneous & cognitive) I hear-pret that María be-impf sick ‘I heard that María was sick.’

(3) a.

Both (3a, b) present the complement situation as simultaneous with the reference situation, i.e. the situation described by the imperfecto includes the event time associated with the main clause verb. And we also have the combination past-past in both examples. However, the main verb in (3a) is interpreted as a verb of sensory perception, while the main verb in (3b) is presented as a verb of cognitive perception. We believe this contrast in the interpretation of the main verb is pragmatically motivated. The sensory interpretation does not arise in (3b) because the complement describes a situation that, from what we know about the real world, cannot be actually heard, i.e. we cannot ‘hear’ the sounds of Maria ‘being sick’. Rather, we can hear a report by someone of Maria’s being sick. In this case, we can interpret (3b) as expressing something along the lines of ‘I learned that Maria was sick.’ Clearly, the difference in readings comes from a pragmatic rather than a semantic source. We return to these examples later but for now I am claiming that the interaction of aspect, aktionsart and pragmatics is responsible for the different readings associated with the complement tense.

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Before closing this section, though, some concepts need to be clarified. In the general literature on Spanish, the terms ‘sensory’ and ‘cognitive’ have been used to describe the interpretations arising in complex clauses with main verbs of perception. By sensory, it should be obvious that we understand those situations that can be directly perceived by the senses, where the subject of the clause with the perception verb actually witnesses a situation, visually, auditorily, or via smell or touch (also called direct perception). Under the cognitive interpretation of perception verbs, evidence is acquired ‘indirectly’ (also indirect perception), i.e. not by actual witnessing of the perceived situation but through hearsay, in the case of oír [‘hear’], or through inference, in the case of ver [‘see’] or sentir [‘feel, sense’]. As was seen in the case of oler (and also the case for palpar [‘to feel by touch’]) these verbs do not get the cognitive extension, i.e., they can be part of sensory contexts only. This is an important difference with the other verbs, ver/oír/sentir (henceforth, the ‘ver ‘see’ set’), which always have a possible cognitive interpretation. This is due to historical reasons; some verbs of perception have undergone a semantic change from having a merely sensory meaning to acquiring an additional cognitive sense. There are many studies showing the universality of the cognitive extension for the latter set of verbs (cf. de Haan 1999; Evans & Wilkins 2000; Sweetser 1990; and many others).

. Aspect and aktionsart There is a vast literature on how aspect and aktionsart contribute to the determination and limitation of reference time (a Reichenbachian notion) in temporal interpretation (cf. Hinrichs 1981, 1986; Partee 1984; and Dowty 1986; to name but a few). In the general linguistics literature, phenomena subsumed under aspect and aktionsart have been treated in varied and disparate ways. And virtually every author who has written on the subject has her own set of definitions. Even though aspect and aktionsart are closely related, they are two separate notions. Aspect is viewed here as a morphological category, as it is expressed on verbs in Spanish by the use of the pretérito and imperfecto morphemes. These morphemes express both aspect (perfective and imperfective, respectively)2 and past tense. Aktionsart, on the other hand, is a semantic notion, used here in connection with the propositions expressed by clauses. As we will show, the aspect on a given verb form will affect the overall aktionsart of a proposition in different ways. Thus, the resulting aktionsart of a given proposition (telic or atelic) will be the result of the interaction of the aspect on the verb with various NP complements, adverbial phrases, and so on. One of my main arguments is that the imperfecto will always

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entail atelicity while the pretérito will not necessarily entail telicity, as is shown further on. Speaking in very broad terms, we can say that aktionsarten have been understood as different classes of events (à la Vendler 1967; Kenny 1963; and Dowty 1979), e.g. whether they are stative (e.g. estar enfermo [‘be sick’], gustar [‘to like’]) or not (e.g. llegar [‘to arrive’], comprar [‘to buy’]). Vendler’s classification is the one which is more widely referred to in the literature, and it is a version of what had been known throughout the centuries as Aristotelian verb classes. Vendler (1967) classifies verbs into states (e.g. know), activities (e.g. drive a car), accomplishments (e.g. paint a picture) and achievements (e.g. recognize).3 In this article, the term “aktionsart” is used with regard to the nature of eventualities correlated to propositions. The reason for considering propositions instead of just verbs or verb classes is the fact that it is not appropriate to evaluate aktionsarten based solely on verb types, given that the aktionsart of a proposition can end up being different from the one borne by the verb in isolated contexts. The aktionsart correlated to a proposition is also influenced by the presence of certain complements, modifiers like adverbial phrases (for example, in an hour vs. for an hour), adverbs of quantification like everyday or, in the case of Spanish, imperfecto/pretérito markers. So imperfecto and pretérito markers are just one of the elements involved in the overall aktionsart associated with a clause. This is the reason why aspect and aktionsart need to be independently defined. There are two major classes of aktionsarten correlated to propositions: telic and atelic.4 The classification used here is that of Dowty (1987). Atelic aktionsarten may be states (saber [‘know’], querer [‘want’], vivir [‘live’]) or processes (Vendler’s activities, e.g. correr [‘run’], llover [‘rain’], escuchar [‘listen’]). In general, telic situations involve the achievement of a goal or some resulting state; they may be simple (e.g. win the contest) (Vendler’s achievements) or complex (e.g. write the dissertation) (Vendler’s accomplishments). There is one property that centrally distinguishes the atelic from the telic aktionsarten, the ‘sub-interval property’: informally, we can say that if a state/process holds at some interval of time then it also holds at any sub-interval of that interval, so that, for example, if it is true at an interval of an hour that I know something, I also know it at any sub-interval of that hour. Also, its truth at the hour-long interval does not exclude the possibility that there may also be a super-interval, say of two hours, during which the same state or process is true. A formal definition of this property can be found in Dowty (1987) and another version, with situations instead of intervals, in Cipria and Roberts (2000).The predicted entailments of the sub-interval property are illustrated for the process of running in (4), where (4a) entails (4b). Similarly, this permits us to say that if Jaimito runs during the period from four to five and also during the period from five to six, it is also true that he runs from four till six.

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(4) a.

Jaimito corrió de 4 a 5. Jaimito run-pret from 4 to 5 ‘Jaimito ran from 4 till 5.’ b. Jaimito corrió de 4 a 4-4:30. Jaimito run-pret from 4 to 4:30 ‘Jaimito ran from 4 till 4:30.’

Telic aktionsarten do not have this subinterval property, and in fact if a telic event is true at an interval, none of its proper subintervals will verify an instance of the same type of event. Thus, we can only say that a telic like (5) is true at the maximal interval which it took for Jaimito to write the poem in question; if (5) is true at an interval i, we cannot say that it is true at any subintervals of i, at least for the same poem. From this also follows that if (5) is true of the interval from 4 to 5 and then again of the interval from 5 to 6, it is not true at the interval from 4 to 6, though we could say of the larger interval that it is true there that Jaimito wrote two poems. (5) Jaimito escribió un poema. Jaimito write-pret a poem ‘Jaimito wrote a poem.’

(telic)

As expressed before, telicity and atelicity are not properties of verbs alone. Rather, the presence of certain argument NP’s, adverbial phrases, or aspectual markers on a verb can yield a different aktionsart from the one suggested by the verb in isolation. In the case of Spanish, the use of the imperfecto will always entail atelicity while the pretérito will not necessarily entail telicity. We argue that this follows from the truth conditions associated with each of these verbal aspects, so that in the case of the imperfecto, atelicity is built-in, as it were, in its core meaning. To see how nonverbal elements contribute to aktionsart, observe that in English sentences with a simple past tense verb, an argument NP which is a measure phrase (i.e. whose head is a count noun), will often yield telic aktionsart for the proposition, whereas a mass NP will bring about atelicity; this is illustrated in (6a) and (6b): (6) a. Oil flowed from the tank. b. 3000 liters of oil flowed from the tank.

(atelic) (telic)

Facts are different for Spanish (given the pretérito/imperfecto distinction). Thus, example (7) with an imperfecto verb and the count NP 3000 litros de petróleo ‘3000 liters of oil’ has the same aktionsart (atelic) as the proposition in (8), with the mass noun petróleo ‘oil’: (7) Corrían 3000 litros de petróleo por las cañerías. flow-3pl.impf 3000 liters of oil through the pipes ‘3000 liters of oil flowed through the pipes.’

(atelic)

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(8) Corría petróleo por las cañerías. flow-3sg.impf oil through the pipes ‘Oil flowed/was flowing through the pipes.’

(atelic)

Examples (6a), (7) and (8) are atelic because it is true to say of any given subinterval of the flowing process that oil was flowing at that subinterval.5 Also, (7) and (8) have a habitual reading, even without an adverb such as diariamente/por día [‘daily/per day’]. But the pretérito is, again, compatible with either aktionsart: In (9), with the pretérito and the mass NP argument petróleo, the proposition has atelic aktionsart (cf. (6a)). The measure phrase in (10) interacts with the end-point requirement of the pretérito to entail telicity: (9) Corrió petróleo por las cañerías. flow-3sg.pret oil through the pipes ‘Oil flowed through the pipes.’

(atelic)

(telic) (10) Corrieron 3000 litros de petróleo por las cañerías. flow-3pl.pret 3000 liters of oil through the pipes ‘3000 liters of oil flowed through the pipes.’ (can also be iterative) (6b) and (10) are telic because if it is true at some past interval t that 3000 liters of oil flowed from the tank at i, then it is not true that 3000 liters of oil flowed from the tank at any subinterval of i; instead, only some part of the 3000 liters flowed during any subinterval of i. Like (6a), (7), and (8), example (9) has an atelic reading because it is true to say of any given subinterval of the flowing process that oil was flowing at that subinterval. Due to space restrictions, the formal truth conditions for both past tenses will not be introduced in detail. As can be verified with the above examples (7) and (8), the use of the imperfecto, whatever the predicate or complements, will always result in atelicity for the whole clause. We also mentioned the sub-interval (or subsituation) property as the central element of atelicity, which in the case of the imperfecto is part of its core meaning. In order to account for the traditional characterizations of the imperfecto, our formal apparatus includes a modal base which, intuitively, chooses between the progressive (or durative), habitual, and futurate or ‘intention-in the-past’ meanings of the imperfecto, while keeping the atelicity constant (cf. Cipria & Roberts 2000). Atelicity or the subsituation property is an element shared by all three of the usual imperfecto meanings. A sentence like (11) can have all three readings, depending on contextual variations, compare (12a–c): (11) Ibamos a la playa. go-1plu.impf to the beach ‘We went/were going/used to go to the beach.’ The temporal adverbial clause in (12a) brings out a progressive reading.

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(12) a.

Ibamos a la playa cuando nos encontramos con go-1pl.impf to the beach when recipr. meet-1pl.pret with Miguel. Miguel ‘We were going to the beach when we ran into Miguel.’

The adverbial los domingos in (12b) suggests a habitual reading. (12) b. Ibamos a la playa los domingos. go-1pl.impf to the beach on Sundays ‘We went/used to go to the beach on Sundays.’ In (12c) the “intention-in-the-past” reading is clear: (12) c.

Hasta ayer, íbamos a la playa de vacaciones pero hoy until yesterday go-1pl.impf to the beach on vacation but today Pepa dijo que no hay dinero para eso. Pepa say-pret that not there is money for that ‘Up until yesterday we were going to the beach on vacation but today Pepa said that there is no money for that.’

All the meanings that have been illustrated above for the imperfecto share two characteristics. First, they involve reference to a past time. Second, they display atelic aktionsart. The examples in (12), with the imperfecto, are all atelic. So, in (12a) the subsituations of the event of “going to the beach” are instances of “going to the beach” as well. (12b) says that it was a habit of ours to go the beach on any normal Sunday during some past period of time, and this habit held true also for any sub-period of that period.6 With the intentional reading illustrated by (12c), the intention to go to the beach holds over some past situation, and also, over any sub-situation of that situation. In connection with the intentional or futurate reading, we consider it a sub-case of the progressive interpretation, which, in turn, is related to the notion of ‘inertia’. This notion of inertia has been used in the literature (e.g., Dowty 1979; Cipria & Roberts 2000) to capture the fact that out of the different outcomes available for the situation we are considering, there is at least one way in which things continue to be the way they are as in the situation of evaluation, i.e. if no changes occur. If we include the period during which one holds intentions to perform some act as part of the preparatory phase of an extended event, then the extended event is in progress during the preparatory phase, during the period when one holds those intentions. And if one’s intentions were carried out as planned, then in all the inertia situations corresponding to that period, the event itself would come about.

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. General tense interpretation of indicative complements This section is devoted to main verbs that do not require any particular temporal reference of the situation associated with their complements. We assume the complement tense describes a situation which is evaluated with respect to the event time corresponding to the main clause verb. This event time serves as part of the reference situation with respect to which the complement situation will be evaluated, i.e. we examine whether the complement situation is interpreted as prior (past), as simultaneous with or as later than the event time which provides the reference situation. The temporal extension of the reference situation in complex clauses is the event time corresponding to the main clause verb. We call this event time, ET1. (13) a.

Juana se enteró de que María estuvo enferma. Juana find out-pret that María be-pret sick ‘Juana found out that María was sick.’ b. Juana se enteró de que María se casó. Juana find out-pret that María get-pret married ‘Juana found out that María got married.’ c. Juana se enteró de que el grupo organizó complots. Juana find out-pret that the group organize-pret plots ‘Juana found out that the group organized plots.’

In all of the examples above, the situation correlated to the complement is described in the pretérito and interpreted as prior to the event time of the situation associated with the main clause. Of course, both main and complement tenses are past so that they are related to situations which lie before speech time. However, the complement tense further “shifts back,” and it goes on to describe a situation which is interpreted as past relative to the (past) situation associated with the main clause tense. The readings that arise in these instances will be referred to here as the “backward shifted” readings;7 i.e., we interpret the situation described by the complement tense as completely prior to the time provided by the reference situation. The phrase “completely prior” is key in understanding the interpretation of pretérito complements. In embedded pretérito clauses, then, there will not be any final sub-situation of the situation associated with the complement (i.e., the situation which is past with respect to the main clause situation) that could possibly be taken to be somehow simultaneous or overlapping with ET1. The truth conditions for the pretérito include, crucially, an end-point element. This end-point entails no final sub-situation that could overlap with any other situation or that could be taken as the initial subsituation of another situation. We will discuss the nature of this end-point further;

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for the time being, note that imperfecto complements present different facts from the ones arising with pretérito complements. Compare: (14) a.

Juana se enteró de que María estaba enferma. Juana find out-pret that María be-impf sick ‘Juana found out that María was sick.’ b. Juana se enteró de que María se casaba. Juana find out-pret that María get-impf-married ‘Juana found out that María was getting married.’ c. Juana se enteró de que el grupo organizaba complots. Juana find out-pret that the group organize-impf plots ‘Juana found out that the group organized/was organizing plots.’

First, the imperfecto being a past tense, it describes a situation which is past relative to speech time. Second, unlike the examples in (13), none of the complements in (14) describe situations which lie completely in the past with respect to the event time of the main clause tense (ET1). In (14a), the complement describes a situation which is interpreted as “simultaneous” with the event time of the main clause. More specifically, the complement situation includes the event time associated with the main clause tense, this being often described in the literature as “surrounding” or “overlapping” said event time.8 In this case, the situation correlated to the main clause appears as punctual, when compared to the more extended situation related to the complement clause. Thus, in (14a), the state of Maria’s being sick started at some time before the main clause event time (ET1) and it may continue to hold during and after ET1. The complement in (14b) describes either: (a) a situation in which the actual event of María’s getting married will occur (if at all) at a time later than ET1 (i.e. the intentional or futurate reading of the imperfecto), or (b) a situation where the finding out takes place while the wedding is going on; i.e. a situation simultaneous with the event time of the main clause. In the intentional reading it is not specified whether the actual wedding will take place before or after speech time, but the actual intention or plan can be interpreted as arising at some time prior to speech time (cf. discussion of inertia situations).9 In (14c), the complement is correlated to a past habitual situation, i.e. a habitual situation which is past with respect to speech time. However, this habitual situation cannot be interpreted as completely prior to ET1. At ET1, the situation of “plot-organizing” was still true, even though it may not have been going on at the exact time of ET1. This is so given that, as we have seen, what we understand by habitual situations is the notion of a characteristic situation which does not need to actually happen at the reference time (here, the event time corresponding to the main clause, ET1), as long as the situation can be said to be typical of a period or an era (i.e. a sufficiently large situation) which contains said reference time. Thus,

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whenever we have a habitual situation described by the imperfecto in the complement to another past tense, the habitual situation receives a sort of “simultaneouslike” reading, since the event described by the imperfecto complement tense, here, the “plot-organizing”, is understood as taking place before ET1 and it continues to be a typical situation during and after that event time. There is one common element in all of the examples under (14): all the available readings (habitual, progressive, intentional) can be seen as variations of some sort of a simultaneous reading, where the situation described by the complement imperfecto overlaps at some point with ET1. In the intentional reading, the part corresponding to the preparatory phase can be considered as simultaneous with ET1. Recall that with pretérito complements embedded under another past we only had a backward shifted reading. The reason why the imperfecto allows for the different variations is related to its inherent atelicity and the lack of a definite end-point. The subsituation property (the essential element in atelicity) makes it possible for the imperfecto to be true for a situation and also for its subsituations. This, in turn, can also make the imperfecto be true at larger situations (supersituations) which include the actual situation at which truth is asserted. This produces an effect such that the complement imperfecto includes ET1, yielding simultaneous readings, while at the same time allowing for the possibility that some of the supersituations of the situation described by the imperfecto can be taken to obtain also at some time prior to ET1. This is compounded by the fact that the imperfecto lacks a specific end-point so that the subsituations or supersituations do not have to end at any specific point. An important note should be made about all the above readings with imperfecto complements, especially those that can be interpreted as backward shifted. Given the atelicity of the imperfecto, some portions of the complement situation may lie to the past of ET1. However, such complement situation does never lie completely (and this is key) prior to ET1.10 The possibility for a situation like that in (14a) to extend forward, beyond ET1, is not guaranteed by anything in the language, but it is not impossible either, due to the cumulative nature of atelicity. In connection with the pretérito we showed this form is compatible with either telic or atelic aktionsart. We would then have to explain why it is the case that even when the pretérito can describe atelic situations we do not get readings in which possible supersituations can overlap ET1. The reason is related to the end-point present in its truth conditions, which requires that all the possible supersituations in which the pretérito is true have to come to an end at some time. In embedded contexts, this requirement is seen in the fact that the supersituations in which the pretérito could be true have to end before ET1 (or at most end at ET1). There can thus be no possibility of extending forward beyond ET1. Because this backward shifting resembles the behavior of relative tenses (in this case, the past perfect), I have called it the ‘Relative Embedding Effect’ (Cipria 1996).11 When the imper-

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fecto is in the complement, however, we get readings where the situation associated with the complement is described as simultaneous or as varying between a simultaneous and a backward shifted reading, or as later, with respect to ET1. As for the end-point element in the pretérito, it is related to the final sub-situation of an eventuality which is, intuitively, like the final moment of the event in question, so that the possibility of continuation (as in a progressive reading) or the notion of inertia (as described above for imperfecto) is not available for the pretérito.12 Whether the pretérito is describing truth at sub-situations (atelicity) or not (telicity), all situations correlated to the pretérito have to end at some point.

. Tense interpretation of complements to perception verbs As illustrated earlier, perception main verbs have some kind of lexical requirement on the tense that is used for the complement, in order to yield the desired interpretation, viz. sensory or cognitive. As shown in Section 2, the analysis of temporal relations across clauses does not seem to be as easy as equal tense = simultaneous, or sensory = simultaneous, as claimed in much of the literature. We take the default case for tense interpretation to be that of the verbs in Section 4, with main verbs that have no specific temporal requirement for the situation associated with its complement. The temporal interpretation of the complements to perception verbs is shown not to follow the same pattern as was indicated for the verbs in Section 4. This difference, of course, follows from the type of main verb that is involved. In addition, we believe that the different readings arise due to aspect/aktionsart effects and pragmatics, restricted by how we interpret the perception (sensory or cognitive), and by the felicity of the combination of the predicates.

. Aktionsart effects in complement clause Recall that we argue that imperfecto always entails atelicity for its clause, regardless of other elements or predicates, while the pretérito can participate in telic or atelic situations. Thus, (15a, b) and (16a) have an atelic complement clause: (15) a.

Oí que Claudia escribía en la computadora. I hear-pret that Claudia write-impf on the computer ‘I heard that Claudia was writing on the computer.’ b. Oí que Claudia escribió en la computadora. I hear-pret that Claudia write-pret on the computer ‘I heard that Claudia wrote on the computer.’

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In both (15a, b), the situation associated with the complement is interpreted as simultaneous with ET1 and both complex clauses receive a sensory reading.13 In (16a), the complement situation is interpreted as simultaneous with ET1 but it does not have the sensory reading, that is, it is a case of a ‘hearsay’ type report: (16) a.

Oí que Claudia escribía un libro sobre los drusos. I hear-pret that Claudia write-impf a book about the drusseans ‘I heard that Claudia was writing a book about the drusseans.’ b. Oí que Claudia escribió un libro sobre los drusos. I hear-pret that Claudia write-pret a book about the drusseans ‘I heard that Claudia wrote a book about the drusseans.’

In (16b), then, we get a complement temporal reading that arises out of the interaction of the end-point of the pretérito with the meaning of the predicate (aktionsart effect), which presents the situation described by the complement as a telic event (i.e. an accomplishment). In this case, (16b) can be uttered only after the book has been written, when the subject hears about the results of the writing (i.e. the ‘hearing’ follows the ‘writing’), so the main verb seems to acquire the cognitive interpretation. In (16a), however, because of the imperfecto (which, recall, always entails atelicity), the situation associated with the complement is presented as an atelic process (or activity). Therefore, the feature ‘past’ alone does not account for the differences in readings. The simultaneous reading, then, is only possible with the one past form whose truth conditions say that a simultaneous reading is one of the possible interpretations this form can have, that is to say, the imperfecto. The truth conditions for the other past form (the pretérito) do not suggest this possibility of a simultaneous interpretation. Compare a similar example to (16b): (17) Vi que Claudia pasó. I see-pret that Claudia pass by-pret ‘I saw that Claudia went by.’ In relation to this, we argue that (17), with an embedded pretérito does not present a true simultaneous reading for the complement. The complement crucially includes reference to the state resulting from the ‘going by’. In other words, the subject witnesses the result of ‘Claudia’s going by’ after ‘the going by’ has ended, most likely immediately after. Thus, the complement is related to an immediately resulting state, which is what the subject reports, rather than the actual passing or going by. This resultant state, by virtue of its being a state, brings atelicity to the complement clause, which may more easily (when compared with (16b)) give the impression that the complement situation is simultaneous with ET1. This is so given that the resultant state, because of its atelicity, may refer to a supersituation of the ‘going by’ which, intuitively, stretches to include ET1; although the implication that it can extend forward beyond ET1 is not available for (17).

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We argue that the pretérito complement in (17) still participates in the Relative Embedding Effect that we attributed to all pretérito verbs embedded under another past tense, so we have a backward shifted reading for the pretérito complement. Therefore, this reading is in line with all the others illustrated in (13), where the Relative Embedding Effect of the pretérito takes place. As mentioned earlier, in connection with the Relative Embedding Effect, a situation described by a pretérito complement backshifts, and this is due to the fact that the end-point of the pretérito requires that, even in atelic cases, all subsituations and supersituations must end at some point. Therefore the situation described by the pretérito ends at some point before ET1 or at ET1. We believe that the latter is the case for (17). In a true simultaneous reading, as is the case of, for example, (1a) and (15a), no connection with a resultant state need be established, and the situations described by the complements are in progress at ET1 and can also extend forward beyond ET1. This state of affairs is different from the one encountered in (16b), with a completely backward shifted reading. The difference, then, seems to lie in the (a)telic character of the complement clause, in combination with the end-point of the pretérito. One might think of a possible counterexample to this generalization backward shifted/telic and simultaneous/atelic: (18) Vi que los niños construyeron un castillo en 5 minutos. I see-pret that the children build-pret a castle in 5 minutes ‘I saw that the children built a castle in 5 minutes.’ The complement situation is telic (an accomplishment), through the interaction of the end-point of the pretérito with a count NP direct object and the adverbial en 5 minutos ‘in 5 minutes,’ a usual trigger for telicity. Still, the complement situation does not seem to receive a backward shifted interpretation. The truth of (18) is not possible unless the result of the telic eventuality construir un castillo ‘build a castle’, that is, the actual product (viz., the castle) exists (cf. discussion of escribir un poema ‘write a poem’). But compare the same clause, without the adverbial: (19) Vi que los niños construyeron un castillo. I see-pret that the children build-pret a castle ‘I saw that the children built a castle.’ (19) is ambiguous between a simultaneous interpretation, so that the sensory reading becomes available (i.e. the actual witnessing of the complement situation), and a backward shifted reading with a cognitive interpretation, in the sense of ‘I see a newly built (sand) castle therefore I gather the children built the castle.’ I claim that the non-availability of a backward shifted reading for (19) is simply, a pragmatic effect, triggered by the brief nature of ‘5 minutes’ and the possibility for a sand castle to be built in a short period of time. If the children had built an extremely fancy castle with Legos, then we could truthfully utter (20):

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(20) Vi que los niños construyeron un castillo en 10 horas. I see-pret that the children build-pret a castle in 10 hours ‘I saw that the children built a castle in 10 hours.’ From what we know about the real world and people in it and their activities, there is not a pragmatically viable situation in which the subject witnesses or ‘sees’ the entire eventuality of “building a castle in 10 hours.” Facts like these just reinforce the importance of pragmatic effects in the available temporal interpretations. As we see in the next section, for the sensory interpretation to be available the main verb requires simultaneity of its complement, although the condition of ‘witnessing’ or evidentiality also needs to be met. At the same time, as we saw in connection with the clauses in Section 4, pretérito complements (under another past tense) invariably backshift to produce the Relative Embedding Effect. Consequently, there is a clash between the lexical requirement of the main verb and the pretérito embedding effects. I suggest this to be the source for the ambiguities we saw in examples with the pretérito complements, where both a simultaneous (or even a “seemingly simultaneous”) interpretation and a backward shifted interpretation are available. The ambiguity then is a way to resolve this clash in requirements. For the cognitive interpretation to arise, however, there are no restrictions and this is, intuitively, natural, since mental processes are more likely to be about any situation, whatever its location in time, whereas a sensory situation requires direct experience. We turn to the exploration of the nature of these two interpretations.

. Requirements of the sensory and cognitive interpretations First, let us reiterate the kind of cognitive interpretations that are possible for perception verbs, the case of hearsay with oír,14 and the case of inference with ver, along with the temporal interpretation of the complement tense, in relation to ET1. It should be clear, then, that whenever we refer to ‘cognitive’ interpretations, this should be understood to include both hearsay and inference. (21)

a. Vi que Juana escribió un libro sobre los drusos. I see-pret that Juana write-pret a book about the drusseans (backward shifted, inference) ‘I saw that Juana wrote a book about the drusseans.’ b. Vi que Juana tocó la guitarra. I see-pret that Juana play-pret the guitar (backward shifted, inference; and simultaneous, sensory) ‘I saw that Juana played the guitar.’

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(21b) is ambiguous between a sensory and a cognitive interpretation (we explain this below). (22)

a. Oí que María estaba embarazada. I hear-pret that María be-impf pregnant (simultaneous, cognitive, hearsay) ‘I heard that María was pregnant.’ b. Oí que María se casó. I hear-pret that María get married-pret (backward shifted,cognitive, hearsay) ‘I heard that María got married.’ c. Oí que María se casaba. I hear-pret that María get married-impf (forward shifted, cognitive, hearsay) ‘I heard that María was getting married.’

The readings for (22a, b) should be clear from earlier discussions. As for (22c), the complement tense is interpreted as later than ET1, i.e., at the time I heard the news, there were indications that Juana was planning to get married. This results from the intentional or futurate interpretation of the imperfecto. From the data presented throughout this paper, we can gather that there is an indisputable requirement by the main verb of perception to have a simultaneous interpretation for its complement, if the whole clause is to receive a sensory interpretation. The reverse is not true, however. In other words, in order for a situation to be interpreted as simultaneous with ET1, it does not need to receive a sensory interpretation. Cf. (15a) simultaneous and sensory, and (22a) simultaneous but not sensory. The simultaneity of the complement situation entails both evidentiality and actual occurrence of the situation described by the complement. The concept of evidentiality has been used in the language typology literature for many years (cf. de Haan 1999) and it deals with the way different languages indicate in the grammar how evidence of information is acquired; i.e., whether the subject has witnessed what is being reported in a direct or an indirect way. Thus, there are direct evidentials (the ones discussed above for information strictly acquired through the senses) as well as indirect evidentials, which include hearsay (also called quotative or reportative), and also evidence gathered through inference. I use ‘evidential’ in a much looser sense than in typological accounts (which deal mostly with morphological and syntactic ways of encoding evidentials). In order for a perception context to receive a sensory interpretation, then, we need direct evidentiality. Using a similar concept but within an entirely different context, Dretske (1969) talks of ‘primary’ and ‘secondary’ ways of ‘seeing.’ In considering both ways of

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Spanish perception verbs: Aktionsart effects 

seeing as epistemic, primary seeing refers to those cases in which “we see that b is P by actually seeing b” (1969: 157 ff., his emphasis). Whereas for ‘secondary seeing’, we are able to see that P by resorting to different background beliefs. In essence, this is the difference between direct experience (witness) and inference from available evidence. Capturing the spirit of this difference but within a more formalized account, Saarinen (1983) develops Hintikka (1969)’s idea of a ‘perceptual quantifier’ (although the data he uses differ slightly from those discussed here). The basic idea is that in order for someone to see/hear/etc., (experience with the senses) that an event e took place, we also need the condition that e actually took place and that the subject actually witnessed e. The formalization of these conditions requires more detail than can be illustrated here. However, any framework or formulation that is used to capture the essence of sensory readings, as opposed to cognitive ones, needs to incorporate, in one way or other, the idea of evidentiality or witnessing. This incorporates the notion that there is some situation ‘out there’, that actually takes place or exists, independent of the beliefs (including inferences) of the subject. The sensory is the interpretation that is more marked in the sense that it absolutely restricts the interpretation of the complement to be both simultaneous and evidential (in the manner discussed earlier). For the cognitive interpretation, the number of possible temporal relations between main and complement is greater (cf., e.g., (22a–c)). All the clauses with imperfecto seem to fulfil this requirement of evidenticality unambiguously, barring pragmatically impossible examples like (3b). With pretérito complements, however, this requirement is not always satisfied, resulting in ambiguity. In the absence of any adverbial modification, the imperfecto will, by default, be associated with situations that are interpreted as simultaneous (recall the atelicity argument). In sum the supposed simultaneous requirement of perception verbs does not seem to always work with pretérito complements, which may yield a backward shifted (and thus, non-simultaneous) reading when embedded under another pasttense clause. As for imperfecto complements to past main verbs of perception, we saw that the supposed simultaneous requirement can be overridden by the interaction of aspect, aktionsart and pragmatics. The simultaneous reading arises depending on the kinds of predicates we use (as in (4), (5), (15), and (16)), on aspectual effects of the embedded pretérito and imperfecto (cf. examples in (2)), and on real world pragmatic knowledge. Note that the way we characterize pretérito and imperfecto and our account of the aktionsart effects related to these forms have served to provide an accurate explanation of the facts arising in contexts containing perception verbs, where the compatibility of the pretérito with both telic and atelic aktionsart helped to clarify the differences in readings.

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 Alicia Cipria

. Implications for sequence of tense analyses It is to be hoped that this contribution will add to the ongoing discussion on sequence of tense by showing the issues involved in the interpretation of indicative complements in general, and perception complements in particular. The elements of aspect, aktionsart, and pragmatic and embedding effects (associated with the complement tenses) bring out a whole new array of factors that need to be considered in the evaluation of the complement tense. Needless to say, this implies that analyses incorporating notions such as “[–Tense]” for the complement, as well as those that posit copying rules to make the tenses match, will need to be re-evaluated in light of this discussion.

Notes . Most theoretical assumptions are based on previous work (Cipria 1996 and Cipria & Roberts 2001). . Also called ‘grammatical aspect’. Smith (1997) calls it ‘viewpoint aspect’. . I follow Dowty (1979: 53–54) for the reference to this work and examples therein. Vendler’s verb types have also been grouped as types of aktionsarten, and types of inherent lexical aspect; Smith (1983 & 1997) groups them under types of ‘situation aspect’. . These terms were first introduced by Garey (1957). ‘Telic’ comes from Ancient Greek télos ‘end’. . To see when (7) would be true, imagine we have a circular pipe that can hold exactly 3000 liters and oil keeps flowing around in it continuously; then it is true for a given subinterval, that “3000 liters of oil were flowing” during that subinterval. . Note this does not rule out the possibility that on one Sunday during that period we didn’t go the beach, because, say, we had to attend a meeting or we were sick, since with the habitual we are dealing with what was the typical or usual case. . The terms ‘backward shifted’ and ‘forward shifted’ were first mentioned in Enç (1987). . This description of the effect that a situation described by the imperfecto has with a related situation described by the pretérito (i.e. that of overlapping a more punctual situation) appears everywhere in traditional descriptions of Spanish and also in Spanish textbooks. This effect can be seen in any kind of complex clause and also in discourse. Related to this is the description of the imperfecto by the traditional grammarian Andrés Bello (1945, first published in 1847), who calls the imperfecto the co-pretérito. By this he means, we believe, that the imperfecto can describe a situation which is simultaneous (co-extensive) with a situation described by the pretérito and also describe a situation as having started sometime before the event time corresponding to the pretérito and even continue forward beyond said event time.

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Spanish perception verbs: Aktionsart effects  . The intentional reading of the imperfecto arises only with dynamic predicates, i.e. nonstates (in the appropriate context). Compare (i): (i)

Juana dijo que Mario conocía todos los rincones de la ciudad. Juana say-pret that Mario know-impf all the corners of the city ‘Juana said that Mario knew every corner in the city.’

In (i) the situation described by the complement, which has a stative verb in the imperfecto, includes ET1 and it only has a simultaneous reading with the reference situation. A futurate or intentional reading is not possible in this case. . The clarification of this point arose from a useful comment made by an anonymous reviewer. . Thus, the complement clauses in (13), described in the pretérito, could have been equally described in the past perfect (or pluscuamperfecto), without any meaning change. The past perfect (or pluscuamperfecto)are relative tenses in the sense that they are interpreted relative to another past time; while the pretérito and imperfecto are absolute tenses, given that they are interpreted relative to speech time (i.e. they are past with respect to speech time, not with respect to another past time). . For lack of space, the formalized truth conditions cannot be introduced here but we can imagine that this end-point is a sort of “temporal upper- bound”, which means that there is a restriction as to possible initial subsituations following this absolute upper-bound, thus ruling out that a situation described by the pretérito is still on-going at speech time. Compare (ii-a), which can be true only when María is still chewing tobacco, with (ii-b), where the tobacco-chewing situation is over and it cannot extend into the present: (ii) a.

b.

María mascaba tabaco (cuando la vi hace unos minutos). María chew-impf tobacco (when her-acc I see-pret ago some minutes) ‘María was chewing tobacco when I saw her some minutes ago.’ María mascó tabaco. María chew-pret tobacco ‘María chewed tobacco.’

. (15a) could have a possible ‘hearsay’ reading when interpreted habitually, the atelic characteristic, of course, still applies. . Though cf.: Oí que Mario estaba en el cuarto. ‘I heard that Mario was (impf.) in the room’. This can be interpreted in the sensory sense but also as an inference, where I assume, by familiar sounds, that it is Mario who is in the room.

References Cipria, Alicia (1996). The Interpretation of Tense in Spanish Complement Clauses. Ph.D. dissertation. The Ohio State University: Columbus, OH.

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 Alicia Cipria

Cipria, Alicia & Craige Roberts (2001). Spanish imperfecto and pretérito: Truth conditions and aktionsart effects in a Situation Semantics. Natural Language Semantics, 8(4), 297– 347. De Haan, Ferdinand (1999). Evidentiality and Epistemic Modality: Setting Boundaries. Southwest Journal of Linguistics, 18, 83–101. Dowty, David (1979). Word Meaning and Montague Grammar. Dordrecht: Kluwer. Dowty, David (1986). The effects of aspectual class on the temporal structure of discourse: semantics or pragmatics? Linguistics and Philosophy, 9, 37–62. Dowty, David (1987). Aspect and Aktionsart. Ms., The Ohio State University. Dretske, Fred (1969). Seeing and Knowing. Chicago: Chicago University Press. (Midway Reprint edition, 1988.) Enç, Mürvet (1987). Anchoring conditions for tense. Linguistic Inquiry, 18, 633–657. Evans, Nicholas & David Wilkins (2000). In the mind’s ear: the semantic extensions of perception verbs in Australian languages. Language, 76(3), 546–592. Garey, Howard B. (1957). Verbal aspect in French. Language, 33, 91–110. Gili y Gaya, Samuel (1961). Curso superior de sintaxis española. Barcelona: Bibliograf. Hinrichs, Erhard W. (1981). Temporale Anaphora im Englischen. Unpublished Zulassungarbeit, University of Tübingen. Hinrichs, Erhard W. (1986). Temporal anaphora in discourses of English. Linguistics and Philosophy, 9, 63–82. Hintikka, Jaakko (1969). Models for Modalities. Dordrecht: Reidel. Kenny, Anthony (1963). Action, Emotion, and Will. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul. King, Larry (1992). The Semantic Structure of Spanish. CILT 90. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Kratzer, Angelika (1989). An Investigation of the Lumps of Thought. Linguistics and Philosophy, 12, 607–653. Partee, Barbara (1984). Nominal and Temporal Anaphora. Linguistics and Philosophy, 7, 243–286. Saarinen, Esa (1983). On the logic of perception sentences. Synthese, 54, 115–128. Smith, Carlota (1997). The Parameter of Aspect. Dordrecht: Kluwer. Suñer, Margarita & José Padilla-Rivera (1987). Sequence of tenses and the subjunctive, again. Hispania, 70(3), 634–642. Sweetser, Eve (1990). From Etymology to Pragmatics. Metaphorical and Cultural Aspects of Semantic Structure. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Vendler, Zeno (1967). Verbs and times. In Zeno Vendler (Ed.), Linguistics and Philosophy (pp. 97–121). Ithaca, NY: Cornell Univ. Press. Reprinted from Philosophical Review (1957).

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Defaults and competition in the acquisition of functional categories in Catalan and French Lisa Davidson and Géraldine Légendre Johns Hopkins University

.

Introduction*

One of the enduring topics in the study of language acquisition is children’s seemingly optional use of non-finite forms as root verbs. This phenomenon, usually called the “optional infinitive” stage, is intriguing in part because it does not appear to occur in the acquisition of all languages. The typical claim is that children learning null-subject languages with rich inflection such as Italian, Catalan, and Spanish rarely use non-finite root forms (NRFs), or use them only at early stages and for a very short period of time (e.g. Guasti 1994; Torrens 1995). On the other hand, children learning obligatory subject languages, often with more limited inflectional paradigms, such as German, Swedish, Dutch, or English have higher proportions of NRFs that persist for a longer period of time (e.g. Weverink 1989; Wexler 1994; Phillips 1995). Traditionally, accounts of the acquisition of tense and agreement have focused on the second set of languages – those which exhibit a high proportion of NRFs during acquisition. However, recent work on the acquisition of null subject/richly inflected languages suggests that “default”-like forms may not be limited to the NRFs found in the speech of children acquiring relatively poorly-inflected languages. Ferdinand (1996) observed that French speaking children overgeneralize the third person singular present indicative form. This has also been suggested for Spanish and Catalan by Grinstead (1998). The acquisition of inflectional categories raises the question of whether tense and agreement should properly be considered as occurring simultaneously, or as two separate events that may differ in time course both within and across languages. According to Meisel (1994) the pattern and order of acquisition of tense

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 Lisa Davidson and Géraldine Légendre

and agreement is the same across all languages, but little rigorous cross-linguistic work has backed up that claim. One further shortcoming of previous accounts of the optional infinitive stage is that they make no attempt to account for the actual proportions of finite and default forms observed in the child’s speech. In this paper, we appeal to two contemporary principles of Optimality Theory (Prince & Smolensky 1993) to explain changing proportions in the speech of children acquiring French and Catalan. One concerns the initial state of a child’s grammar and the proposal that faithfulness constraints (those which compel faithful production of the input) are ranked below markedness constraints (those which require outputs to conform to certain structural restrictions) (Demuth 1995; Gnanadesikan 1995; Smolensky 1996). During learning, a child compares her output to input from adult speakers and changes her constraint ranking in an effort to minimize differences between her production and the adult one (Tesar & Smolensky 2000). The other contemporary OT principle pertains to properties of the constraint rankings themselves. Based on the observation that children often exhibit alternations between correct and non-adult-like outputs, proposals using non-strictly ranked or “floating” constraints have been developed to explain how child speech and other types of variation contain stages where multiple grammars can coexist and different outputs can be optimal for a given input depending on which grammar is active (e.g. Anttila 1997; Boersma 1998; Boersma & Hayes 2001; Smolensky, Davidson, & Jusczyk, to appear). Floating constraints and partial rankings will play a central role in explaining the proportions of default and of tensed and/or agreeing forms in child French and Catalan. Overall, we explore the similarities and differences in the patterns of acquisition of their native language by French and Catalan children. First, we examine the proportions of default forms found in the children utterances in both languages. We follow up on the original suggestion by Grinstead (1998) that third person singular present indicative forms may actually be default forms in Catalan and probe the data further. Next, we examine the time course of the acquisition of tense and agreement. Whereas French children begin to acquire tense first, Catalan child speech initially contains agreeing but not tensed utterances. Furthermore, while Catalan children exhibit a linear increase in the acquisition of both tense and agreement, French children exhibit a stage where there is competition for the realization of functional categories. Finally, a detailed analysis for the Catalan child Laura is developed as an example of how Optimality Theory can account for variation both within and across languages.

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Defaults and competition in the acquisition of functional categories 

. Empirical patterns in French and Catalan . Developmental stages The data for both French (Champaud, Rondal, and Suppes, Smith, and Leveillé corpora) and Catalan (Serrà-Solé corpus) come from the CHILDES database (MacWhinney & Snow 1985). The French children include Grégoire (1;9–2;5), Stéphane (2;2–3;3) and Philippe (2;1–2;6) . The Catalan children examined were Pep (1;6.23–3;3.18), Gisela (2;1.23–3;10.2), and Laura (1;9.7–3;5). The breakdown of the data into developmental stages was determined using the Predominant Length of Utterance (PLU) measure developed by Vainikka, Legendre and Todorova (1999). This measure was created as an alternative to age and MLU (Mean Length of Utterance) in an attempt to better characterize syntactic development. Briefly, the PLU measure identifies length of utterance and occurrence vs. absence of verbs as syntactic milestones (see Appendix for details). For the Catalan children, four stages of development are demonstrated, labeled here as 2b, 3b, 4b, and 4c. One child, Pep, also showed an intermediate stage that alternated between 3b and 4b which is denoted as 3b/4b. The available data for the French children covers Stages 3b, 3c, and 4c. For both the French and Catalan children, 4c represents an adult-like stage in the development of functional categories. Due to lack of space, the age of the children at each PLU stage and the number of utterances is not presented here. Detailed information can be found in Legendre et al. (1999) for French and Davidson (2001) for Catalan.

. NRFs and defaults For children in the “optional infinitive” stage of grammatical development, root infinitives are possible grammatical utterances that can coexist with finite forms (Wexler 1998). Here, we assume that not only infinitives, but rather any non-finite forms, may appear as root verbs in a child’s speech during this stage. Under this definition, NRFs include infinitives, bare participles, and bare gerunds. Examples of NRFs in child speech are given in (1) and (2). (1) French Cabinets ouvrir. Restroom open-inf “(I will) open the restroom (door).” (2) Catalan Tirat un nen a terra. Throw-partic a boy to ground “ threw a doll on the floor.”

(Grégoire 3b–1;9.28)

(Pep 3b–2;1.1)

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 Lisa Davidson and Géraldine Légendre

For the French children, the number of NRFs at Stage 3b is relatively high, and they decrease until Stage 4c. Catalan children seem to use considerably fewer NRFs than the French children. Of the Catalan children, only Pep’s utterances contain more than 10% NRFs at any stage, and these are mostly bare participles. At first glance, this data seem to suggest that children acquiring Catalan do not use NRFs. However, as suggested by Grinstead (1998), it may be that Catalan learners are still using some sort of default form. Grinstead’s original speculation was based on two observations: (1) children use a very high proportion of 3rd person present singulars (3S-PI), and (2) most of their agreement errors involve substituting a 3S-PI form for a 1st person singular (1S), 2nd person singular (2S), or 3rd person plural (3P) target. In an effort to quantify this intuition, we examined every 3rd person singular form to uncover those used as defaults. It is evident that in many cases, children both intend and correctly produce a 3S target. Consequently, a 3S form is only considered a 3S-PI default if it is clearly used when another form was intended. These can be either person agreement errors, number agreement errors, or errors resulting from the omission of the impersonal-se clitic. Examples of such cases are given in (3): (3)

a. Number agreement errors Dad: I on són les boles? Lau: and where are-3p the balls? “And where are the balls?” b. Person agreement errors Pep: Ai, no pot! Laia: exclam, no can-3s “Ai, [he] can’t!” c. Missing impersonal-se Lau: Talla carn. cut-3s meat “Meat is cut” or “I’m cutting meat”

(Laura 3b–2;8.30) No hi és. not here is-3s “[It] is not here.” (Pep 3b–2;1.1) Si que pots. yes that can-2s “Yes, you can.” (Laura 3b–2;5.8)

In principle, use of 3S forms in place of 1S could be a reference error rather than an agreement one. However, this does not appear to be the case for any of the children analyzed here. None of them ever overtly use their proper name with a 3S form to refer to themselves (in contrast to the child Guillem, from the same corpus, who frequently uses his own name with 3S verbs). In addition, correct use of first person agreement occurs simultaneously with this type of agreement errors in a given stage. Thus, we interpret use of a 3S form in place of 1S as an agreement error here, not a reference one.

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Defaults and competition in the acquisition of functional categories 

Table 1. Proportion of NRFs of all verbs for French Child

Stage 3b

Stage 4b

Stage 4c

Grégoire Stéphane Philippe

28% (83/297) 48% (51/106) –

18% (51/287) 13% (27/205) 22% (105/476)

1% (7/711) 2% (3/152) 6% (14/250)

Table 2. Proportion of NRFs of all verbs for Catalan Child

Stage 2b

Stage 3b

Stage 3b/4b

Stage 4b

Stage 4c

Pep Gisela Laura

20% (9/45) 5% (1/22) 3% (1/34)

10% (10/105) 4% (2/45) 8% (17/217)

3% (8/229) – –

0% (1/314) 1% (2/334) 2% (7/293)

0% (1/151) 0% (1/294) 1% (2/176)

Table 3. Proportion of default forms in Catalan child utterances Child

Stage 2b

Stage 3b

Stage 3b/4b

Stage 4b

Stage 4c

Pep Gisela Laura

44% (20/45) 18% (4/22) 47% (16/34)

12% (13/105) 7% (3/45) 15% (33/217)

6% (13/229) – –

0% (1/314) 1% (3/334) 3% (10/293)

0% (1/151) 0% (1/294) 1% (2/176)

Like NRFs, 3S-PI defaults are regarded as non-finite.1 If NRFs and 3S-PI defaults are considered together, then it no longer seems as if Catalan learners’ verbal utterances are adult-like from the earliest stages. Comparing Table 3 with Table 1, we can see that the proportion of default forms in Catalan child speech is now more like that for French. A thorough analysis of child Catalan must include an account of this phenomenon.

. Development of tense and agreement Following previous syntactic analyses of the representation of tense (TNS) and agreement (AGR), it is assumed that TNS and AGR each project a functional head (Pollock 1989). It has been proposed that in non-finite child utterances, either AgrP and TnsP can be missing from the representation (Schütze & Wexler 1996; Wexler 1998). We adapt and expand this set of possibilities to allow for the realization of TNS or AGR only, both TNS and AGR, or neither. In the case that either TNS or AGR is omitted from the utterance, default morphology for the missing feature will surface. For both French and Catalan, we consider default TNS to be the present indicative and default AGR to be 3rd person singular. This is exemplified in (4) with Catalan for a 1S, past tense input:

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 Lisa Davidson and Géraldine Légendre

(4)

Missing feature TNS & AGR AGR only TNS only Neither

Resulting surface form & features menjar/menjat/menja (eat-infin./partic./3s-pi) ha menjat (eat-3s, past) menjo (eat-1s, present) he menjat (eat-1s, past)

Contra Schütze and Wexler (1996) we consider verbs containing either TNS or AGR or both to be finite; only those lacking both TNS and AGR are non-finite. According to Meisel (1994), acquisition of TNS and AGR occurs when a child productively uses more than one tense or agreement affix. Based on these proposals, the following criteria are used to determine the proportion of tense and agreement in child utterances: (5) a.

A form is counted as tensed if it is not present (since present tense is ambiguous between default and correctly agreeing forms). b. A form is counted as agreeing if it is not 3S. c. Non-default 3rd singular present indicative forms are not counted as either tensed, agreeing or default since they have ambiguous TNS and AGR. These forms are excluded from further counts.

For French, it is assumed that subject clitics are overt realizations of agreement, which entails that French is a null-subject language (following e.g. Roberge 1990; Pierce 1992; Kaiser 1994; Ferdinand 1996; Legendre et al. 1999). With respect to the criteria in (5), a (regular) verb in French is counted as agreeing if it appears with a subject clitic. In order to measure the child’s syntactic progress, we can compare the proportions of tensed and agreeing forms in their speech according to the criteria in (5) with the proportions found for adults using the same counting method. Evidently, we are not claiming that adult 3S and present tense utterance are not agreeing or tensed; we are simply using the criteria in (5) as a metric for evaluating the progress of the children. Once the children have attained adult-like proportions of tense and agreement according to this metric, then we can assume that all of their verbal utterances are syntactically adult-like. Both the child and adult proportions are shown graphically in Figure 1. (Note: Because the French child patterns are so similar, their data have been collapsed. From here on, Laura’s data will be presented to exemplify the Catalan pattern. While the proportions are slightly different, Laura’s and Gisela’s patterns of development are very similar. Pep’s extra stage requires an additional level of analysis that is beyond the scope of this paper. See Davidson (2001) for a full analysis of each child.) The patterns in Figure 1 can be summarized as in (6):

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Defaults and competition in the acquisition of functional categories 

(6)

a. French TNS: Tense starts out being used at adult-like levels (3b). Tense use drops dramatically (4b). Tense returns to adult-like levels (4c). AGR: Agreement starts out essentially unused (3b). Agreement increases (4b). Agreement reaches adult-like levels (4c). DEF: NRFs decrease. b. Catalan TNS: Tense starts out essentially unused (2b). Tense increases (3b, 4b). Tense reaches adult-like levels (4c). AGR: Agreement starts ∼50% of adult (2b). Agreement increases (3b, 4b). Agreement reaches adult-like levels (4c). DEF: Defaults decrease. Agreeing/Non-3S

French children 0.40

Tensed/Non-Pres 0.30 Default 0.20 0.10

Adult Agreeing/ Non-3S

0.00

Adult Tensed/Nonpres 3b

4b

4c

Laura 0.60 0.50 0.40 0.30 0.20 0.10 0.00 2b

3b

4b

4c

Figure 1. French vs. Catalan developmental patterns

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 Lisa Davidson and Géraldine Légendre

From these patterns, it can be concluded that TNS and AGR show different courses of acquisition in both French and Catalan and that French and Catalan differ from one another. For Catalan, the proportion of AGR is initially greater than TNS, and the opposite is true for French. This may be due to the proportions of these features in the adult speech: for the French parent the proportion of overt TNS and AGR is roughly equal (31% TNS, 38% AGR), whereas there is twice as much AGR as TNS in Catalan parental verb forms (24% TNS, 50% AGR). For the French children, we propose that the developmental pattern can be explained by assuming competition for a single functional projection (FP). By Stage 3b, the child has only one FP, and it is used to realize TNS. At Stage 4b, there is still only one FP, but the child now tries to realize both TNS and AGR. TNS drops, because TNS and AGR are now competing for one FP. Finally at Stage 4c, the child now has 2 FPs, and both TNS and AGR can be realized. The patterns of development in Figure 1 clearly indicate that from stage to stage, the proportions of TNS and AGR in the children’s utterances do not increase discretely, but rather continuously. Likewise, the use of defaults does not entirely disappear once children begin to use fully inflected forms. That acquisition of functional projections is not a discrete process has been recognized (Phillips 1995) but most detailed accounts do not even address the need to explain such variation (e.g. Pierce 1992; Rizzi 1993/1994; Vainikka 1993/1994; Meisel 1994; Wexler 1994, 1998). We make the case next that OT provides the necessary constructs to account for the proportions of TNS, AGR and Default forms at different acquisition stages.

. Accounting for variability in Optimality Theory . Floating constraints and partial rankings in child grammars As discussed in Section 2, child verbal utterances are not always specified for TNS and/or AGR. According to Schütze and Wexler (1996) and Wexler (1998), this may be because realizing both TNS and AGR might be too complicated for children, who compensate by deleting one of either TNS or AGR features. In other words, the child is facing conflicting constraints. Since resolving constraint conflict is a fundamental aspect of Optimality Theory, the restrictions that the child faces can be encoded in the following constraints: (7) Economy of structure constraints *F: No functional heads *F2 : No pairs of functional heads

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(8) Faithfulness constraints ParseT: Parse Tense ParseA: Parse Agreement Note that *F2 is the local conjunction of *F with itself, and that these constraints are part of a power hierarchy: *F2 >> *F in every grammar (Smolensky 1997). ParseT and ParseA are not universally fixed. Four candidate structures are relevant to the OT analysis. It is assumed that the input to each evaluation contains TNS and AGR features, and that the realization or absence of these features is dependent on the ranking of the constraints in the grammar. Thus, if both markedness constraints are ranked above both faithfulness constraints, neither TNS nor AGR will be realized. The relevant candidate structures for an input with [1S] and [past] features and the constraints they violate and satisfy are shown in (9): (9) Possible structures (candidates) evaluated for “optimalness”: a.

VP

example: cantar (NRF) violates: PA, PT satisfies: *F, *F2

b.

TP VP

example: ha cantat violates: PA, *F satisfies: PT, *F2

VP

Pexample: canto (1S, present) violates: PT, *F satisfies: PA,*F2

TP

example: he cantat (1S, past) violates: *F, *F2 satisfies: PA, PT

T[P] c.

AgrP Agr[1S]

d.

AgrP Agr[1S]

T[Past]

(3S, past)

VP

Usually in Optimality Theory, it is assumed that there is strict domination of constraints: for every two constraints C1 and C2 , either C1 outranks C2 or C2 outranks C1 . If this were true in child grammars, then we would not see continuously changing proportions of TNS and AGR in child speech. However, if we consider that two or more grammars may exist simultaneously, we can hypothesize that a child may “choose” between them, thus producing tensed and/or agreeing forms sometimes but not always. This type of variation can be captured through partial

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rankings, which give rise to different proportions of utterances inflected for TNS and/or AGR. A hypothetical partial ranking is shown schematically in (10): (10) a.

Set of rankings: (i) *F2 >> *F >> ParseT winning candidate: untensed verb 2 (ii)*F >> ParseT >> *F winning candidate: tensed verb b. Partial ranking that will make both grammars possible Fixed *F2 >> *F Floating ParseT

In the example in (10), the floating constraint ParseT covers a range of the ranking space. Prior to each evaluation, ParseT is fixed in a random place in that range, so that either (strict) ranking (10a.i) or (10a.ii) results. One logical possibility is that any location in ParseT’s range has an equal probability of being the place where ParseT is fixed in a given evaluation. In the preceding example, this means that an untensed verb is realized 50% of the time while the tensed verb is realized 50% of the time. This is in fact what seems to happen with the French children. For a detailed OT analysis of the French data, see Legendre et al. (1999). The other logical possibility is that the floating range of a constraint is not equiprobable, such that children will have a bias in terms of producing more or fewer forms with TNS and/or AGR. This is the case for Catalan. Space considerations prevent us from discussing each child individually, but Laura is representative of all three Catalan children. An in-depth OT analysis of Pep and Gisela can be found in Davidson (2001).

. Theoretical advantages of an OT approach Previous accounts of syntactic acquisition within the Principles and Parameters framework have generally promoted one of two approaches: Strong Continuity / Full Competence or Weak Continuity / Minimal Trees. According to the former viewpoint, adult-like phrase structure is available to the child from the beginning of syntactic acquisition. Any discrepancies between child and adult syntax are attributed to external factors such as memory limitations or child-specific restrictions on particular grammatical structures (Boser, Lust, Santelmann, & Whitman 1992; Wexler 1994, 1998). Weak Continuity, on the other hand, assumes that child and adult grammars are not the same. A child’s syntactic representation begins with only the most basic projection – a VP – and then develops gradually (Guilfoyle & Noonan 1992; Vainikka 1993/1994; Radford 1996). The advantage of the optimality-theoretic partial ranking analysis is that it combines elements of both the Strong and Weak Continuity approaches, which were previously viewed as incompatible. The properties of these two approaches

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incorporated by the partial ranking analysis are summarized as follows (from Legendre et al. 1999): Strong Continuity Properties shared by the partial ordering analysis • The input to the syntactic component is adult-like (functional categories are present in the grammar from the beginning of syntactic acquisition) • The syntactic constraints are adult-like (no constraints are specific to child language)

•

Variation between stages of a child’s grammar is adult-like (constraint reranking accounts for different child grammars just as it does for historical or sociolinguistic variation in adult grammars)

Weak Continuity Properties shared by the partial ordering analysis • Each stage of development corresponds to a different grammar (the differing grammars arise from constraint reranking during development) • Minimal amount of phrase structure is posited (this economy of structure arises from interaction between markedness and faithfulness constraints) • There exist non-adult-like grammars at early stages of development (such grammars arise from a general tendency of faithfulness constraints to have an initial low ranking)

. Case study from Catalan: Laura As determined by the criteria in (5) above, the child’s syntactic progress can be calculated as a function of the proportions of tensed and agreeing forms in the adult speech. For example, if 24% of an adult’s verbal utterances contain non-present tense, and 12% of all child verbal utterances do, then we say that the child is reaching her target for tense only 50% of the time. The proportions of TNS, AGR and both TNS&AGR in a child’s speech are calculated using the following formulas: (11)

child non-3S adult non-3S Prop(child TNS) = child non-present adult non-present Prop(child AGR&TNS) = child non-3S, non-present adult non-3S, non-present

Prop(child AGR) =

Using this measure for determining how frequently a child uses TNS and/or AGR with respect to her ultimate goal of attaining the adult proportions, Laura’s data can be examined stage-by-stage. Her proportions for Stage 2b are given in Table 4. (Note: In the following tables, “Proportion” refers to the proportion of TNS and AGR in her utterances compared to the adult target.)

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Table 4. Laura, Stage 2b

Laura Laura’s Adults Proportion

AGR (non-3s)

TNS (non present)

AGR&TNS (non3s, nonPres)

24% (8/34) 50% (341/682) 48%

3% (1/34) 25% (168/682) 12%

0% (0/34) 13% (86/682) 0%

From this data, we see that 48% of Laura’s utterances are agreeing compared to the adult target, and 12% are tensed. She has no utterances that are both tensed and agreeing at this stage (e.g. first person, past tense). In OT terms, this entails that ParseA floats above (at least) *F 48% of the time, and ParseT does so 12% of the time. Note that by the definition of probability, this means that ParseA is ranked below *F (100% – 48%) = 52% of the time, and ParseT is ranked below *F (100% – 12%) = 88% of the time. Her partial ranking for this stage is given in (12): (12) Laura, 2b – Rankings (conservatively assuming that neither faithfulness constraint is ever above *F2 , since none of her utterances are both tensed and agreeing at this stage) *F2 >> *F 48% 52% ParseA 12% 88% ParseT The schematic in 12 translates into six competing grammars at Stage 2b, shown in (13). However, the likelihood of each grammar being used at any given time is not equiprobable, but biased toward those which realize AGR. (13)

*F2 >> *F >> ParseA >> ParseT *F2 >> ParseT >> *F >> ParseA *F2 >> *F >> ParseT >> ParseA *F2 >> ParseA >> ParseT >> *F *F2 >> ParseA >> *F >> ParseT *F2 >> ParseT >> ParseA >> *F

One consequence of this analysis is that we can confirm the metric developed to determine the default. By simply knowing Proportion(TNS) and Proportion(AGR), the default can be predicted and checked against the observed. Recall that whenever ParseA and ParseT are floating together at the bottom of the hierarchy, a default form results. The rankings in (14) will yield default forms: (14) *F2 >> *F >> ParseA >> ParseT or *F2 >> *F >> ParseT >> ParseA The proportion of default forms can be predicted by determining how often ParseA and ParseT will co-occur at the bottom of the hierarchy. We already know that for Laura at Stage 2b, ParseA is below *F 52% of the time, and ParseT is below *F 88% of the time. Multiplying these numbers together gives us the joint

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probability that both ParseA and ParseT will be floating together below *F. This number tells us what the predicted default is, as shown in (15): (15) Predicted default = P(1-Proportion(AGR)) × P(1-Proportion(TNS)) = 52% × 88% = 47% The predicted default, 47%, is the same as the observed proportion of default forms in Laura’s speech, as reported in Table 3. One assumption of this theory is that the children will never “go back” on their rankings; in other words, the proportions of TNS and AGR in their speech should be continually increasing. For Laura at Stage 3b, this is indeed true, as illustrated in Table 5: Table 5. Laura, Stage 3b

Laura Laura’s Adults Proportions

AGR (non-3s)

TNS (non present)

AGR&TNS (non3s, nonPres)

41% (90/217) 50% (341/682) 83%

6% (13/217) 25% (168/682) 24%

4% (9/217) 13% (86/682) 33%

At this stage, Laura has forms that are both tensed and agreeing. This entails that both ParseT and ParseA must be floating above *F2 .2 (16) Laura, 3b – Rankings *F2 >> *F 83% 17% 24% 76%

ParseA ParseT

The predicted default for Stage 3b can again be compared to the observed proportion, again from Table 3: (17) Default = 17% × 76% = 13% (observed = 15%, χ2 (1) = .88, p > .25) The data for Laura at Stage 4b is much like that for 3b, except that the proportions of AGR, TNS, and TNS&AGR are all closer to 100%. This is shown in Table 6 and (18): Table 6. Laura, Stage 4b

Laura Adult Proportions

AGR (non-3s)

TNS (non present)

AGR&TNS (non3s, nonPres)

46% (134/293) 50% (341/682) 91%

17% (49/293) 25% (168/682) 71%

8% (24/293) 13% (86/682) 65%

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 Lisa Davidson and Géraldine Légendre

(18) Laura 4b – Rankings *F2 >> *F 91% 9% 71% 29%

ParseA ParseT

Again, the predicted default matches the observed default: (19) Default = 9% × 29% = 2.6% (observed = 3% χ2 (1) = .73, p > .25) By Stage 4c, Laura’s proportions of TNS and AGR are essentially adult-like. We assume that both ParseA and ParseT are ranked above *F2 by this stage, as shown in Table 7 and (20). Table 7. Laura, Stage 4c

Laura Adult

AGR (non-3s)

TNS (non present)

AGR&TNS (non3s, nonPres)

57% (100/176) 50% (341/682)

30% (53/176) 25% (168/682)

19% (33/176) 13% (86/682)

(20) Laura 4b – Rankings *F2 >> *F 100% ParseA 100% ParseT The final ranking for Laura – the one which she shares with adults – is ParseA, ParseT >> *F2 >> *F.

. Conclusion In this paper, we have presented three main findings. First, while French has always been considered an optional infinitive language, it has been assumed that Catalan is not. When the phenomenon is couched in more general terms, namely the use of default forms in acquisition, Catalan looks very much like French. Catalan learners too use a default form which lacks tense and agreement: the third person singular present indicative. Second, we have demonstrated that tense and agreement follow distinct patterns of development, both within and across languages. Whereas French learners begin acquiring TNS first, Catalan learners acquire AGR first. Furthermore, the development of TNS and AGR are essentially linear in Catalan, while French learners show evidence of syntactic competition in an intermediate stage at which one functional projection is available, and TNS and AGR compete for realization.

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Third, an optimality-theoretic analysis with partial constraint ranking can explain how varying proportions of tensed, agreeing, and default utterances arise. The analysis demonstrates how a child progresses from stage to stage until s/he has fully acquired tense and agreement.

Notes * We would like to thank Paul Hagstrom, Marina Todorova, Anne Vainikka, Matt Goldrick, and the LSRL XXXI audience for their significant contributions to this work. All errors are our own. This research was carried out under NSF (LIS) grant # 9720412. . Note that the realization of any given non-finite form may be dependent on different types of aspectual content that the child is intending to express (Bel i Gaya 1998; Hyams 2000). This is not a problem for Optimality Theory, since the relevant aspectual features would be present in the input, but absent on the surface due to relatively high ranked markedness constraints dispreferring their realization. . Note that while the presence of forms that are both agreeing and tensed entails that the faithfulness constraints must float above *F2 at least part of the time, the proportion of the time that they can be found only above *F versus above *F2 is underdetermined. This is because there are often several different rerankings and accompanying frequencies which could give rise to the observed Proportion(AGR&TNS). For a more detailed explanation, see Davidson (2001) and Davidson and Goldrick (2003).

References Anttila, Arto (1997). Variation in Finnish Phonology and Morphology. Ph.D. dissertation, Stanford University. Bel i Gaya, Aurora (1998). Teoria linguística i adquisició de llenguatge: Analisi comparada dels trets morfologics en catalá i castellá. Ph.D. dissertation, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. Boersma, Paul (1998). Functional Phonology: Formalizing the interactions between articulatory and perceptual drives. The Hague: Holland Academic Graphics. Boersma, Paul & Bruce Hayes (2001). Empirical tests of the Gradual Learning Algorithm. Linguistic Inquiry, 32, 45–86. Boser, Katharina, Barbara Lust, Lynn Santelmann, & John Whitman (1992). The syntax of CP and V2 in early child German: The Strong Continuity Hypothesis. In K. Broderick (Ed.), Proceedings of NELS 23 (pp. 51–65). Amherst, MA: UMass GLSA. Davidson, Lisa (2001). Defaults, frequencies and variation in the acquisition of Catalan. Ms., Johns Hopkins University.

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Davidson, Lisa & Matthew Goldrick (2003). Tense, agreement and defaults in child Catalan: An Optimality Theoretic analysis. In S. Montrul (Ed.), Selected Papers from the 4th Conference on the Acquisition of Spanish and Portuguese as First and Second Languages. Cambridge, MA: Cascadilla Press. Demuth, Katherine (1995). Markedness and the development of prosodic structure. In Jill Beckman (Ed.), Proceedings of NELS 25 (pp. 13–25). Amherst, MA: UMass GLSA. Ferdinand, Astrid (1996). The Development of Functional Categories: The Acquisition of the Subject in French. The Hague: Holland Academic Graphics. Gnanadesikan, Amalia (1995). Markedness and faithfulness constraints in child phonology. Rutgers Optimality Archive ROA-67, University of Massachusetts, Amherst. http://ruccs.rutgers.edu/roa.html Grinstead, John (1998). Subjects, Sentential Negation and Imperatives in Child Spanish and Catalan. Ph.D. dissertation, UCLA. Guasti, Maria (1994). Verb syntax in Italian child grammar: Finite and non-finite verbs. Language Acquisition, 3(1), 1–40. Guilfoyle, Eithne & Máire Noonan (1992). Functional categories and language acquisition. Canadian Journal of Linguistics, 37, 241–272. Hyams, Nina (2000). Now you hear it, now you don’t: The nature of optionality in child grammars. Plenary talk presented at the Boston University Conference on Language Development, November 4, 2000. Kaiser, Georg (1994). More about INFL-ection and agreement: The acquisition of clitic pronouns in French. In Jürgen Meisel (Ed.), Bilingual First Language Acquisition: French and German Development. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Legendre, Géraldine, Paul Hagstrom, Anne Vainikka, & Marina Todorova (1999). Partial constraint ordering in child French syntax. Technical Report, Johns Hopkins University. MacWhinney, Brian & Catherine Snow (1985). The Child Language Data Exchange System. Journal of Child Language, 12, 271–296. Meisel, Jürgen (1994). Getting FAT: Finiteness, agreement, and tense in early grammars. In Jürgen Meisel (Ed.), Bilingual First Language Acquisition: French and German Grammatical Development. Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Phillips, Colin (1995). Syntax at age two: Cross-linguistic differences. MIT Working Papers in Linguistics, 26, 37–93. Pierce, Amy (1992). Language Acquisition and Syntactic Theory: A Comparative Analysis of French and English Child Grammars. Dordrecht: Kluwer. Pollock, Jean-Yves (1989). Verb movement, Universal Grammar, and the structure of IP. Linguistic Inquiry, 20, 365–424. Prince, Alan & Paul Smolensky (1993). Optimality Theory: Constraint Interaction in Generative Grammar. Technical Report Rutgers University and Technical Report, University of Colorado. To appear, MIT Press. Radford, Andrew (1996). Towards a structure building model of acquisition. In H. Clahsen (Ed.), Generative Perspectives on Language Acquisition (pp. 43–90). Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Rizzi, Luigi (1993/1994). Some notes on linguistic theory and language development: The case of root infinitives. Linguistic Inquiry, 17, 371–393.

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Roberge, Yves (1990). The Syntactic Recoverability of Null Arguments. McGill: Queen’s University Press. Schütze, Carson & Kenneth Wexler (1996). Subject case licensing and English root infinitives. In Andy Stringfellow, Dalia Cahan-Amitay, Elizabeth Hughes, & Andrea Zukowski (Eds.), Proceedings of the 20th Annual Boston University Conference on Language Development (pp. 670–681). Somerville, MA: Cascadilla Press. Smolensky, Paul (1996). The initial state and ‘richness of the base’ in Optimality Theory. Technical Report JHU-CogSci-96-4 and Rutgers Optimality Archive ROA154, Cognitive Science Department, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD. http://ruccs.rutgers.edu/roa.html Smolensky, Paul (1997). Constraint interaction in generative grammar II: Local Conjunction (or, Random rules in Universal Grammar). Paper presented at the Hopkins Optimality Theory Conference/University of Maryland Mayfest, Baltimore, MD. Smolensky, Paul, Lisa Davidson, & Peter Jusczyk (to appear). Optimality in language acquisition I: Phonology. In Paul Smolensky & Géraldine Legendre (Eds.), The Harmonic Mind: From Neural Computation to Optimality Theoretic Grammar. Cambridge, MA: Blackwell. Tesar, Bruce & Paul Smolensky (2000). Learnability in Optimality Theory. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Torrens, Vicenç (1995). L’adquisició de la sintaxi en català i castellà: La categoria functional de flexió. Ph.D. dissertation, Universitat de Barcelona. Vainikka, Anne (1993/1994). Case in the development of English syntax. Language Acquisition, 3, 257–324. Vainikka, Anne, Géraldine Legendre, and Marina Todorova (1999). PLU-Stages: an independent measure of early syntactic development. Technical Report JHU-CogSci99-10, Johns Hopkins University. Weverink, Meike (1989). The subject in relation to inflection in child language. M.A. thesis, University of Utrecht. Wexler, Kenneth (1994). Optional infinitives, head movement, and economy of derivation. In Norbert Hornstein & David Lightfoot (Eds.), Verb Movement (pp. 305–350). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Wexler, Kenneth (1998). Very early parameter setting and the Unique Checking Constraint. Lingua, 106, 23–79.

Appendix: Developmental stages Definitions of PLU Stages (from Vainikka et al. 1999) – –

Stage 1: Predominantly one-word stage Almost all utterances (90%) are of the one-word sentence type Stage 2: Intermediate stage between one-word and two-word stage The one-word sentence type is still very common (60%–89% of the utterances are of the one word-type) Stage 3: “Two-word” stage

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– – –

The one-word sentence type no longer clearly predominates (i.e. fewer than 60% of all utterances are one-word utterances) The multiword sentence type is not the most common one Stage 4: Predominantly multiword stage The multiword sentence type is the most common one

Secondary PLU stages (from Vainikka et al. 1999) Secondary stage a: at most 10% of all utterances contain a verb Secondary stage b: 11%–60% of all utterances contain a verb Secondary stage c: more than 60% of all utterances contain a verb

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Constraints on the meanings of Bare Nouns Viviane Deprez Rutgers University / Institute for Cognitive Sciences, Lyon

.

Introduction

The goal of this paper is to present the broad lines of a novel approach to capture and predict the various meanings of nominal expressions without determiners cross-linguistically. I will discuss constraints determining the possible syntactic structures and associated meanings bare nominals (BNs) can have. In earlier work (Déprez 1999, 2001), I have shown that an approach attributing this crosslinguistic variation to a semantic parameter in the denotation of noun phrases (Chierchia 1998), although clearly very insightful, makes a number of incorrect empirical predictions with respect to a certain class of languages, and in particular with respect to Haitian Creole (HC). More specifically, Chierchia’s proposal was designed to exclude bare singular arguments and to predict the necessary presence of classifiers in languages that do not mark plurality. Both predictions, however, are contradicted by the Haitian data. My paper introduced an alternative approach based on a syntactic parameter, the Plural Parameter, to provide an account of the syntactic and semantic properties of BNs in HC. The present paper extends this syntactically inspired approach to account for more extensive cross-linguistic variations in the meanings of BNs in Creole as well as in non-Creole languages. As it presents work in progress – I have not yet looked at all the known languages featuring BNs – the conclusions it presents are preliminary. Moreover, space constraints allow me to touch only on the broad outlines of the proposal. Various aspects will have to be left for future work.1 My hope, however, is that this work will contribute progress towards a better understanding of the complex interaction of morphology, syntax and semantics in this area of research.

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. Background Chierchia’s (1998) proposed to derive cross-linguistic variations in the meaning of BNs from the interaction of a flexible mapping between syntactic categories and semantic types, a semantic parameter governing this mapping and some economy constraints on a universal set of type shifting operations (cf. the Blocking Principle). This paper instead defends a rigid category to type match, as in the original spirit of Montague grammar, and uses null structure and syntactic principles and parameters to derive the possible meaning range of bare nominals. In so doing, it attempts to increase recourse to syntactic structures and parameters that have been independently motivated in recent work on DP and whose limitations and empirical predictive content are well known, while diminishing recourse to covert type shifting operations whose nature, constraints and empirical consequences remain at present ill understood. The central ingredients of the proposal are summarized below. The Plural Parameter (Déprez 1999, 2000) NumP must project and contain a semantic counter (+/–) NP → <e> kind NumP → <e, t> realization of a kind (object level individuals or sub-kinds) NumP = λnλKλwλx [R/Tw (x,K) & OU/KUw (K)(x) = n] NumP introduces a predicate over objects or subkinds (and a counter).

The Plural Parameter (Déprez 1999, 2001) distinguishes two broad sets of languages, the +PLL and the –PLL, according to whether or not the structure of their nominal expressions obligatorily includes a functional projection for Number.2 In +PLL languages NumP must systematically project, for count nouns at least, even when the noun phrase is singular with no overt “plural”or “singular” morphology, and this NumP must contain a counter. In –PLL, on the other hand, the projection of NumP is optional and when it occurs, NumP does not have to contain a counter. Like other proposed parametric distinctions in current day syntactic theory, the proposed Plural parameter concerns functional structure and capitalizes on an overt morphological difference among languages, namely the presence vs. absence of a regular plural morphology. It locates variation in the lexicon, or more specifically in the inventory of morpho-syntactic features a language may chose to instantiate. It adds, however, a twist to this broadly accepted view of parametric variation, in the sense that morphological richness is here tied to a specific interpretation, with the result that the parametric choice now has semantic consequences in addition to expected syntactic ones. The key idea again is that languages that manifest a paradigmatic plural morphology necessarily project a nominal structure

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with a number head that contains a semantic counter over realizations of a kind. Languages that do not have paradigmatic plural, in contrast, do not enforce the presence of such a number projection, although, of course, they allow it optionally. As this paper will argue, this simple parametric proposal has some far-reaching semantic and syntactic consequences. Note first that it is based on a rigid categoryto-type match in the sense that the syntactic category NP and the syntactic category NumP are always assumed to rigidly map into a single semantic denotation. NPs are always mapped to a denotation of type <e>. In this respect, the claim is that, cross-linguistically, the category NPs always denotes a kind and never anything else. The category NumP, on the other hand, always denotes the realizations of a kind, that is, the set of objects that instantiates a kind in a given world, and in this sense, it always maps onto an <e,t> denotation. It is here assumed that kinds can be instantiated in two different ways, i.e., as sets of sub-kinds and as sets of individual object entities. Accordingly, an expression like the bear can denote a taxonomic sub-kind of the kind Ursus such as, for instance, the Grizzly bear or the Brown bear, or an object level individual bear member of the kind Ursus. This is here encoded by two sorted realization operations, one essentially equivalent to the realization rule of Carlson (1977), and the other, to a realization rule ranging on sub-kinds, so-called taxonomic kinds, following a proposal in Krifka (1995). Syntactically, the proposed Plural parameter entails that bare arguments can be NPs in –PLL languages only, and that whenever they are NPs, they must always denote a kind. For +PLL languages, in contrast, the parameter entails that bare arguments cannot map onto NPs, as NumP must necessarily project. The syntactic consequence of this proposal is that, in +PLL languages, bare arguments must always be minimally NumPs; and the semantic consequence is that kinds are not directly accessible. Taking the NumP projection to be in a sense structurally equivalent to a null determiner – since it is after all a null syntactic functional head endowed with number features – the proposed parameter can then be said to entail that bare arguments always have null determiners in +PLL but not in –PLL. It is also important to note that in the proposed view, NumP has a dual role in +PLL languages. First, its supplies the semantics with instantiations of kinds, and in this respect, it embodies the realization rule of Carlson (1981). Second, it provides a counting function over these instantiations, ensuring that when Num = plural, there must be more than one instantiation, and that when Num = singular, instantiations are singleton sets. I will return in more detail to this second role later in the paper, as it will prove crucial in limiting the distribution of certain types of BN, namely bare singular count arguments. The goal of the present paper is to explain, within this framework of assumptions, how the variety of meanings that BNs can have in given languages can be derived and predicted. To achieve this goal, the paper has two parts. In a first part, I quickly review the various possible readings BNs can have in the various languages

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under study. In the second part, I propose a number of descriptive generalizations about BNs that are shown to obtain in these languages. These generalizations are then accounted for in terms of the proposed model.

. Cross-linguistic variations in the meanings of Bare Nominals: The facts Let us begin with a review of the various meanings BNs can have in a number of distinct languages.

. English Bare Nominals (Germanic) In the first example, English, it is well known that bare arguments have essentially three readings, an existential, a generic and a kind reading, exemplified here in (1a–c), respectively: (1) a. I have heard dogs barking in the park. b. Dogs bark. c. Dogs are common. As is equally well known, count bare arguments must be plural in English. That is, bare singular nominal arguments are generally excluded, unless they are mass: (2) *I have heard dog barking in the park.

. Italian (Romance) Bare Nominals In Italian, and in Romance more generally, BNs must also be plural. Moreover, Italian bare plurals have been claimed to show, by and large, the same range of meanings as in English, although there are disagreements in the literature about the facts. That they can have at least an existential and a generic meaning seems to be largely agreed upon. (3) a.

Leo questa estate ha corregiato belle ragazze Leo last summer has courted nice girls. b. Leo corregia sempre belle ragazze Leo always courts nice girls.

Longobardi (1999), has argued contra Chierchia (1998), that Italian bare plurals fail to have a kind reading. I will assume that this is correct, although nothing here hinges on this particular choice. Also well known is the fact that bare arguments in Romance manifest a characteristic distributional asymmetry, being generally ex-

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cluded from preverbal subject positions. With regard to this property, which, in agreement with most accounts, I firmly believe to be syntactic, I refer the readers to the solution offered in Déprez (2000). Briefly, this solution, based on EPP checking, proposes that strictly bare NPs and DPs with null determiners are essentially unsuitable to check the EPP feature of rich agreement languages. As a result, arguments with these structures cannot sit in preverbal EPP checking positions. This asymmetry will not be further discussed here as our focus is on the interpretation possibilities of BNs rather than on their syntactic distribution.

. Bare Nominals in Cape Verdean Creole (CVC)3 Turning now to Creole languages, note that bare plural arguments in CVC also have both an existential and a generic reading. Kind readings seem also to be possible, although the evidence provided by Baptista in this regard is less clear. (4) a.

N odja omis sintadu riba di kaza I saw men sitting on top of the house. b. Omis e temozu Men are stubborn. c. Kabuberdianus gosta di kaza branku Capeverdeans like white houses.

What clearly distinguishes these bare plural arguments from the ones seen so far, however, is the fact they can be interpreted as definite (5), a reading that is available in neither English nor Romance. Note importantly, that for bare plural arguments as in (5), a definite reading seems to be available in the same syntactic positions as the indefinite one. That is, according to Baptista (2000), there is no distributional asymmetry for either reading in CVC. Thus both (4a) and (5a) are ambiguous, and the same seems true for bare NPs in preverbal subject positions. (5) N odja omis ta bebe na taberna I saw men drink in the tavern. I saw the men drinking in the tavern. BNs can also be morphologically singular in CVC. When singular, a BN can have a definite or a kind reading as respectively instantiated in (6) and (7): (6) a.

N odja omi na taberna I saw the man in the tavern. b. Deus deze’l ‘tabe’. N ta da un tabor, N ta mara’l un korda. Kadu bos cega na tera, tokar tabor, eto N ta larga korda. God gave him one also. I will give you a drum and I will attach a

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rope to it. When you get to earth, beat the drum, and I will let go of the rope. (7) a.

João toma ritratu di lion na Afrika João photographed the lion in Africa (kind). b. Dinozor sta dizaparese Dinosaurs are disappearing.

For animate bare singulars arguments, however, which incidentally seem to be the largest class of nouns with a regular plural alternation, there appear to be severe restrictions on existential readings. These are narrowly constrained, in the sense that they seem largely limited to idiomatic expressions and otherwise unavailable. Thus, although (8), which has an idiomatic character, can have an existential reading, (9), which has no idiomatic character cannot. BNs in (9a) and (9b) are only definite. (8) El ten kurason di pedra He has a heart of stone. (9) a.

N odja vizinhu na merkadu I saw the/*a neighbor in the market. b. *N enkontra amigu *I met a friend.

Descriptively, the generalization seems to be as follows. When a bare argument is associated with a clear singular interpretation and morphology in CVC, it fails to have an existential reading and must instead denote an individual, i.e., a definite or a kind.

. Bare Nominals in Seychelles Creole (SC)4 If we now turn our attention to the Bollée (1977) corpus of French based Creole of the Seychelles, a detailed examination reveals that BNs also have an existential, a generic and a kind reading in this language, exemplified here in (10a–c), respectively: (10) a.

I ti ana labitid mãz sotrel ek dimjel sovaz They used to eat grasshopers with wild honey. b. Depi sa zur, sat pa ule war lera dã zot lizje From this day, cats do not want to see rats in their neighborhood. c. E ziska ozordi torti i ãkor kõtã ziromõ5 And up to today turtles like giromon.

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In SC as in CVC, BNs can moreover have a definite reading, construed as plural or singular depending on the context. (11) a.

Ler sat i a rekolte, i va rekolte lakok. (L’Escroc; 186–187) When the cats will harvest, they will harvest the skin.

Lerwa i met ∼e solda veje. Ler Sugula I vini pu li vin bejne, I war solda pe veje. (Frere S& Ftortue:5) The king put a soldier on suveillance. When Sugula came to bathe, he saw the soldier who was keeping watch. b. Madam Lamur i montre avoka let. Avoka i lir let. (S deS.187) Madame Lamour showed the letter to the lawyer. The lawyer read the letter.

(12) a.

Notably in SC, nominals in general and BNs, in particular, are generally morphologically unmarked for number. The only plural marker in the language is the morpheme ban, which is generally, although not obligatorily, used with plural definites. It is not, however, used with plural indefinites, whether they have a numeral specification (three or four, etc.) or are simply bare.

. Bare Nominals in Haitian Creole (HC)6 Let us finally consider the case of Haitian Creole, another French based Creole, whose range of interpretation for BNs seem to differ from the previous French based Creole. In HC, BNs have an existential a generic and a kind reading, as in the other languages so far. (13) a.

Jan ap li liv John is reading (some) book/s. b. Jouromou pa donnen kalbas The jouromou cannot produce calabashes. c. Elefan ap vin ra Elephants are/the elephant is becoming rare. d. Edison (te) envante anpoul elektrik Edison invented the light bulb.

HC BNs, however, generally lack a definite reading. The native speakers I consulted quite strongly preferred to use an overt marker of definiteness: la, the singular definite marker, or yo the plural one, to obtain the regular definite readings of nominal expressions.7 (14) Selòm fèk achte yon panno, yon ba ak yon makout, men yo gen tan vòlè makout *(la).

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Selòm just bought a horse cushion, a harness and a makout, but someone has already stolen *the makout. Note finally that in HC, as in SC, nouns are morphologically unmarked for number. Correlatively, plural and singular interpretations in BNs are often either pragmatically driven or contextually constrained. (15) a.

Jan achete liv/kay pou Pòl Pragmatic determination John bought books/a house for Paul. b. Siriys achte chwal pou pitit li a Sirirys bought a horse/horses for his child. c. li te bay m piki S/he gave me a shot. d. Ti moun yo pa pote kalbas pou yo pran dlo Contextual determination The children did not bring calebasses to take water. f. Ti moun nan pa pote kalbas pou l pran dlo The child did not bring a calebasse to take water.

Plurality can be marked with yo, a form derived from and homophonous to the third person plural pronoun. But yo is necessarily associated with a definite interpretation. So there is no plural marking with indefinite noun phrases in HC. Summary of data: ∃

BN Plural ∀

K

D

BN Singular ∃ ∀

K

D

English

Yes

Yes

No

No

English

No

No

No

No

Italian

Yes

Yes

No

No

Italian

No

No

No

No

CVC

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

CVC

?

Yes

Yes

Yes

SC

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

SC

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

HC

Yes

Yes

Yes

No

HC

Yes

Yes

Yes

No

Italics = No morphological marking for Plurality

The table above summarizes the data reviewed so far. We have seen that BNs do not have a unique and constant meaning across languages. The facts make clear that the range of meanings bare arguments can take vary significantly both within and across languages. The data further show that, contrary to what is commonly assumed in the Creole literature, the meaning of BNs is not constant across Creole languages either. It may be worth pointing out that this conclusion goes against some creolistic literature, which suggests that Creole determiner systems, perhaps

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because Creoles are considered as emerging linguistic systems, present characteristics that are different from those of other languages. Within such a line of approach Bickerton (1981), for instance, has suggested that the dichotomy between the presence/absence of overt determiners in Creoles reflects a distinction between specific uses and non-specific uses of noun phrases – the specific uses being associated with overt determiners and the non-specific uses with BNs. The use of BNs with a definite meaning in both CVC and SC clearly refutes this too simple dichotomy, as it makes clear that BNs can sometimes have specific and even definite readings in Creoles as well as in other languages. The above data also reveal that there is no uniformity across the determiner systems of Creoles. Recall indeed that two French based Creoles, SC and HC, are distinguished by their possible use of BNs with a definite interpretation. Definite BNs are clearly present in SC, but not in HC.8 As this data convincingly indicates, there is no prototypical Creole determiner system. BNs in Creole languages appear to be subject to the same variability in their interpretation as BNs in non-Creoles languages whose determiner system cannot be qualified as emerging. Turning to somewhat deeper analytical consequences of the data observed, it is clear that the observed variability in the meanings of BNs easily refutes a somewhat simple analysis that would posit the existence of a single null determiner whose semantic interpretation is fixed, as was earlier proposed by Longobardi (1994) for Italian. Longobardi had proposed that the meaning of a null determiner corresponds by and large to that of an existential quantifier with plurality restrictions. Although it appears clear that an existential interpretation of bare plurals is available in all the languages considered, this meaning is also, just as clearly, not the only one that BNs can have.

. Generalizations on the meaning of BN: Analysis . Existential and Generic readings of BN As a first step to an account of the semantic variability of BNs, I will present a number of empirical generalizations that seem to adequately cover the languages here reviewed. What is first notable in the range of data considered above is the fact that bare arguments, whenever they are possible in a language, always have at least two available readings, an existential and a generic one. This is true of all bare nominal arguments that have a plural construal, morphologically marked or not, but not of clearly singular bare arguments (cf. CVC). The generalization is here summed up as Generalization 1.9

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Generalization 1: Bare (plural) nominals have at least an existential and a generic reading. In the present proposal, the existential and generic readings of BNs derive from the projection of NumPs. Recall that as noted above, I take the role of NumP to be that of building a property from a kind, namely the property of being an object or subkind member of a kind. Closure of this property under standard Existential closure in episodic sentences is what derives the existential reading of bare arguments. (16) Existential reading: Existential closure ∃x ∃n [R (x,D) & OU/KU (K)(x) = n >1] The generic reading, on the other hand, derives from the presence of a Generic operator representing the denotation of the verbal tense/aspect in so-called characterizing sentences. (17) Generic reading: Generic operator Gen x [R (x,D)] Gen x ∃n [R (x,K) & OU/KU (K)(x) = n >1] Assuming that the projection of NumP is possible in all languages, Existential closure and binding by a generic operator will account for G1 deriving, for all BN arguments, both an existential and a generic reading. Semantically, our proposal is here largely equivalent to the view that bare NumPs are a type of indefinite Heimian variable that can be captured by Existential closure or by other available operators such as the Generic operator (cf. Diesing 1992 among others). Syntactically, the claim is that bare plurals with an existential or generic interpretation always map onto NumP projections. That is, BNs with these interpretations are never strictly speaking bare NPs but always bare NumPs. Languages may, of course, vary as to how the Num head is lexically realized or syntactically licensed. Quite generally, assuming that licensing involves feature checking, such checking may be done by head movement of N into NumP in the syntax or at LF, or by movement of NP to Spec NumP, again in the syntax or at LF. Although this syntactic choice may have consequences on the distribution of bare arguments, the claim here is that it does not have consequences on their interpretation. I have motivated various syntactic analyses in previous works, so I will not return to this issue here. It suffices to say that the projection of NumP will entail that BNs can have minimally both an existential and a generic reading, which accounts for G1. The proposed Plural parameter has two important consequences with respect to G1. First, as formulated here, it enforces the projection of NumP in +PLL. This means that in +PL languages, existential and generic readings of BNs will be the most basic readings, since bare arguments are always minimally NumP. In this respect, +PL languages differ from –PL languages, in which the most basic reading of a BN is that of a kind. Indeed only in –PLL may NumP fail to project. So only in

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–PLL is the kind reading of a bare NP directly available. The prediction of this distinction is that no –PL languages could lack a kind reading for their BNs, although the kind reading of BNs may well be lacking in +PL languages. If Longobardi (1999) is correct, Italian illustrates precisely a +PL language in which the kind reading of BNs is lacking.10 Another important aspect of the Plural parameter with respect to G1 relates to the dual role of plural in +PLL. In addition to enforcing the projection of NumP, the Plural parameter proposes that the presence of a plural morpheme, which I take to be one of the possible values of NumP in the +PLL, introduces a counter over the instances of a kind derived by the realization relation. The semantic interpretation of a NumP containing a plural morpheme is as in (19), namely pluralities of instantiations of a kind whose cardinality is superior to 1. For –PL languages in contrast, recall that NumP does not have to project and that when it does, it contains no counter, as there is no plural value for NumP. Since strictly bare NPs receive only a kind interpretation, the projection of NumP is also necessary to derive existential or generic readings of BNs in –PLL languages. However, in –PLL, as NumP does not contain a counter, the interpretation of a “bare NumP” is merely the result of Carlson’s realization rule; that is, a set of instances of a kind unspecified for number, i.e., with no specification as to how many such instantiations there may be. An important consequence of this proposal is that bare arguments in –PL languages, even though NumPs on their existential and generic readings, turn out to be unspecified for number and could in principle correspond to single or multiple instantiations of a kind (with plurality perhaps the unmarked choice assuming that kinds have in the normal case multiple instantiations). That this prediction is correct is shown by examples like (17) in which bare arguments in a –PL language can be construed as denoting a single entity or several entities depending on pragmatic and/or contextual factors. This on our view follows from the Plural parameter as formulated, as this parameter enforces the presence in NumP of a counter on instantiations of a kind in +PL languages but not in –PL languages. To sum up, existential and generic readings in all types of languages involve the projection of NumP. +PLL and –PLL differ in that the presence of a counter over realizations of a kind is enforced in the former but not in the latter. The presence of the counter in turn determines whether the quantity of objects realizing a kind is specified or left unspecified and, consequently, whether or not bare arguments are compatible in relevant contexts with variability in their number interpretation.

. Definite readings of BNs In addition to existential and generic readings, BNs may have definite readings in some but not all the languages here considered. In this respect, the generaliza-

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tion governing the availability of the definite reading seems quite simple. As stated in Generalization 2 below, BNs appear to have a regular definite reading only in languages that lack overt lexical definite determiners. Generalization 2: Regular definite readings of BNs arise in languages that lack lexical definite determiners. G2 may seem rather trivial at first, but its apparent simplicity is deceptive. Indeed it does not seem to be generally true that the meaning of BNs in given languages systematically corresponds to that of missing overt determiners. To give a particularly telling example, note that CVC has both a singular and a plural indefinite determiner – un and uns as shown in (18) – that can have low scope (Baptista 2000 & p.c.), and yet clearly allows existential or indefinite readings of BNs: (18) a.

N odja omis sintadu riba di kaza I saw men sitting top of house. “I saw men sitting on top of the house.” b. N odja uns omi sintadu riba di kaza I saw some men sitting top of house. “I saw some men sitting on top of the house.”

Similarly, HC and SC have singular indefinite determiners that have possible low scope and yet BNs with indefinite singular readings are allowed as well. In short, while overt determiners and related interpretations of BNs do not seem to be in complementary distribution in the domain of indefinite interpretations, such a complementary distribution does, in fact, seem to hold for definite interpretations. Let us have a quick look at the data to see how strong G2 appears to be. That both English and Italian/Romance have overt lexical definite determiners and lack a definite reading for their BNs is uncontroversial. G2 also seems also valid for HC, as I argued in previous work (Déprez 1999, 2000) as well as for Martinique Creole (Déprez forthcoming). HC and MC feature a definite determiner la and lack a regular definite reading for their BNs. It has sometimes been argued, however, that the determiner la has a demonstrative force that a pure definite determiner lacks. Such a view has been particularly defended by linguists who argue that the post-nominal determiner la derives from the French demonstrative reinforcer la in expressions such as ce livre-là. What seems clear, however, is the fact that HC has both a definite determiner and a separate lexical demonstrative sa a, distinct from the former. This is true as well for MC. A perhaps more cautious formulation of G2 could thus specify that only languages with overt definite determiners that are distinct from demonstrative ones disallow definite readings of BNs.

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That G2 also obtains for SC and CVC is perhaps less obvious at first. I believe, nonetheless, that it is correct, but the issue is complex, involving somewhat murky distinctions between definite and demonstrative determiners. I can, therefore, only try to make a brief case for it here, leaving more detailed argumentation for further work. Consider first SC. On the basis of Bollée (1977)’s grammar and corpus, SC has a demonstrative determiner sa, but lacks a distinct definite determiner. Specifically, in apparent contrast to other French based Creoles, SC does not have the determiner la. That is, interestingly, SC seems to be the only French Based Creole to not use the determiner la, and, correlatively, it also seems to be the only one to feature regular definite readings of its common BN. CVC seems rather similar to SC in this respect. It appears to have a demonstrative determiner kel, but not a distinct definite one. Baptista (2000), however, claims that the determiner kel in CVC can be definite. In her thesis, nevertheless, she classifies kel as a demonstrative and most often translates it using an English demonstrative. (19) a.

Kel omi e grandon That man is very tall. b. N odja kel omi I saw demon man.

The view that CVC has no definite determiner is also supported in the literature, for instance in Maria Dulce de Oliveira’s descriptive grammar of CVC . “O artigo definido pode dizer-se que não existe no crioulo de Cabo Verde.” Almada Maria Dulce de Oliveira, Cabo Verde, P89. What seems clear in any event is that in both SC and CVC, even if apparent definite readings of sa and kel are allowed, there are no definite determiners that are distinct from demonstrative ones. Given the weaker formulation of G2 proposed above, then, both SC and CVC fall squarely under G2. Non-creole languages that, to my knowledge also fall under G2, include Hindi, Slavic, Chinese, Japanese and Korean. All of these languages lack an overt definite determiner (although they have a demonstrative one) and they allow regular definite readings of their BNs. Within the framework of assumptions so far considered, a rather simple account can be given for G2. If we make the plausible assumption that languages all have a definite determiner in the sense that they all must have in their lexical inventory a single lexical head whose interpretation is that of a definite determiner (the ι operator), it is then sufficient to assume that this head while overt (i.e., pronounced) in some languages, is covert (i.e. null) in others. The fact that no language in our sample has both a covert and an overt definite determiner (i.e., G2) then simply follows from very general notions of Economy in the lexicon, namely a simple avoidance of lexical redundancy that is in no way specific to the domain of determiners. To my knowledge, there are no languages featuring two distinct overt definite determiners with exactly the same meaning of ι. There is thus no

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more reason to expect a language to feature both an overt and a covert definite determiner with the same meaning. Once accepted that a language can have a null definite determiner, then the structure of bare arguments with a definite meaning is straightforward. It is exactly identical to the structure of nominal expressions with overt definite determiners in other languages. Following much recent work on DP, I assume that there is a particular projection for the definite determiner and, thus, that the structure of a bare nominal with a null definite determiner is as below: (20)

Def iota <e> | Num realization of a kind <e,t> | N kind <e>

I will further assume that as a consequence of the uniqueness interpretation of a definite determiner, the counter variable (n) of a singular NumP can be set to 1 in its presence, provided, of course, that there is no plural morpheme in NumP. If so, the meaning a singular definite BN will be as in (21): (21) Definite reading: ιx [R(x, K) & OU(K,x) = 1] Furthermore, recall from above that realizations of a kind ranging over objects or sub-kinds are allowed. A consequence of this option is that one of the possible readings of a bare noun with a null definite determiner will be that of a unique sub-kind (e.g., the Grizzly Bear), which, Dayal 2001 argues, is in fact the regular meaning of the kind reading of nominal expressions with overt singular definite determiners in a language like English. In brief, languages featuring BNs with a definite object reading will thus also necessarily feature BNs with a definite kind reading. Both, in our view, are in fact identical readings of a null/overt definite determiner ranging over different types of kind realizations, i.e., object level realizations or sub-kinds. The astute reader will have noted that the proposal above essentially captures the effect of Chierchia’s Blocking Principle (BP), whose main empirical achievement is in effect to derive G2. As BP is more general, however, amendments are needed to allow for indefinite readings of BNs. In particular, indefinite determiners, such as a in English for instance, must be exempted from blocking the existential readings of BNs. Such amendments are not necessary in the present proposal as there is no need to assume that lexical items ever block covert type shifting operations. The proposal thus conveniently avoids the thorny issues that arise when attempting to establish an adequate notion of semantic equivalence between overt lexical determiners and type shifting operations.

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Constraints on the meanings of Bare Nouns 

. Bare singulars Having captured the existential, generic and definite readings of BNs, let us now turn to the third important cross-linguistic distinction observed, namely, the availability/non-availability of singular BNs. Among the languages considered here, neither English (nor German), nor Romance allow for singular count BNs. Singular count BNs seem to be otherwise quite generally allowed in our sample, but this may be an effect of the fact that most of the Creoles considered here have BNs that are morphologically unmarked for plural. Dayal’s (2001) work, which concerns a language that features bare singulars and a robust singular/plural alternation, namely Hindi, suggests an interesting correlation between the availability of singular BNs and that of definite BNs. I have reformulated this observation as G3 below. Generalization 3: Singular BNs are allowed in languages that allow definite BNs. As Dayal has observed for Hindi, singular BNs seem more limited in their available readings than plural BNs. Hindi singular BNs readily allow for definite and kind readings, but characteristically resist existential readings, unless they occur in object positions and have an idiomatic character. Dayal argues that Hindi singular BNs are in fact definite BNs with only apparent existential readings that result from incorporation. On her view, there are thus no free-standing “existential” singular BNs in Hindi, only definite ones. This is a crucial difference with plural BNs that clearly allow for existential as well as definite and kind/generic readings. Her proposal thus suggests that the availability of singular BNs is directly correlated to the availability of definite BNs, perhaps as stated here in G3. I will now discuss the validity of G3 for the languages considered in this paper. A first important observation is that the restrictions noted by Dayal for Hindi bare singulars seem quite strikingly replicated for singular BNs in CVC, a language that also permits definite readings of BNs. Recall indeed that as noted by Baptista, clearly singular BNs in CVC allow for only definite or kind readings and not for an existential reading, unless they occur in idiomatic contexts.11 This suggests that G3 could be upheld in CVC. Turning now to the other language with definite BNs in our sample, namely SC, comparable restrictions on BNs do not seem to be observed, although further research is necessary to better establish this fact. That is, BNs appear to have an existential reading when singular in interpretation. However, since BNs are unmarked for plurality, the question is harder to settle. In HC, finally, singular BNs certainly seem possible as shown by the possibility of using singular pronouns anaphoric referents for BNs, as in (22):

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(22) a.

Bat chen, tann mèt li Bats un chien, attends son maitre b. Bourik fè pitit se pou do l’ ka repoze Un âne a un petit pour reposer son dos

Proverbes Haitiens

Yet HC BNs do not have a regular definite reading. Thus G3 apparently fails in this case. In short, G3 seems only partially upheld in the languages under study here. There appears to be, however, an interesting systematicity to the violations. Within our sample the following pattern can be seen to emerge. If a language lacks morphological marking for plurality, G3 is not upheld and “singular” BNs seem possible. If a language manifests a morphological plural, however, G3 seems to be upheld and in fact reinforced to the following conditional: singular BNs are allowed only if definite BNs are. This generalization squarely excludes singular BNs from Italian and English, allowing them with restrictions in CVC (and Hindi), and with no restrictions in SC and HC. What is of particular interest to us in this result is that languages appear to be partitioned exactly along the line of morphological plurality, providing interesting support for the Plural parameter proposed above. Let us now see how, within our present set of assumptions, this generalization could be derived. The first task at hand is to exclude singular BNs from languages like English and Italian. Our assumption for these languages so far has been that they must project a NumP that contains a counter. I have suggested above that the plural morphology provides an existential quantification over the variable introduced by the counter, along with the specification that n must be higher than 1. The result, after existential closure, is again as in (16) above. The relevant question, now, however concerns what happens to the counter variable when there is no plural morphology. Note that in contrast to plural marking that systematically signals plurality, “singular morphology,” which is in fact the lack of the plural morphology present in languages like English or Italian, does not systematically signal singularity. Common nouns lacking plural morphology can indeed be interpreted as singular or as mass. Taking this into account, a plausible assumption within the present framework would be to consider that the lack of plural morphology corresponds either to the lack of a counter, or to the presence of a counter with an unbound variable. The former, I assume, is excluded from +PLL for count nouns by the Plural parameter as formulated above.12 The latter, however, is semantically uninterpretable as it contains an unbound variable. The result of this proposal is that singular NumP will in fact be excluded (uninterpretable) in +PLL languages – unless, of course, a binder for the counter variable can be provided by the presence of an overt (or covert) determiner or a numeral. In brief, what I am suggesting here is the following. Assuming that NumP must always project with a counter for count nouns in +PLL (i.e., this is what it means to be a count noun on this view), the counter variable introduced by NumP must

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Constraints on the meanings of Bare Nouns 

be bound or the result is uninterpretable. Adequate binders can be either the plural morphology, or a determiner/numeral. But when a nominal expression is “singular,” i.e., lacks plural morphology, and has no determiner, it will be uninterpretable. This, I suggest, is the source of the unavailability of singular BNs in +PLL languages such as Italian and English. What about languages like Hindi in which singular BNs are allowed but only when they are definite? There, I suggest, the same scenario obtains, with the difference that Hindi, in contrast to English or Italian, has a null definite determiner. This null definite determiner, I have assumed, has exactly the same role as an overt one: consequently, like any overt determiner, it will be able to provide a suitable binder for the counter variable. A singular definite BN in Hindi is thus only interpretable as in (21) above, taking ι to be the translation of the null determiner, which accounts for the lack of an existential reading. Since CVC also features a null definite determiner, this strategy is presumably also available for its singular BNs. Hence, on the proposed view, the parallel interpretative and distributional restrictions that have been observed for Hindi and CVC singular BNs are expected.13 A further question concerns what happens in –PLL languages. Recall that I have proposed above that, in these languages, Num does not contain a counter. Since there is no counter, there is no counter variable that needs to be bound. Consequently, there are within the current framework of assumptions, no restrictions on the existential (or generic) interpretation of singular BNs in –PLL. That is, in –PLL, “singular” BNs are expected to have, by and large, the same range of interpretation as plural BNs in +PLL, pace number specification which remains unspecified or, more exactly, governed by pragmatic and contextual factors. Singular interpretations in these cases are pragmatically conditioned, so that variable interpretations of the understood number specification of identical BNs may be available, depending on their contexts of occurrence. To sum up, the proposed view entails that the +PLL languages in our sample only allow singular BNs if they allow definite BNs. This follows on the one hand from the proposal that a singular NumP with no morphology and/or determiners/numerals is semantically uninterpretable as it contains a unbound counter variable,14 and on the other hand from the proposal that a null definite determiner plays the same role as an overt one in providing an adequate binder for the relevant variable. For –PLL, on the other hand, there is no such entailment. As NumP does not introduce a counter, there is no variable in need of binding. NumP corresponds to a property realizing the kind with no number specification as to how many realizations there must be. Singular or plural interpretations of BNs are thus pragmatically but not semantically constrained. To conclude, this paper has outlined a model that predicts and constrains the distinct readings of BNs in a variety of languages. The picture presented distinguishes two broad sets of languages according to whether or not their nominal

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projections necessarily contain a Num projection with a counter. Augmented by the assumption that languages may have overt or covert definite determiners, the proposal suffices to adequately account for the range of readings BNs can have in our sample languages. Further work will determine whether or not such a proposal has an even larger validity.

Notes . In particular, mass nouns will not be discussed in any detail here, nor will bare nouns in predicate positions. Additionally, I am aware of the fact that the proposed Plural parameter needs further refinments to deal with languages in which plural is sometimes but not always morphologically expressed. In work in progress, a further distinction is proposed between languages with plural agreement between D and N and other plural marking languages. This can, however, not be discussed here due to space constraints. . It is important to note that despite its name, this parameter is not claiming that some languages, the –PLL ones, fail to express plurality. . The data of Cape Verdean Creole are taken from Baptista (2000) and p.c. . See Bollée (1977). . Not all linguists agree that such objects instantiate kinds. However, as our corpus does not contain statements about dinosaurs being extinct, this is at least a possible interpretation of such examples. . The data on HC has been collected over the years from the literature, from texts on the Internet and from informant sessions with several native speakers. In particular, I would like to thank Wisly Paul, Francois Canal, and Wilson Douce, for serving as regular informants for several years. I would also like to thank E. Vedrine for kindly answering some of my online questions. . Definite readings seems to be available in M. DeGraff of native speaker dialect. The examples he has given so far are plausibly reanalyzed as examples of proper names, see Déprez (to appear) for a discussion. Whether there are other possible kinds of examples is unknown to me. . See Deprez (forthcoming) for the discussion of an even more minimal pair, i.e., Seychelles vs. Mauritian Creole. . G1 has been claimed to be controversial for some Romance languages such as Spanish. For a view compatible with my assumptions and yet avoiding generic readings in Spanish, see Benedicto (1998), who correlates the availability of generic readings to the presence/absence of V movement. In close proximity to her proposal, it seems plausible to attempt to relate the absence of generic readings for BNs to tense interpretation in Romance vs Germanic, as these are independently known to differ significantly. . Following Krifka (1995), I take ‘kind’ readings of bare plural arguments in +PL languages to be coerced by a specific rule that functions as a sort repair or a type lowering rule in the presence of a kind predicate.

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Constraints on the meanings of Bare Nouns  . Since idiomatic contexts allow existential readings of BNs even in a language like French that do not allow BNs, these occurrences are plausibly regarded as exceptional in a study of the regular use of BNs. (i)

Jean a perdu pied, a tire parti, a pris femme John lost (his) footing, took advantage, took wife . . .

. This is were a refinment of the proposed parameter can be envisioned. That is, among +PL languages, languages that enforce the presence of a counter for morphologically ‘singular’ count NumPs vs those that don’t could be distinguished. The distinction would have the effect of allowing ‘unmarked’ count BNs in a +PL language. The semantic value of unmarked (morphologically singular) nouns, however, would be expected to greatly differ from those of truly singular nouns. Morphologically unmarked nouns lacking a counter would in fact be indeterminate in number. Brazilian Portuguese as described in A. Muller’s (2001) work (differing from Schmitt & Munn 1999) is a language for which such a distinction seems pertinent. See Deprez (in progress) for a possible analysis. . The case of CVC, however, is more complex, as plural morphology is not robust for all types of nouns. A more thorough discussion of this case is left for future work. . Some languages could concievably feature a full ‘singular’ morphology, that is, not a default one, that would have an interpretation (i.e. existential quantification and restriction to 1) and could play a binding role for the counter variable. If so +PL languages could allow singular BNs with existential readings.

References Baptista, Marlyse (2000). Interpretational Variability of Bare NPs in Cape Verdean Creole. Paper presented at Rencontres sur les Creoles, Paris. Benedicto, Elena (1997). Verb movement and its Effects on Determinerless Plural Subjects. Paper presented at LSRL. Bickerton, Derek (1981). Roots of Language. Ann Arbor, MI: Karoma Press. Bollée, Annegret (1977). Le Créole Francais des Seychelles. Tubingen: Max Niemeyer Verlag. Carlson, Gregory (1977). A Unified Analysis of the English Bare Plural. Linguistics and Philosophy, 1, 413–456. Chierchia, Gennaro (1998). Reference to kinds across languages. Natural language Semantics, 6(4), 339–400. Dayal, Veneeta (2001). Number Marking and (In)definiteness in Kind Terms. Ms., Rutgers University. Déprez, Viviane (1999). De la nature sémantique des nominaux sans déterminant en créole haitien. In Langues, 2(4), 289–300. John Libbey Eurotext, Agence Universitaire de La Francophonie. Déprez, Viviane (2000). Parallel (A)symmetries and the Structure of Negative Expressions. Natural Language and Linguistic Theory, 18(2), 253–342.

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Déprez, Viviane (2001). On the nature of Haitian Bare NPs. In Diana Cresti, Cristina Tortora, & Teresa Satterfield (Eds.), Current Issues in Linguistics Theory. Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Déprez, Viviane (in progress). Implicit determination: comparing French and Portuguese based Creoles. To appear in Baptista et al. (Eds.). John Benjamins. Diesing, Molly (1992). Indefinites. MIT Press. Krifka, Manfred (1995). Common nouns: a contrastive analysis of Chinese and English. In Greg Carlson (Ed.), The Generic Book. Francis Pelletier. University of Chicago Press. Longobardi, Giuseppe (1999). How comparative is semantics. Ms., University of Trieste. Longobardi, Guiseppe (1994). Reference and proper names: A theory of N-movement in syntax and Logical form. Linguistic Inquiry, 25(4), 609–665. Muller, Anna. Genericity and the Denotation of Common Nouns in Brazilian Portuguese. Paper presented at the Semantics of Under Represented Languages in the Americas. University of Sao Paulo, University of Massachussetts, Amherst. To appear in UMOP, GLSA, University of Massachussets. Schmitt, Cristina & Alan Munn (1999). Against the nominal mapping parameter. Ms., Michigan State University.

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Null objects revisited* Jon Franco and Alazne Landa University of Deusto, Bilbao / University of Basque Country

.

Introduction

Referential null objects have been well attested in varieties of Spanish in contact with other languages. The Hispanic linguistic literature on null object constructions of the 80s and 90s, namely, Suñer and Yépez (1988), Escobar (1990), and Camacho et al. (1997) for Andean Spanish, and Landa (1990, 1995), Franco and Landa (1991), Landa and Franco (1996), Urrutia (1991), and Fernández-Ulloa (1998) for Basque Spanish provide extensive data distribution and analyses of this phenomenon. Moreover, Sánchez (1998) attempts to give a unifying account of null objects in both varieties which is based on the transfer of the phi-feature specification of D from the speakers’ first language, that is, Quechua or Basque, to Spanish. The present paper shows that Sánchez’ transfer analysis is untenable, both on empirical and conceptual grounds, as far as Basque Spanish is concerned. We also present a new analysis of the licensing of referential null objects that is not limited by former notions of government and proper licensing of pro which made certain claims in Franco and Landa (1991) and Landa and Franco (1996), for instance, theory internal. Finally, we claim that the role of potential language contact inducement from Basque is only peripheral since it is the specific language system that has to develop a syntax in which null objects are legitimate items.

. Null objects in Basque Spanish The phenomenon of null objects in Basque Spanish (hence BqSp) consists in the dropping of a referential direct object in the form of a clitic either in the questionanswer mode or in a regular declarative sentence, as illustrated in (1b) and (2) from Basque Spanish:

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 Jon Franco and Alazne Landa

(1) a. ¿Has llevado el cochei al garaje? have.you taken the car to the repair shop ‘Did you take the car to the auto body shop?’ llevo mañana. b. Todavía no, Øi yet no cl.3s.masc take.I tomorrow ‘Not yet, but I will tomorrow (lit. I will take Ø tomorrow).’ (2) Compré el libroi que me encargaste pero se me ha bought.I the book that me ordered.2 but cl.refl me has olvidado traer -Øi . forgotten bring -cl.3s.masc ‘I bought the book you asked me to get you but I forgot to bring it.’ Both sentences in (1b) and (2) can occur with or without the clitic, and the same reading is obtained under either option. Standard Spanish, in contrast, requires the presence of the clitic for these sentences to be grammatical since only bare objects can be dropped in Standard Spanish, as shown in (3) and (4): (3) a. ¿Compraste cervezai ? Did you buy beer? b. Sí compré Øi ? Yes I bought.

(all Spanish varieties)

(4) a. ¿Compraste el traje azul? Did you buy the blue suit? b. Sí compré Øi . (*Standard Spanish, OK Basque Spanish) Yes I bought. The evidence in (3) and (4), along with a number of constraints on movement, led Campos (1986) to claim that null objects in Standard Spanish are variables resulting from operator movement.1 On the other hand, on the basis of the syntactic tests applied to null objects in Maia (1991) for Brazilian Portuguese, Franco and Landa (1991) and Landa (1995) for Basque Spanish (see next section), and Camacho et al. (1997) for Andean Spanish, the standard assumption is that referential null objects are null pronominals in these varieties. In addition to the absence of the indeterminacy condition illustrated above, there are two crucial characteristics of Basque Spanish null object constructions that determine their distribution and, ultimately, become crucial when formulating an explanatory analysis. First, only object clitics with inanimate referents can drop in this variety, as illustrated in (5): (5) a. *Juani ha venido esta mañana pero no he visto Øi . Juan has come this morning but not have.1 seen ‘Juan has come this morning but I haven’t seen (him).’

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b. Ha llegado el paquetei esta mañana pero no hemos Has arrived the parcel this morning but not have.1.pl abierto Øi . opened ‘The parcel arrived this morning but we haven’t opened (it).’ c. Yoi no he ido al departamento hoy porque no quiero I not have gone to-the department today because not want.1 que Juan me/*Øi vea. that Juan cl.1 see ‘I haven’t been to the department today because I don’t want Juan to see (me).’ The asymmetry between (5a) and (5c) on the one hand and (5b) on the other shows the impossibility of having object drop with animates in Basque Spanish, a phenomenon that is restricted to inanimate objects in this variety and which contrasts with Brazilian Portuguese (cf. Maia 1991) and Andean Spanish (Camacho et al. 1997).2 The second characteristic related to Basque Spanish null objects is that, unlike animate direct objects in this variety, inanimate direct objects – i.e., the typical antecedents of null objects – are never clitic doubled, as illustrated in the contrast between (6a) and (6b): (6) a. ¿Lei has visto a Juani ? cl.3 have.2 seen to Juan ‘Have you seen Juan?’ b. *No loi han abierto el paquetei. Not cl.3 have opened the parcel ‘They haven’t opened the parcel.’ The facts in (5) and (6) led Landa (1995) and much related work by the same author to consider null object constructions as one aspect of a larger grammatical phenomenon, that is, the object clitic agreement system in Basque Spanish, which will be discussed in Section 4.

. Sánchez’ (1998) analysis Sánchez (1998: 237–239) builds her analysis of null objects in Spanish and Quechua on her proposal that there is a null pronoun in object position for both languages. Moreover, she assumes that the D that heads the null object pronouns in Standard Spanish is marked for [–definite, –specific], while in Quechua the D that heads the null pronoun is marked for [±definite, ±specific]. The result of this when both



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 Jon Franco and Alazne Landa

languages are in a contact situation is that “Quechua speakers transfer the feature specification of the D heading a null pronoun from Quechua into Spanish” (Sánchez 1998: 238). According to Sánchez, the failure on the Quechua speakers’ part to recognize the variable status of Standard Spanish null objects derives from the transfer of pronominal values of D from L1 into Spanish. She claims that this proposal can be extended to Basque Spanish, which also exhibits pronominal null objects. Her argumentation is as follows: “Why are variable null objects not part of Basque Spanish? Again, this is because null pronominals in Basque can be headed by a [+definite, +specific] D0 ” (Sánchez 1998: 239). However, the phenomena of null object distribution in Basque Spanish are more complex than the simple phenomenon accounted for in Sánchez (1998). As we may recall, only inanimate objects can drop in Basque Spanish, as evidenced by the facts in (5) above; thus, Sánchez’ (1998) theory that pronominal null objects are the result of the transfer of the D features [+definite] and [+specific] from Basque (a verb-object agreement language) does not hold, since it would leave the lack of object dropping with animates unexplained. Basque does not have an animate versus inanimate distinction in the object agreement paradigm or in the nominal system for arguments, so the Transfer Hypothesis in terms of D values is highly jeopardized when facing the animate vs. inanimate asymmetry found in the Basque Spanish null object construction. It is hard to conceive any intervening mechanism that gets activated in the middle of the transfer process to filter out D features [+definite] and [+specific] that correspond to animate antecedents and at the same time lets the same features come through when the antecedent is inanimate, especially if those features come from an identical source with no animate versus inanimate distinction. Furthermore, Sánchez’ analysis, as it is, would wrongly predict the ill-formed answer in the example in (7) as grammatical: (7)

¿Has matado al perroi ? *Sí Øi he matado. Have.you killed the dog? Yes I have. (Lit. I have killed.)

The verb matar ‘to kill’ requires an animate object; thus, in accordance with the distributional facts, null objects should not be allowed with verbs that take animate objects, and their ungrammaticality in this context is precisely what (7) illustrates. Also Fernández-Ulloa (1998) finds zero examples of null objects with verbs that subcategorize for animate objects in her corpus of Basque Spanish.3 Another compromising implication of the Transfer Hypothesis is that it predicts that there are no null object variables, as stated in Sánchez (1998: 238). However, Basque Spanish does have null object variables of the type found in Romance languages (cf. Authier 1988) when the dropped object is arbitrary and the verb aspect is generic, that is, [–perfective]. Thus, arbitrary null objects in Basque Spanish (or in Standard Spanish for that matter) are variables and, according to Franco and

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Landa (1991), have the same contexts of occurrence as arbitrary null object variables in French (Authier 1988). The Spanish equivalents of the relevant French data in Authier (1988) are provided in (8) below: (8)

a. La tele TV b. La anestesia The anesthesia c. El tiempo The weather

deja makes (you) hace makes (you) invita invites (you)

tonto. silly. devolver. vomit. a salir. to go out.

One crucial issue that Sánchez (1998) overlooks is that today’s Basque Spanish has developed a syntax of its own which, despite the potential influence from Basque and Standard Spanish, holds as a consistent system. Moreover, null object constructions in Basque Spanish are related to other parts of the grammar of this variety, more than to any influence from another linguistic system. The latter was the approach taken in Franco and Landa (1991), Landa (1995), and Landa and Franco (1996). That is, the hypothetical Basque influence translates into a relaxation of the Standard Spanish bare NP constraint on null objects at the most, and not to a change from an original variable status – which was never shown to exist – to a pronominal status of null objects. However, the real issue at stake is to determine how null objects are sanctioned in today’s grammar of Basque Spanish which actually left Basque behind more than 60 years ago. In this regard, our hypothesis is that when the influence from Basque on the Spanish spoken in the Basque Country was at its peak, say at the beginning of the 20th century, the syntax of Basque Spanish had a number of properties that bore a great resemblance to those of Basque, as attested in Unamuno (1903) (see also Landa & Franco 1999). Nonetheless, many of these features have disappeared or have kept only a residual status in the speech of older people.4 Thus, it might well be the case that the distribution of pronominal null objects when they first became a part of the grammar of Basque Spanish was different from the one stated in Section 2. Therefore, we claim that the historical Basque influence issue should be kept separate from any formal analysis of today’s null objects in Basque Spanish, which are part of the grammar of one million Basque Spanish monolinguals.

. Former research on Basque Spanish null object constructions: Franco and Landa (1991), Landa (1995), and Landa and Franco (1996) Franco and Landa (1991) and Landa (1995) show that referential null objects are null pronominals and not variables. Two syntactic tests were used in this regard.



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That is, referential null objects in this variety do not exhibit any Weak Crossover effects, or incur Principle C violations, as illustrated in (9): (9) a.

Sui dueño trajo ei para arreglar y no ha vuelto. and not has returned Its owner brought for fix (Basque Spanish) ‘Its owner brought (it) in to be fixed and he hasn’t returned.’ b. El libroi te fue mandado pensando en que leerías ei The book to.you was sent thinking in that read.2 pronto y nos des tu opinión. soon and cl.1 give.2 your opinion ‘The book was sent to you thinking you would read it soon and give us your opinion.’

The sentence in (9a) shows that the null object is immune to the Weak Crossover Constraint, which in rough states that a variable cannot be coindexed with a non c-commanding pronoun to its left (Chomsky 1977). Moreover, the empty category in (9b) is not subject to Principle C of the Binding Theory either, by which variables must be A-free (cf. Aoun’s 1986 Generalized Binding Conditions). Incidentally, the null object in (9a) occurs with perfective tense morphology on the verb, which, as mentioned above, is a violation of one of the strongest restrictions on null object variable constructions (cf. Authier 1988 for French). Thus, the evidence in (9) leads us to disregard the variable status of null object categories in Basque Spanish and subscribe to the hypothesis that they have a pronominal status. This claim, however, forces us to confront the issue of how to license an empty category pro without resorting to the notions of verb government or overt agreement morphology. Franco and Landa (1991) and Landa (1995) proposed the existence of a zero clitic morpheme for inanimate objects that, like other overt DO clitics, would sanction an object pro, along the lines of Jaeggli (1986). The rationale behind this analysis was geared on the clitic doubling facts in Basque Spanish. That is, since all direct object nominals can be clitic doubled except inanimate objects, the clitic agreement paradigm would have a 3rd person zero clitic to double inanimate objects. Thus, when it comes to null objects, object dropping would be just an illusion since the apparently missing object clitic would be realized by this zero clitic. In other words, this zero clitic agreement morpheme would only be specified as [–animate, +3rd person]. These two default abstract specifications should be enough to identify the so-called referential null object in Basque Spanish. In this way, the proposed clitic paradigm in Franco and Landa (1991) for Basque Spanish would be as in (10):

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(10)

Singular Plural 1st p. me nos 2nd p. te os 3rd p. [+anim] le les 3rd p. [–anim] Ø/lo/la Ø/los/las

Notice that independently of the phenomenon of null objects, the split between third person clitics with an animate referent and third person clitics with an inanimate one already exists in the language, since Basque Spanish is a partially leísta dialect with animates only.5 Given the strong asymmetry between animate and inanimate objects in Basque Spanish, it may well be the case that there is a gap in the object agreement paradigm with inanimates. On the other hand, the main problem in Landa and Franco’s work is that they never showed that there was an actual abstract zero clitic morpheme for inanimate direct objects on independent grounds. Furthermore, there is the phenomenon of optionality in the dropping of the object clitic. The fact that null objects or, to be more specific, the dropping of the third person DO clitic is not categorical in Basque Spanish constitutes a problem for any of the analyses we have seen so far. Thus, there is a morphological zero-overt clitic alternation which does not seem to be based on any syntactic or morphological property.6 Moreover, the optionality of zero objects would appear as something whimsical and chaotic under any formal or direct transfer analysis. Franco and Landa (1991) attempt to deal with this problem and consider the overt-covert alternation of the third person clitic as a typical feature of agreement systems. For instance, participial agreement is optional in most French varieties (cf. Sportiche 1990), and agreement forms alternate with bare infinitival forms in commands in spoken Spanish and Basque. However, it might well be the case that optionality is better explained by the continuous exposure of the average speaker of Basque Spanish to both the Standard Spanish and Basque Spanish clitic systems, which could suggest that the whole phenomenon lies in the periphery of grammar. After all, trying to account for the sporadic cases of overt clitics occurring in felicitous null object contexts is not the original object of investigation of the present analysis. In Section 5 we return to the actual goal of this paper, namely to determine the contexts of distribution in which a null object cannot occur.

. The analysis Pro licensing has been subject to two requirements, namely, proper government and identification of the features of pro (cf. Chomsky 1982; and Rizzi 1986 among



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 Jon Franco and Alazne Landa

others). Within the Minimalist Program, the notion of government has been done away with because, according to Davis (2000), the formal licensing requirement via government fails to meet the criterion of ‘virtual conceptual necessity’ (Chomsky 1995) since, this being purely syntactic in nature, it lacks any interface motivation. Therefore, we are left with the identification requirement. The main contention of this paper is that pronominal null objects in Basque Spanish are licensed in the same way as other “hidden” pros that can be shown to exist in this variety, that is, via topic binding. Regardless of whether there is an abstract topic in the fine structure of the left periphery (Rizzi 1997), or whether it is one of the sentence nominal constituents that serves as an overt topic antecedent, the topic must ccommand the empty category. This c-command condition will allow us to account for the contrast between (11) and (12), and explain the impossibility of dropping in the sentences in (11): (11) a.

??El

dueño de esa carterai dice que ayer Øi abriste ‘The owner of that wallet says that yesterday you.opened sin permiso. (it) without permission.’ b. *Voy a emborrachar al dueño de esa carterai antes ‘I’m going to get drunk the owner of that wallet before que se dé cuenta que has cogido Øi . cl.refl realizes that you have taken (it).’

(12) Esa carterai está ahí desde que Øi trajiste y nunca ‘That wallet is there since you brought (it) and never hemos abierto Øi a ver qué tenía. we.have opened (it) to see what it.contained.’ Relevantly, the triple contrast in (11) and (12) is prima facie evidence that null object constructions are legitimized in syntactic structures and that the notion of discourse precedence plays no role in their licensing. Furthermore, we would like to claim that null object pros in Basque Spanish are related to other syntactic phenomena in this variety which are also topic driven. Specifically, Franco and Landa (2000) claim that the phenomenon of external possession in Basque Spanish seems to be based on a topic binding relation which licenses a possessive pro within the DP, as illustrated in (13): (13) a.

TOPi La proi madre está enferma. The mother is sick. ‘Our mother is sick.’

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b. TOPi Nadiek conoce al proi/*k hermano. Nobody knows the brother. ‘Nobody knows our/*their brother.’ c. TOPi [El jefe de Juank ]i ha mandado al proi/j/*k hermano The boss of Juan has sent the brother con un cheque. with a check. ‘Juan’s boss has sent his/our brother with a check.’ In (13a) la madre [‘the mother’] is understood as the speaker’s mother since the speaker is talking about himself and is the topic of the sentence. In (13b), the interpretation cannot be ‘nobody knows their brother’ since nadie [‘nobody’] is a focus word and the possessive pro has to be identified by a topic with a full set of phi-features. Example (13c) highlights the relevance of the c-command relation for antecedent identification of pro by a topic. Under our analysis the syntactic mapping for (13a) would be as in (14): (14)

TopP Topici

Top’ Top

FinP Fin’ Fin

AGRP

[lai proi madre]j AGR’ esták

TP T’ T

VP tj..tk..enferma

In sum, Basque Spanish exhibits a mixed strategy for encoding coreferential relations with null pronominals, namely, both binding via agreement (cf. Rizzi 1986), and topic binding which, although not identical to, is reminiscent of Huang (1984).

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 Jon Franco and Alazne Landa

. The language contact influence As for the influence of Basque, a three-way agreement language, any claim beyond the indirect influence hypothesis which is geared toward the stretching out of preexisting structural parallelisms in the context of language contact falls in the realm of speculation and raises more problems than the questions it solves.7 Thus, considering that null objects in Standard Spanish are a subset of null objects in Basque Spanish, Landa (1995) claims that the indeterminacy restriction operating in Standard Spanish in example (3) – i.e., that null objects must have an indeterminate antecedent – has been lost in Basque Spanish. This analysis is not more semantic or less syntactic than that of Sánchez (1998) which claims that the features [+definite +specific] have been transferred from the contact language into Spanish. The difference between the two analyses is that for Landa (1995), it is the bundle of properties of today’s syntax of Basque Spanish that accounts for the complex distribution of null objects in this variety. A strong indication that the hypothesis that there must be some type of preexisting parallel structures is on the right track comes from the variety of French spoken in Northern Basque Country, which does not allow any of the instances of referential null objects mentioned above. This is in effect predicted by our hypothesis, since the cases of null objects allowed in Standard Spanish are rendered in Standard French with the partitive clitic en. On the other hand, the Basque influence hypothesis is not so easy to disregard. One can argue that Brazilian Portuguese has developed null objects on its own; however, the fact that no other Peninsular Spanish variety has null objects documented in the literature and that, coincidentally, Basque Spanish is an object drop language, may point at some influence from Basque at some period in the history of Basque Spanish. Again, the initial premise in this section is the following: in former stages of the Basque Spanish spoken by Spanish-Basque bilinguals there were several properties of this variety that correlate with certain syntactic features of Basque including that of null objects. However, many of those features have disappeared today when the language contact situation is different (see Landa & Franco 1999). Still, null objects remain steady and these cannot be related to Basque influence any more since they are part of the grammar of monolingual speakers of Basque Spanish who have never uttered or understood a full sentence in Basque. Having said this, we could draw a working analysis of how the Basque influence took place originally. If we take a look at the possible source of transfer, that is, the verb inflected for object agreement, we realize that every Basque tensed verb encodes agreement morphology for the internal argument. In addition to Basque being a morphological ergative language, pure intransitive verbs in Basque such as ‘to rain’ take the transitive auxiliary morphology. This can be seen in the examples in (15):

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(15) a.

Tren-a heldu d-a. Train-def arrive 3abs-intr.aux ‘The train has arrived.’ b. Ni-k tren-a erosi d -u -t. I-erg train-det buy 3abs-tran.aux-1erg ‘I have bought the train.’ c. Euria d -u. Rain 3abs-tran.aux ‘It rains.’

If Basque speakers assumed the same paradigm as in (15) for Spanish, then every inflected verb in Spanish should encode third person agreement morphology with the object on the verb amalgam by default. This would explain why dative clitics are not omitted in Basque Spanish since dative agreement morphology on the verb in Basque is not the default one, as shown in the contrast between (15) and the distinctive dative morphology in (16): (16) Jon-ek tren-a bidali d -io. Jon-erg train-det send 3abs-3dat ‘Jon has sent him the train.’ Therefore, Spanish DO clitics could be seen by the speakers as weak pronominals doubled by agreement morphology; that is, as something ‘redundant,’ as claimed in Landa (1995). This can be independently shown with reflexive clitics which are also omitted by older Basque speakers as pointed out in Landa and Franco (1996) and illustrated below: (17) Y (se) quitó las ropas buenas y (se) puso unas viejas. And reflx.cl took her good clothes and rflx.cl put some old (Basque Spanish) ‘And took her good clothes off and put on some old ones.’ In Standard Spanish, the overt occurrence of the reflexive clitic se in the sentence in (17) would be obligatory, unlike in Basque Spanish. In addition, Gómez and Sainz (1993) have claimed that the realization of Basque third person verbal DO agreement (absolutive agreement) is zero and that what was formerly called in traditional grammars the third person absolutive agreement morpheme d- (as in (15)) is actually a tense marker.8 Bearing these facts in mind, at this point it is worth rescuing the traditional Chunk Hypothesis put forward in Landa (1995) and Landa and Franco (1996), according to which, in Basque, every verbal or auxiliary inflected chunk for tense encodes by default third person implicit agreement with an internal argument. Thus, all bilingual speakers



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 Jon Franco and Alazne Landa

had to do was to match the Spanish inflected verb with the Basque verbal inflected chunk.9 Unfortunately, this hypothesis also wrongly predicts that null objects in Basque Spanish should also be extended to animate objects.10 However, this would only be a problem if animate DO objects were realized with the clitics lo and la, since those are the clitics which, under our hypothesis, have been interpreted as peripheral to the verb chunk. Crucially, object pro with an animate referent is sanctioned by the etymological dative clitic le, not with the etymological accusative lo/la. Most importantly, le can clitic double any animate object in Basque Spanish which, together with the absence of gender features, grants this clitic an agreement morpheme status different from the more look-alike clitic status that lo and la may have. In other words, le would be a distinctive part of the verbal chunk whereas lo and la would be outside the chunk. Hence, the presence of le is compulsory in Basque Spanish just as in Basque – a three-way agreement language – and thus agreement morphology is compulsory whereas overt arguments are optional.

. Final remarks It is the properties of the grammar of Basque Spanish that give the final shape to the phenomenon of null objects. Specifically, the clitic paradigm in this variety has undergone a rearrangement based on a relation of agreement with animate objects, while at the same time, topic binding has become a licit strategy for licensing pro. It is worthy of note that Quiteño Spanish, as depicted in Suñer and Yépez (1988), has an animate versus inanimate distribution similar to that of Basque Spanish with respect to null objects and clitic doubling. Interestingly, Ecuadorian Quechua is also held to be a null object language (cf. Cole 1987). Nevertheless, this empirical similarity does not advocate a correlation between Ecuadorian Quechua and Basque, but it does show that there is an inner tendency in the syntax of Spanish to have its clitic system develop in this way, especially, in a contact situation with rich agreement languages.

Notes * Our joint research on null objects goes back to 1991, and we are indebted to all those people who have helped us on the different fronts of this investigation along the years. Specifically, in this paper, we would like to thank Mario Saltarelli, Luigi Rizzi, and Jon O. de Urbina for interesting comments. Our gratitude also goes to the LSRL XXXI audience for fruitful discussion. Special thanks to Liliana Sánchez and an anonymous reviewer. They both have made us reflect upon null objects one more time and polish our research.

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Null objects revisited  . Specifically, Campos (1986) claims that null objects are variables bound by an abstract operator. Thus, this operator-variable relation is subject to the Complex NP Constraint, the Sentential Subject Constraint, the Doubly Filled Comp Constraint, and the impossibility of occurrence in adjunct clauses (cf. Chomsky 1981 and related work). See also Landa (1993) and (1995) for the inoperativity of these constraints on null objects in Basque Spanish. . Our reviewer wonders how the example in (3) in Landa (1995), i.e., No le conozco a la novia de Txetxu. ¿Tu Ø conoces? could fit in this generalization. In fact, Landa (1995) determines the semantic contexts in which null objects are more likely to occur, and her analysis has some predictive power in terms of probability of occurrence. According to Landa (1995: 127–142), a low degree of involvement of the object with respect to the “action” of the verb favors the occurrence of the null object. In addition to the features [3rd person, inanimate] of the object antecedent, low involvement on the object’s part can be yielded by several factors such as tense, mood, and verb type. Thus, Subjunctive mood, [–perfective] tenses, and verbs of cognition, such as Spanish conocer, and perception are usually found in null object constructions. Interestingly, no other examples of this kind are found in the other corpora, namely, Fernández-Ulloa (1998), and Landa (2000) (incorporated into Landa & Franco 1999). It may well be the case that for some speakers the verb conocer takes null objects as a lexical property. . This generalization should be taken literally. Our reviewer requires some clarification on whether definiteness plays a role in null object drop. To put it differently, can BasqueSpanish have animate null objects with indefinite antecedents? The answer is no, as evidenced by the sentence in (i) below: (i)

He visto a un estudiante en la playa pero no he *Øi. reconocido hasta que no me ha saludado I have seen a student at the beach, but I did not recognize until he greeted me.

. Based on a comparison of two corpora collected one generation apart, Landa and Franco (1999) state that double negation with preverbal subjects, verb final word order, mismatches in gender agreement and preverbal focus position are no longer productive constructions in Basque Spanish, whereas clitic doubling with animates and null objects with inanimates, as well as overt subject of infinitivals, still occur in a consistent and productive way in present day Basque Spanish. . Leísmo is the cliticization of a direct object by an etymologically dative clitic, that is Spanish leísmo refers to the cliticization of an accusative nominal by le(s) instead of lo(s) or la(s). As stated above, Basque Spanish is a semi-leísta dialect since this phenomenon only takes place with animate direct objects. . Unfortunately, this phenomenon is not as straightforward as those cases of optional agreement in which overt agreement morphology is associated with presuppositional arguments or more accurately with the movement of arguments out of the VP (see Franco & Mejías-Bikandi 1997 in this regard). . This descriptive label of a “three-way agreement language” has been used in the literature on Basque syntax, namely, by Ortiz de Urbina (1989), Artiagoitia (1992) and Laka (1993), among many others. This term means that the verb agrees with the subject, the direct object and the indirect object.

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 Jon Franco and Alazne Landa . This will pattern with third person agreement morphology with the ergative which is realized as zero. . In fact, the original version of the Chunk Hypothesis goes back to Larramendi (1729). . This might have happened at the beginning of the influence period. However, even the data used to illustrate the phenomenon of null objects in the early works, that is, Larramendi (1729) or Unamuno (1903) only contain examples of null objects with inanimate referent. Again, it is only in the Landa’s (1990) corpus that isolated instances of animate null objects were produced (see Note 2 above).

References Aoun, Joseph (1986). Generalized Binding. Dordrecht: Foris. Artiagoitia, Xabier (1992). Verbal Projections in Basque and Minimal Structure. PhD dissertation, University of Washington. Authier, Jean Marc (1988). The Syntax of Unselective Binding. Ph.D. dissertation, USC. [Distributed by GSIL Publications, USC Linguistics]. Camacho, José, Liliana Paredes, & Liliana Sánchez (1997). Null Objects in Andean Bilingual Spanish. In Elizabeth Hughes, Mary Hughes, & Anne Greenhill (Eds.), Proceedings of the Twenty-First Annual Boston Conference on Language Development (pp. 56–66). Sommerville, MA: Cascadilla Press. Campos, Héctor (1986). Indefinite Object Drop. Linguistic Inquiry, 17, 354–359. Chomsky, Noam (1977). Conditions on Rules of Grammar. In Noam Chomsky (Ed.), Essays on Form and Representation (pp. 163–210). NY, North-Holland. Chomsky, Noam (1982). Some Concepts and Consequences of the Theory of Government and Binding. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Chomsky, Noam (1995). The Minimalist Program. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Cole, Peter (1987). Null Objects in Universal Grammar. Linguistic Inquiry, 18, 597–612. Davis, Henry (2000). Identifying agreement. Paper presented at the GLOW Workshop on Null/Overt Agreement, University of Deusto, April 19, 2000. Escobar, Anna María (1990). Los bilingües y el castellano en el Perú. Lima, Perú: Instituto de Estudios Peruanos. Fernández-Ulloa, Teresa (1998). Análisis sociolingüístico del castellano de Bermeo (Bizkaia). Ph.D. dissertation, Universidad de Deusto, Bilbao. Franco, Jon & Alazne Landa (1991). The syntax and semantics of null objects in Basque Spanish. In Katharine Hunt, Thomas Perry & Vida Samiian (Eds.), Proceedings of the Western Conference on Linguistics, WECOL 91 (pp. 117–128). Franco, Jon & Alazne Landa (2000). External Possession in the Left Periphery of Sentence Structure. Paper presented at the Fourth Hispanic Linguistics Symposium. Indiana University, November 14–17, 2000. Franco, Jon & Errapel Mejías-Bikandi (1997). Overt and covert raising to [Spec, AGRDO ] and the interpretation of objects. Linguistic Analysis, 79–107.

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Gómez, Ricardo & Koldo Sainz (1993). On the origin of the finite forms of the Basque verb. In José Ignacio Hualde, Joseba Lakarra, & Larry Trask (Eds.), Towards a history of the Basque language (pp. 235–274). Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Huang, James (1984). On the distribution and reference of empty pronouns. Linguistic Inquiry, 15, 531–574. Jaeggli, Osvaldo (1986). Three issues in the Theory of Clitics: Case, Doubled NPs, and Extraction. In Hagit Borer (Ed.), Syntax and Semantics 19, The Syntax of Pronominal Clitics (pp. 15–42). Orlando, FL: Academic Press. Laka, Itziar (1993). The structure of inflection: A case study in Xo syntax. In José Ignacio Hualde & Jon Ortiz de Urbina (Eds.), Generative Studies in Basque Linguistics (pp. 21– 70). Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Landa, Alazne (1990). Conditions on null objects in Spanish within a cross-linguistic analysis. Ms., USC. Landa, Alazne (1993). Los objetos nulos determinados del castellano del País Vasco. Lingüística, 5, 131–146. Landa, Alazne (1995). Conditions on null objects in Basque Spanish and their relation to leísmo and clitic doubling. Ph.D. dissertation, USC. [Distributed by GSIL Publications, USC Linguistics]. Landa, Alazne (2000). Del paralelismo estructural a la convergencia gramatical: contacto español-vasco. In Annick Englebert, Michel Pierrard, Laurence Rosier & Dan Van Raemdonck (Eds.), Actes du XXIIe Congrès de Linguistique et de Philologie Romanes, Vol. VI (pp. 285–292). Landa, Alazne & Jon Franco (1996). Two issues in null objects in Basque Spanish: Morphological decoding and grammatical permeability. In Karen Zagona (Ed.), Grammatical Theory and Romance Languages (pp. 159–168). Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Landa, Alazne & Jon Franco (1999). Converging and diverging grammars. International Journal of Basque Linguistics and Philology, 33(2), 569–581. Larramendi, Manuel de (1729). El impossible vencido. Arte de la lengua bascongada. Salamanca: A. J. Villagorde. (Reed.facsím., San Sebastian, Hordago). Maia, Marcus (1991). The null object in Brazilian Portuguese. Syntax Screening paper. USC Ortiz de Urbina, Jon (1989). Some Parameters of the Grammar of Basque. Dordrecht: Foris. Rizzi, Luigi (1986). Null objects in Italian and the Theory of pro. Linguistic Inquiry, 17, 501– 558. Rizzi, Luigi (1997). The fine structure of the left periphery. In Liliane Haegeman (Ed.), Elements of Grammar: Handbook of Generative Syntax (pp. 281–338). Dordrecht: Kluwer. Sánchez, Liliana (1998). Null Objects and D features in contact Spanish. Paper presented at the LSRL XXVIII held at Penn State in April 1998. Sportiche, Dominique (1990). Movement, agreement and Case assignment. Ms., UCLA. Suñer, Margarita & María Yépez (1988). Null definite objects in Quiteño. Linguistic Inquiry, 19, 511–519. Unamuno, Miguel de (1903). De mi país. Descripciones relatos y artículos de costumbres. Madrid: Fernando Fe.

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Urrutia, Hernán (1991). Peculiaridades morfosintacticas del castellano del País Vasco. Paper presented at the XII Annual Conference on Spanish in the US and the I International Conference on Spanish in contact with other languages. University of Southern California, November 1991.

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Auxiliary choice and pronominal verb constructions The case of the passé surcomposé Kate Paesani Wayne State University

.

Introduction

Auxiliary choice in Romance has been an engaging topic in the syntactic literature. Kayne (1993), incorporating ideas from Benveniste (1966) and Freeze (1992), proposes that both main verb and auxiliary ‘have’ are instances of ‘be’ to which an abstract D/P0 head has incorporated. Following the spirit of this research, this paper proposes an analysis of auxiliary choice in pronominal verb constructions in the French passé surcomposé (psc) in which different configurations of the same syntactic structure account for data previously thought to be disparate. The psc, a double compound verb form expressing perfect aspect, is composed of three verbs: an inflected auxiliary, a participial auxiliary, and a participial main verb. Moreover, the psc exhibits interesting dialectal variation in the form of its auxiliary compound. When the main verb selects avoir as its auxiliary, the form of the auxiliary compound is consistently avoir eu (1); however, when the main verb selects être, the compound auxiliary varies between avoir été (2) and être eu (3). (1) Jean a eu dit la vérité. Jean have-pres have-ppart say-ppart the truth ‘Jean (had) told the truth.’ (2) Jean a été arrivé trois heures en retard. Jean have-pres be-ppart arrive-ppart three hours late ‘Jean (had) arrived three hours late.’ (3) Jean est eu arrivé trois heures en retard. Jean be-pres have-ppart arrive-ppart three hours late ‘Jean (had) arrived three hours late.’

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 Kate Paesani

Variation in the form of the psc auxiliary compound becomes even more complex when considering pronominal verb constructions. All French pronominal verbs occur with the auxiliary être in auxiliary + past participle constructions. In the psc, the ‘standard’ form of the être auxiliary compound, avoir été (4), is ungrammatical; only the dialectal form, être eu (5) is allowed. (4) *Jean s’ a été trouvé à Lancey. Jean cl have-pres be-ppart find-ppart at Lancey ‘Jean found himself in Lancey.’ (5) Jean s’ est eu trouvé à Lancey. Jean cl be-pres have-ppart find-ppart at Lancey ‘Jean found himself in Lancey.’ Three Spell-Out forms of the psc auxiliary compound must therefore be accounted for: ‘have have’, ‘have be’ and ‘be have’. Moreover, restrictions in the Spell-Out form of the auxiliary compound in pronominal verb constructions must be addressed. I propose that two key factors determine the Spell-Out form of the auxiliary compound in all syntactic contexts: (1) the presence or absence of an abstract D/P0 head in the syntax and (2) Kayne’s (1993: 21) ‘have for be’ parameter.

. The dialect hypothesis of auxiliary variation . A descriptive approach The functional literature on the psc (cf. Cornu 1953; Jolivet 1984; Carruthers 1993) considers the ‘standard’ forms ‘have have’ (1) and ‘have be’ (2) to be distinct from the dialectal form ‘be have’ (3). This literature suggests that two structures account for the behavior of the auxiliary compound in the psc. Speakers of the so-called ‘standard’ dialect form the psc auxiliary compound by a process of compounding; avoir eu is the compounded form of avoir and avoir été is the compounded form of être. Speakers of the ‘non-standard’ dialect form the psc auxiliary compound through a process of insertion. Jolivet (1984) in particular argues that the standard participial paradigm is formed through a process of compounding, while the dialectal paradigm is formed through a process of insertion, where eu is considered a non-verbal aspectual particle. He argues that in cases like (3) and (5), the main verb alone selects the inflected auxiliary, and eu, an aspectual particle, is inserted into the verbal paradigm to form the psc. Jolivet (1984) further claims that variation in the form of the auxiliary compound is also contextually determined. He states that the dialectal form être eu does not occur in standard contexts for the psc (i.e., in temporally subordinated

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Auxiliary choice 

clauses); only the standard forms avoir été and être eu are allowed in these syntactic environments. This restriction falls out from his claim that the non-standard form of the auxiliary compound and the use of the psc in non-standard contexts (i.e., in independent clauses) only occur in dialectal French. Jolivet’s claim, however, does not account for the use of pronominal verbs in the psc. In fact, examples of pronominal verbs in temporally subordinated clauses are attested. (6) Après qu’il s’est eu rincé l’oeil, il a passé à l’autre saladier. ‘After he had rinsed his eye, he went on the the next salad bowl.’ (Aymé, En arrière, cited in Togeby 1982: 426) (7) Dès qu’ils se sont eu dit ce qu’ils avaient sur le coeur, ils se sont calmés. ‘After they had said what was on their mind, they calmed down.’ (Foulet 1925: 234) Differences between the use of être eu on the one hand, and avoir été on the other, then, are not due to the syntactic context in which the psc occurs, nor are they due to dialectal differences in the process of compounding. Indeed, this ‘dialect hypothesis’, although descriptively adequate, does not take into account important theoretical questions such as the verbal nature of the participial auxiliary.

. Toward a theoretical approach This paper adopts a dialect hypothesis of a different nature, one that makes use of a single syntactic structure and a dialect-specific parameter that determines the difference between instances of ‘have be’ and ‘be have’ in the psc. In order to develop this account, several theoretical assumptions are necessary. First, I adopt the following null hypothesis: the structure of the psc verbal paradigm is consistent across syntactic environments. In other words, the structure of the verbal paradigm is the same across all syntactic environments and all semantic contexts. Adherence to the null hypothesis has interesting results, namely that the three Spell-Out forms of the auxiliary compound are accounted for by the same syntactic structure. Second, I claim that the participial auxiliary (eu or été) is a verb. This claim is based on empirical arguments presented in Paesani (2001: 134–140). The participial auxiliary is a verb because it may receive emphatic stress, it takes wide scope over conjoined VPs, it is non-affixal, and it is distinct from non-verbal temporal-aspectual markers present in languages like Haitian Creole, Welsh and Breton. The verbal nature of the participial auxiliary allows for a unified analysis of the psc auxiliary compound; eu and été do not have special status as they do in the descriptive approach outlined above. Instead, different configurations of the same structure account for the data in (1)–(5). Finally, I assume that the psc structure has three verbal projections. Following research by Déchaine (1993) and Travis (1992), Paesani (2001)

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 Kate Paesani

argues that all verbs, including the inflected and participial auxiliaries, are heads of VP projections. This claim yields the basic structure of the psc verbal paradigm in (8).1, 2 (8) [VP BE1 [VP BE2 [VP DPsubj V DPobj ]]] These theoretical assumptions, coupled with the syntax of ‘have/be’ alternations developed below, allow for a unified account of auxiliary choice that explains the psc data presented in (1)–(5).

. The syntax of have/be alternations Two crucial ideas motivate many accounts of auxiliary choice (cf. Kayne 1993; Kempchinsky 1995; Watanabe 1996; Ritter & Rosen 1997; Castillo 1998). First is Benveniste’s (1966: 180) intuition that instances of the auxiliary ‘have’ behave similarly to instances of possessive ‘have’. Benveniste points out that in Iranian and Armenian, for example, there is a parallelism between the use of auxiliaries in possessive and perfect constructions. Second is Freeze’s (1992) idea that ‘have’ can be analyzed as an instance of ‘be’ to which an abstract preposition has been incorporated. Freeze argues that predicate locatives, existential constructions and structures with ‘have’ are all derived from a similar structure containing an abstract preposition and the verb ‘be’. Kayne (1993) incorporates Benveniste’s intuition about possessive and main verb ‘have’, as well as Freeze’s idea that ‘have’ and ‘be’ are instances of the same verb BE.3 Furthermore, he develops a structure that accounts for a large number of dialectal data, such as the varied distribution of the auxiliary essere in standard Italian versus central and northern Italian dialects. For these reasons, I develop an analysis of auxiliary variation in the psc incorporating essential ideas from Kayne, including a dialect-specific parameter that explains the difference between the Spell-Out forms ‘have be’ and ‘be have’, and the distribution of these forms in both pronominal and non-pronominal verb constructions. Much of Kayne’s treatment of auxiliary + past participle constructions focuses on the differences between transitive and intransitive verb constructions in dialects of Romance. To account for these data, Kayne relies crucially on head incorporation, and on the role of participial AGR. Specifically, instances of ‘have’ and ‘be’ in auxiliary + participle constructions rely on the incorporation of D/P0 into BE, and movement through AgrS and AgrO. Kayne’s (1993: 8) general structure for participial constructions is represented in (9). (9)

. . . BE [DP Spec D/P0 . . . [VP DPsubj [V DPobj ]]]

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Auxiliary choice

To yield the Spell-Out form ‘have’ the D/P0 head must incorporate into BE. Kayne argues that this movement is driven by the need to move the subject through Spec,DP en route to its higher Case-checking position. Movement of DPsubj through Spec,DP is an improper movement violation because Spec,DP is an A-bar position. To solve this problem, Kayne proposes an additional step in the derivation: the non-overt head D/P0 is incorporated to BE. As a result of this incorporation, Spec,DP counts as an A-position. In the spirit of the Government Transparency Corollary (cf. Baker 1988), the BE head retains its A-position properties after it moves. The Spec,DP position then becomes a hybrid Spec of D/P0 + BE, and counts as an A-position rather than an A-bar position. Castillo (1998: 169), in a more Minimalist approach to auxiliary choice, points out that the shift of Spec,DP from an A-bar position to an A-position is an unnecessary transformation because Spec,DP is not a crucial position for any movement. In a purely Minimalist account, specifier positions are not projected unless necessary for convergence. Feature checking does not take place in Spec,DP; consequently, the Spec,DP position is unnecessary. Kempchinsky (1995) attempts to solve this problem differently. She argues that the VP subject in auxiliary constructions is generated in the Spec position of the higher DP (which in her analysis is a PP). This claim eliminates the need for the movement through Spec,DP for which Kayne argues. Kempchinsky further argues that the non-overt D/P0 (P0 in her structure) has strong V features. These features force the incorporation of D/P0 to BE for checking purposes, yielding the Spell-Out form ‘have’. While none of these solutions is without problems, an analysis of ‘have/be’ variation that adopts the notion of head incorporation to BE accounts for a large body of data, both standard and dialectal. For the purposes of the discussion here, I adopt aspects of both Kayne’s and Kempchinsky’s analyses: I maintain that subjects are derived VP internally, and adopt the idea that D/P0 has strong V features that drive movement. In the structure in (9), then, the non-overt D/P0 head has strong V features that must be checked. Consequently, D/P0 incorporates into BE where its V features are checked by the auxiliary, and D/P0 + BE is spelled out as ‘have’. The DP subject is derived VP internally and moves out of its derived position to check Case. (10)

Participial AGR also plays an important role in determining the Spell-Out forms ‘have’ and ‘be’. In transitive and unergative constructions,4 when the auxiliary verb is spelled out as ‘have’, Kayne argues that the VP-internal subject moves through the Spec position of the participial AgrS on its way to a higher Case-checking position. AgrS and AgrO are part of the syntax of participial constructions in Kayne’s analysis. Participial AgrS is present because certain dialects of Romance show sensitivity



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to the person of the subject in participial constructions, while participial AgrO is present for past participle agreement (1993: 13).5 Further movement in transitive and unergative constructions includes incorporation of D/P0 to BE to check the strong V features of D/P0 . Example (11) illustrates these movement operations. (11)

Note that in transitive and unergative constructions, the subject does not move through Spec,AgrO. Such movement would interfere with proper agreement of the main verb past participle. In other words, if the subject were to first move through Spec,AgrO, coindexation of the subject and AgrO would force person and number agreement on the past participle. In French, Italian and Spanish transitives and unergatives, overt agreement morphology is never realized on the main verb past participle.6 To account for the syntax of unaccusative verb constructions in auxiliary + past participle constructions, Kayne again highlights the role of AGR.7 There are essentially two types of unaccusative verb constructions in Romance: those occurring with the auxiliary ‘be’ (i.e. Italian) and those occurring with the auxiliary ‘have’ (i.e. Spanish). Kayne adopts the hypothesis that in Italian unaccusative constructions occurring with essere, the subject originates as the direct object of the verb. In these constructions, Kayne assumes that the participial VP need not be associated with an AgrS, nor with a D/P0 . While the projection headed by AgrS cannot function as an argument to a higher predicate without an intervening DP projection, the projection headed by AgrO may function as an argument to a higher predicate. Furthermore, in unaccusative constructions with a single argument, only movement through AgrO is required, thus eliminating the need for an AgrS projection and, consequently, for a DP projection (1993: 19).8 In Italian unaccusative constructions, then, the subject need not move through Spec,AgrS; instead, the subject moves through Spec,AgrO on its way to a higher position in the structure.9 (12)

Movement of the subject through Spec,AgrO licenses agreement between the subject and the main verb past participle. Furthermore, because there is no D/P0 to incorporate to BE, the auxiliary is spelled out as ‘be’ (Kayne 1993: 19). In Spanish unaccusative constructions occurring with haber, agreement is never realized on the main verb past participle. Kayne (1993: 10) concludes that, although the subject of Spanish unaccusative verbs is base generated as the object of the main verb (as in Italian), the subject moves through Spec,AgrS and not

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Auxiliary choice 

through Spec,AgrO. Because AgrS cannot function as a complement to a higher predicate, DP is projected in this structure as well. Therefore, in Spanish, D/P0 must incorporate into BE to check its strong V features. (13) a.

. . . BE [DP D/P0 [AgrSP AgrS [AgrOP AgrO [VP V DPsubj]]]]

Past participle agreement is prevented because the subject does not move through Spec,AgrO. Moreover, incorporation of D/P0 into BE yields the Spell-Out form ‘have’.

. Have/be alternations and the passé surcomposé Before developing and account of have/be alternations in pronominal verb constructions in the psc, it is important to provide a preliminary analysis of have/be alternations in non-pronominal psc constructions. To do this, I first discuss the distribution of ‘have be’ and ‘be have’ with transitive, unergative and unaccusative verbs, then I introduce Kayne’s ‘have for be’ parameter.

. French transitive and intransitive verb constructions An account of the distribution of ‘have’ and ‘be’ in French auxiliary + past participle constructions is less straightforward. Transitive, unergative and unaccusative verbs are all allowed in French auxiliary + past participle constructions, yet the choice between ‘have’ and ‘be’ appears to be inconsistent. (14) Jean a dit la vérité. Jean have-pres say-ppart the truth ‘Jean told the truth.’ (15) Jean a souri. Jean have-pres smile-ppart ‘Jean smiled.’

(transitive)

(unergative)

(16) La branche a cassé. The branch have-pres break-ppart ‘The branch broke.’

(unaccusative)

(17) Jean est arrivé. Jean be-pres arrive-ppart ‘Jean arrived.’

(unaccusative)

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While avoir is consistently the auxiliary verb in French transitive and unergative constructions, the auxiliary verb varies between avoir and être in unaccusative constructions. Indeed, it seems that the behavior of French unaccusative verbs with respect to auxiliary choice is partly like Spanish (i.e., those verbs occurring with avoir), as illustrated in (16), and partly like Italian (i.e., those verbs occurring with être), as illustrated in (17). To complicate these facts, there is further variation in the form of the être compound in psc intransitive constructions (cf. (2) and (3)), and in pronominal verb constructions (cf. (4) and (5)). Specifically, only the dialectal form être eu is permitted in pronominal verb constructions, yet cases of pronominal constructions in the psc occurring with unaccusative verbs are unattested. (18) Jean s’ est eu dit la vérité. Jean cl be-pres have-ppart say-ppart the truth ‘Jean had told himself the truth.’ (19) Jean s’ est eu souri. Jean cl be-pres have-ppart smile-ppart ‘Jean had smiled to himself.’ (20) *Jean s’ est eu arrivé. Jean cl be-pres have-ppart arrive-ppart Jean had arrived to himself. In order to account for these inconsistencies in unaccusative constructions and to capture the nature of auxiliary variation in the psc, different syntactic configurations of Kayne’s basic structure (9) will be developed. The analysis developed in the remainder of this section will serve as a backdrop to the account of auxiliary choice in pronominal verb constructions presented in Section 5.

. Accounting for the Spell-Out form ‘have have’ In the psc, the Spell-Out form avoir eu occurs with transitive, unergative and Spanish-style unaccusative verb constructions. Therefore, a structure similar to (11), Kayne’s structure for Romance transitives and unergatives, is developed.10 Recall that in (8), I proposed a syntactic structure for the psc that projects two VPs headed by BE and a VP headed by the main verb. Following the claim that the auxiliary BE, when occurring with transitive and unergative verbs, selects a DP complement, which in turn selects a VP complement (cf. Szbolcsi 1981, 1983; and Kayne 1993), I propose the following structure to account for the psc data in (1). (21) a.

[VP BE1 [DP1 D/P01 [VP BE2 [DP2 D/P02 [AgrSP AgrS [VP DPsubj V DPobj ]]]]]

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Auxiliary choice 

b. [VP DPsubji D/P0 1k + BE1 [DP1 tk [VP ti D/P0 2j + BE2 [DP2 tj [AgrSP ti AgrS [VP ti V DPobj ]]]]] The VP internal subject in (21) moves through Spec,AgrS en route to its higher Case-checking position. In addition, each D/P0 in must incorporate in order to check strong V features. Consequently, D/P01 incorporates into BE1 and D/P02 incorporates into BE2 . These operations yield the Spell-Out form avoir eu or ‘have have’.

. Accounting for the Spell-Out form ‘have be’ To account for the ‘standard’ form of unaccusative verb constructions in the psc, a structure similar to (12) is developed. The form avoir été occurs with the small class of French unaccusatives selecting être as their auxiliary verb. I assume, following Kayne, that these constructions do not have a participial AgrS in their structure because the subject originates in the direct object position and only moves through Spec,AgrO. Because AgrO may function as an argument to a higher predicate (while AgrS may not), this class of unaccusatives does not require a DP projection. Following the structure in (21), however, BE1 selects a DP as its complement. The structures in (22) account for the psc data in (2). (22) a. [VP BE1 [DP D/P0 [VP BE2 [AgrOP AgrO [VP V DPsubj ]]]]] b. [VP DPsubji D/P0 j + BE1 [DP tj [VP BE2 [AgrOP ti AgrO [VP V ti ]]]]] The VP internal subject moves through Spec,AgrO where it checks participial agreement features. The strong V features of D/P0 are checked through the incorporation of D/P0 into BE1 . There is only one D/P0 in this structure whose V features are checked by BE1 ; head incorporation with BE2 does not take place. The Spell-Out form of the auxiliary compound, therefore, is avoir été or ‘have be’.

. Accounting for the Spell-Out form ‘be have’ To account for the dialectal form of the psc auxiliary compound in unaccusative constructions, I appeal to what Kayne (1993: 21) refers to as ‘have for be’. Kayne notes that in his structure, there is no interaction between D/P0 and the lower V. Instead, the interaction is between D/P0 and the verb that dominates it. He claims that in some languages, it is possible for the lower V to incorporate into D/P0 , rather than for D/P0 to incorporate into the higher V. He states that if “ . . . the lower V were BE, we should expect that ‘BE D/P0 . . . BE’ would actually yield ‘BE HAVE . . . [e]’, rather than the familiar ‘HAVE [e] . . . BE’,” (1993: 21–22). Kayne provides the following example.11

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(23) I sö èvu mèlèd. I be-pres have-ppart sick ‘I was (have been) sick.’ Assuming Kayne’s structure for transitives and unergatives, the syntactic representation of (23) is as follows. (24) a.

. . . BE [DP D/P0 [AgrSP AgrS [VP [DPsubj I] BE mèlèd]]]

The lower (main verb) BE raises to incorporate with D/P0 , in order to check the strong V features of D/P0 . The subject, I, moves through Spec,AgrS to its Case checking position above auxiliary BE. Auxiliary BE is spelled out as ‘be’ because it has not incorporated with an abstract D/P0 head, while main verb BE is spelled out as ‘have’ because it has incorporated with an abstract D/P0 head. The result of these operations is the sequence sö évu or ‘be have.’ Kayne’s intuition about ‘have for be’ accounts for unaccusative verbs in psc constructions like (3) where the auxiliary compound is être eu. I propose that the same syntactic structure developed in (22) to account for avoir été cases accounts for the être eu cases as well. The difference between the standard and dialectal forms is reflected in the movement operations; in the former D/P0 raises to incorporate with BE, while in the latter BE raises to incorporate with D/P0 . In this way, variation in the form of the French psc auxiliary compound falls within the sort of patterns already observed elsewhere in Romance, as pointed out by Kayne. I claim, then, that être eu is dialectal and that speakers who use this form have a different parameter for D/P0 incorporation than speakers using avoir été in the same environments. With this idea in mind, I propose the following derivation for psc cases like (3). (25) a.

[VP BE1 [DP D/P0 [VP BE2 [AgrOP AgrO [VP V DPsubj ]]]]]

In (25) BE2 raises to incorporate to D/P0 . This head incorporation checks the strong V features of D/P0 . The subject, originating in direct object position, raises through Spec,AgrO to its Case-checking position. These operations yield the SpellOut form être eu or ‘be have’.

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Auxiliary choice 

. Auxiliary choice and pronominal verb constructions The account developed here naturally extends to the pronominal verb constructions in (4) an (5). Two important facts are essential to this task: (1) only the dialectal form être eu is permitted in pronominal verb constructions; and (2) examples of pronominal verb constructions in the psc with unaccusative verbs are unattested. While the Spell-Out form of the auxiliary compound in pronominal constructions is identical to the Spell-Out form in unaccusative constructions (cf. (3) and (5)), these forms are structurally different. Consequently, the syntactic representation of the auxiliary compound in pronominal constructions will parallel the structure developed for transitive and unergative verbs in (21). This structure, along with Kayne’s ‘have for be’ parameter, allow for an account for the grammatical form of the auxiliary compound être eu in pronominal verb constructions. According to Kayne (1993), the form of the auxiliary in pronominal constructions is directly linked to the reflexive clitic. Movement of various elements in the representation, then, is determined by the clitic. In some dialects of Italian, for example, in which ‘be’ is the auxiliary verb, incorporation of D/P0 into BE does not take place. This incorporation is prevented by adjunction of the clitic to AgrS, and then movement of AgrS + clitic to D/P0 . Kayne claims that this movement ‘activates’ Spec,AgrS and Spec,DP, making them both A-positions. Because A-positions are present in the representation, the DPsubj may move freely to its Case-checking position; incorporation of D/P0 into BE is not necessary to create licit landing sites for the DPsubj . Incorporating Kayne’s ideas, I propose that the Spell-Out form ‘be have’ in psc pronominal verb constructions is determined by the clitic and the ‘have for be’ parameter. I adopt the following structure for pronominal verb constructions in the psc. (26) [VP BE1 [DP1 D/P01 [VP BE2 [DP2 D/P02 [AgrS AgrS [VP DPsubj V se]]]]] Following Kayne, I claim that in pronominal verb constructions D/P02 does not incorporate into BE2 . This incorporation is prevented due to the movement of the clitic through AgrS to D/P02 . Contrary to Kayne, however, I claim that D/P02 does not incorporate because its V features are checked by the pronominal clitic; further movement of D/P02 after feature checking is an Economy violation. Because the ‘have for be’ parameter is in effect, BE2 incorporates to D/P01 ; this movement operation checks the V features of D/P01 . The bracketed structure in (27) illustrates the structure of pronominal verb constructions after movement operations have taken place.12

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 Kate Paesani

(27)

In (27), BE2 incorporates into D/P0 ; this yields the Spell-Out form ‘be have’, and accounts for the data in (5). The ungrammatical data in (4) is prevented because the ‘have for be’ parameter is in effect. It is generally assumed in the literature that clitics must adjoin to +finite INFL. Yet, note that in (27), the pronoun se is not yet in its final position as a clitic adjoined to the finite verb. To resolve this problem, I suggest that the pronominal clitic excorporates from D/P02 and adjoins to BE1 . The adjoined se + BE structure then moves to AgrS to check person and number features. The movement of the reflexive clitic is partially driven by morphology: BE has person, number and V features that attract the clitic. The final structure for the psc sentence, including clitic excorporation and subject movement, is represented in (28). (28) [AgrS DPsubjk [sei + BE1 ]l [VP tk tl [DP1 tk BE2j + D/P01 [VP tk tj [DP2 tk [ti D/P02 ] [AgrS tk [ti AgrS] [VP tk V ti ]]]]]

. Conclusion The analysis of auxiliary choice developed here accounts for standard and dialectal forms of the psc auxiliary compound in pronominal and non-pronominal verb constructions while using a single syntactic structure. In the spirit of Kayne (1993), this analysis relies crucially on head incorporation and participial AGR. The presence or absence of a D/P0 head determines the Spell-Out form of the auxiliary verb, while the movement of a DP subject through AgrO versus AgrS accounts for auxiliary choice in transitive and unaccusative verbs. A distinct advantage of this analysis is that dialectal forms of the psc auxiliary compound are accounted for by a minor parametric variation of a type already motivated for Romance: Kayne’s ‘have for be’ parameter.

Notes . Note that both auxiliaries are represented as BE in this structure. In the analysis developed here, all auxiliaries are projected as BE; the choice between the Spell-Out forms ‘be’ and ‘have’ is determined by incorporation of a D/P0 head.

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Auxiliary choice  . For the purposes of this paper, the functional categories associated with the verbal paradigm have been omitted. See Paesani (2001) for a detailed discussion of the role of functional categories in the syntax and semantics of the psc. . The Spell-Out form of the auxiliary is represented by lower case letters in quotes (‘have’, ‘be’). The auxiliary from which these Spell-Out forms are derived is represented by upper case letters (BE). . Transitive verbs have two arguments, a subject and a direct object. Unergative verbs have one argument, a subject. In both constructions, the subject argument is generated in the VP-internal subject position. . Participial AgrS is distinct from the AgrS of nominative Case assignment and person/number agreement, and participial AgrO is distinct from the AgrO of accusative case assignment. These traditional AGR positions occur higher in the structure and are not crucial to the analysis developed here. . I ignore the realization of agreement morphology in dialectal constructions with transitive and unergative verbs. See Kayne (1989, 1993) for a detailed discussion of this issue. . The unaccusative verbs are a subset of intransitive verbs in which the subject originates in direct object position (cf. Perlmutter 1978; Burzio 1986). . Kayne does not provide independent motivation for the differences in complementation between AgrSP and AgrOP. . Kempchinsky (1995: 141–142) argues that abstract P0 (Kayne’s D/P0 ) is projected in unaccusative constructions as well. In her account, the DP subject moves out of its original object position into Spec,AgrO. Next, the main verb moves through AgrO and then to P0 to check P0 ’s strong V features. The movement of V + AgrO to P0 licenses case on the participial suffix and triggers agreement on the past participle. The incorporated P0 head cannot raise to BE because its strong V features have already been checked by the main verb (such movement would be a violation of Greed (Chomsky 1995)). . The structure developed here accounts equally well for French unaccusatives having the Spell-Out form ‘have have’. In these cases, the subject is derived in the direct object position of the main verb, and then moves through AgrS (cf. (9)). . This example is from Taverdet (1971: 71) and is a case of a Burgundian dialect from the Morvan region of France. . Note that this structure does not illustrate movement of the DP subject to its Casechecking position above the highest VP.

References Baker, Mark (1988). Incorporation. A Theory of Grammatical Function Changing. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Benveniste, Emile (1966). Problèmes de linguistique générale. Paris: Gallimard. Burzio, Luigi (1986). Italian Syntax: A Government-Binding Approach. Dordrecht: Reidel.

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Carruthers, Janice (1993). The formes surcomposées: The Discourse Function and Linguistic Status of a Rare Form in Contemporary Spoken French. Ph.D. dissertation. Cambridge: University of Cambridge. Castillo, Juan Carlos (1998). A Syntactic account of perfective and possessive verb selection in Romance languages. In José Lema & Esthela Treviño (Eds.), Theoretical Analyses on Romance Languages, Selected Papers from the 26th Linguistic Symposium on Romance Languages (pp. 159–174). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Chomsky, Noam (1995). The Minimalist Program. Cambridge: MIT Press. Cornu, Maurice (1953). Les formes surcomposées en français. Bern: A. Francke Ag. Verlag. Déchaine, Rose-Marie (1993). One be. In M. den Dikken & K. Hengeveld (Eds.), Linguistics in the Netherlands (pp. 73–88). Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Foulet, Lucien (1925). Le développement des formes surcomposées. Romania, 51, 203–252. Freeze, Ray (1992). Existentials and Other Locatives. Language, 68, 553–595. Jolivet, Rémi (1984). L’acceptabilité des formes verbales surcomposées. Le Français Moderne, 3(4), 159–182. Kayne, Richard (1989). Facets of Romance past participle agreement. In Paola Benincà (Ed.), Dialect Variation and the Theory of Grammar (pp. 85–103). Dordrecht: Foris. Kayne, Richard (1993). Toward a Modular Theory of Auxiliary Selection. Studia Linguistica, 47, 3–31. Kempchinsky, Paula (1995). Perfective auxiliaries, possession and existence in Romance. In Karen Zagona (Ed.), Grammatical Theory and Romance Languages. Selected Papers from the 25th Linguistic Symposium on Romance Languages (pp. 135–144). Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Paesani, Kate (2001). The Semantics and Syntax of the passé surcomposé in Modern French. Unpublished doctoral dissertation. Bloomington: Indiana University. Perlmutter, David (1978). Impersonal Passives and the Unaccusative Hypothesis. Proceedings of the 4th Annual Meeting of the Berkeley Linguistics Society, 157–189. Ritter, Elizabeth & Sara Rosen (1997). The function of have. Lingua, 101, 295–321. Szabolcsi, Anna (1981). The possessive construction in Hungarian: A configurational category in a non-configurational language. Acta Linguistica Academiae Scientarum Hungaricae, 31, 261–289. Szabolcsi, Anna (1983). The Possessor That Ran Away From Home. The Linguistic Review, 3, 89–102. Taverdet, Gérard (1971). Traits méridionaux et franco-provençaux dans les parlers bourginons. Revue de Linguistique Romane, 35, 59–73. Togeby, Knud (1982). Grammaire Française. Copenhagen: Akademisk Forlag. Travis, Lisa (1992). Derived Objects, Inner Aspect, and the Structure of VP. Paper presented at the Conference of the North Eastern Linguistic Society, 1991. Watanabe, Akira (1996). Case Absorption and Wh-Agreement. Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers.

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The lexical preverbal subject in a Romance Null Subject Language Where are thou?* Margarita Suñer Cornell University

.

Introduction

The position of overt preverbal subjects in Romance null subject languages (NSLs) has been a controversial topic for more than a decade. Fernández-Soriano (1989),1 Contreras (1991),2 Barbosa (1997), Alexiadou and Anagnostpoulou (1998, henceforth A&A), Manzini and Savoia (forthcoming), Zubizarreta (1999), and Poletto (2000) all contend essentially that these subjects are always in A’-position (in L(eft) D(islocated) or Topic position depending on the investigator(s)). However, many researchers either take it for granted that lexical subjects are in SpecTP (Suñer 2000a; Ordoñez 1998; among others), or specifically argue that they are in an A-position (Cardinaletti 1997 for Italian). This work investigates where preverbal subjects are in Spanish, a Romance language without subject clitics. The framework I adopt is the Minimalist Program (MP; Chomsky 1995, 1998, 1999; and others) which advocates that in narrow syntax, all movement is triggered by uninterpretable features, that only those functional categories with inherent properties that have an impact on the interfaces are valid, and that Economy of structure and derivation is one of the guiding (but controversial, cf., Boskovíc 1997) principles. To simplify the discussion, I assume that when no preverbal lexical subject is present, the SpecTP in NSLs contains a null element – expletive or argumental depending on the environment – belonging to the Det category. (I represent it as the traditional null pro, but it could also be a null subject clitic); see Manzini and Savoia (forthcoming) and Suñer (2000b). The paper is organized as follows: in the first part, I concentrate on distributional, interpretational and binding facts of preverbal Spanish subjects which suggest that they do not behave as left-dislocated (LD) constituents. In the second,

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after demonstrating that Spanish preverbal subjects are in A-position, I sketch a proposal that captures the minor asymmetries between overt and null preverbal subjects. I do this by updating Cardinaletti and Roberts’ (1991), and Cardinaletti’s (1997) specialization hypothesis, and by taking advantage of the possibility for multiple Specs. The third section contains my final remarks.

. Overt preverbal subjects: A’- or A-position? A&A argue that overt preverbal Greek subjects have A-bar properties on the basis of distributional, interpretational and binding facts.3 Their work is useful, for it contains abundant empirical arguments to test the position of preverbal subjects. Interestingly, they claim that Spanish is completely parallel to Greek, a myth I intend to dispel in this section.

. Distributional facts A&A’s hypothesis is that subjects in SVO order are left-dislocated (also Contreras 1991; Barbosa 1997; Zubizarreta 1999; and others). There is no question that subjects in NSLs can be left-dislocated, but from this it does not necessarily follow that such subjects must always be dislocated (cf. Cardinaletti 1997). In Spanish, LD is a common process; practically any constituent may be dislocated and multiple dislocations are allowed. Note the dislocation of a direct object in (1a), of an indirect object in (1b), of an argumental PP in (1c), and of a dislocated subject plus other constituents in (1d): (1) a.

Al candidato, lo apoyan los intereses creados. A.acc.the candidate, him.acc support.3p the interests vested ‘The candidate, vested interests support him.’ b. Al candidato, le presentaron la llave A.acc.the candidate, to.him.dat presented.3p the key de la ciudad. of the city ‘To the candidate, they presented him the key of the city.’ c. En su casillero, la profesora me dijo que pusiera In her mail.box, the professor me told that put.subj.1sg mi ensayo. my essay ‘In her mail-box, the professor told me to put my essay.’

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Preverbal subject in NSL 

d. Mi mamá, las empanadas, los domingos, las rellena con My mother, the empanadas, the Sundays, them stuffs with pollo. chicken ‘My mother, the empanadas, on Sundays, she stuffs them with chicken.’ LD constructions contrast with unmarked SVO clauses in that they do not provide appropriate answers for out-of-the-blue questions like What happened? or What’s the latest?. This is because LDs serve specific discourse purposes: in them the speaker (re)introduces an element (or elements) into the discourse and further refers to it(them) in the rest of the sentence (cf. Prince 1997 for English LDs). A&A’s main distributional argument in favor of LD subjects has to do with adverbs vis-à-vis the positions of the subject and the V (in T). In (2) yesterday and the adverbial expression after many efforts appear between the subject and the V: (2) O Petros xtes meta apo poles prospathies sinandise ti Maria. The Peter yesterday after from many efforts met Maria. A&A (15a) It is clear that the subject in (2) is LD since adverbs like yesterday, tomorrow, last year, etc. cannot appear “within the IP functional ‘space’ at all” (i.e., between the subject and the verb), but only in sentence-initial or sentence-final positions (Cinque 1999: 87; see also McConnell-Ginet 1982; and Bowers 1993). But again, the fact that subjects may be LD does not necessarily prove that they must be. Consider the Spanish examples in (3a–b) where the adverbs within the IP space do not get a parenthetical reading, an indication that they are not dislocated: (3) a.

El maestro probablemente encontrará rápidamente el error The teacher probably will.find quickly the mistake a . *El maestro rápidamente encontrará probablemente el error. b. Francamente, mi vecino probablemente siempre vota por los Frankly, my neighbor probably always votes for the republicanos. Republicans b . ??*Francamente, mi vecino siempre probablemente vota por los republicanos. b . *Probablemente, mi vecino francamente siempre vota por los republicanos.4

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. Interpretational facts A&A’s argumentation involves the scopal interaction between an indefinite and a quantifier phrase (QP). They contend that although in English “the scope properties that a quantifier has on the basis of its pre-movement position are preserved when it is moved to an A-position” (A&A: 504; cf. May 1985), this is not the case for preverbal quantified subjects in Greek (and Spanish according to A&A). Observe the contrast between the ambiguous (4b) with a postverbal quantified subject as opposed to the lack of ambiguity with the preverbal one in (4a). A&A (20) Kapios fititis stihiothetise kathe arthro Some student filed every article some >> every b. Stihiothetise kapios fititis kathe arthro some >> every/every >> some A&A (21) c. Kapjo pedikk tok eksetase kathe kathigitis some child cl.acc examined every professor some >> every

(4) a.

Moreover, since the lack of ambiguity also characterizes CLLDed objects (4c), they claim that it follows that overt subjects must be LD. In the first place, it should come as no surprise that the Acc LD constituent in (4c) has only wide scope given that Acc clitics are always [+specific] (Suñer 1988; Anagnostopoulou 1994), so the crucial contrast is (4a–b). Next I discuss Spanish examples in which the preverbal quantified subject is as ambiguous as the corresponding English one.5 Consider (5) with the quantifier cada ‘each’. All three examples are ambiguous, but crucially the preferred reading for (5a) is the distributive one where there are different students for each book (cada >> algún). Its second reading – there is a specific student who borrowed each book at different times – is an instance of quantification over events, which leaves the surface order of the quantifiers unaffected (i.e., algún >> cada).6 (5) a.

En la biblioteca departamental, algún estudiante In the library departmental, some student sacó prestado cada libro. borrowed each book cada >> algún preferred b. En la biblioteca departamental, sacó prestado algún estudiante cada libro. c. En la biblioteca departamental, sacó prestado cada libro algún estudiante. ‘In the departmental library, some student borrowed each book.’

As a matter of fact, even the indefinite determiner un ‘a’ may allow for a double interpretation. Although the three versions in (6) are ambiguous between ‘for every

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corner there is a different policeman’ and ‘the same policeman is in different corners on successive days/periods’, the cada >> un reading is more prominent: (6) a.

Un vigilante montaba guardia en cada esquina. a policeman stood guard in each corner. cada >> un more prominent b. Montaba guardia un vigilante en cada esquina. c. Montaba guardia en cada esquina un vigilante. ‘A policeman guarded each corner.’

idem idem

And in (7) the wide scope cada ‘each’ reading is so strong that it seems to block the other interpretation: (7) Un vigilante era visible en cada esquina. cada >> un ‘A policeman was visible in each corner.’ In sum, (5)–(7) show that Spanish preverbal subjects, unlike Greek ones, may be as ambiguous as those in English. Hence, if the lack of ambiguity for Greek quantified preverbal subjects (cf. (4a)) argues that they are LD, the Spanish ones should not be, since they may preserve their postverbal ambiguity.7 The quantifier scope facts are corroborated by the interaction between an indefinite subject and a modal. A&A claim that in Greek, only the deontic reading obtains with preverbal subjects but the epistemic interpretation is also possible with postverbal ones. However, in Spanish the deontic (may) and epistemic (can) readings of poder ‘may/can’, for example, show no correlation with the preverbal/postverbal position of the subject. What I found is the following: with perfect tenses the epistemic reading (poder >> un) predominates for most speakers, irrespective of indefiniteness and subject position: (8) a.

Un estudiante/Juan pudo haber asesinado a su loro. poder >> un ‘A student/Juan could have assassinated his parrot.’ b. Pudo haber asesinado un estudiante/Juan a su loro. c. Pudo haber asesinado a su loro un estudiante/Juan.

With other tenses, possibilities vary. Some speakers find all the cases in (9) ambiguous between possibility (epistemic) and permission (deontic), while others prefer the reading un >> puede for (9a) (i.e., deontic), but get ambiguous readings for (9b–c): (9) a.

Un chico puede presentar su trabajo este viernes. A guy can/may present his work this Friday b. Puede presentar un chico su trabajo este viernes. c. Puede presentar su trabajo este viernes un chico.

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However, context may influence interpretation. I have indicated the relative scope of the modal and un ‘a’ for each example in (10). Observe that poder que ‘can/may that’ in (10b) seems to force the epistemic interpretation, but poder + infinitive strongly calls for the deontic one (10c). The disjunction in (10d) is what forces the deontic reading of poder. (10) a.

En algunos lugares, un chico puede viajar solo sin peligro. In some places, a guy can travel alone without danger. poder >> un ‘In some places, a guy can travel alone without any danger.’ b. Un chico puede que entregue el trabajo tarde. poder >> un A guy can that hand.in the work late ‘It is possible for a guy to hand in his work late.’ c. Un chico puede entregar el trabajo tarde. un >> poder A guy may hand.in the work late. ‘A guy may hand in his work late.’ d. Un estudiante subgraduado puede entregar su trabajo este viernes, pero un estudiante graduado tiene que entregarlo antes. un >> poder ‘An undergrad student may hand in his work this Friday, but a grad student must hand it in before.’

What we surmise from the interaction between an indefinite subject and a modal in Spanish is that the preverbal subject does not obligatorily have wide scope over the modal (i.e., the subject receives no obligatory specific or partitive interpretation, as A&A indicate), contrary to what happens in Greek. Thus, if Greek preverbal subjects are left-dislocated, Spanish ones should not be. Finally, consider the scope interaction between a quantified subject with muchos ‘many’ and the sentential negator [i.e., no, ‘not’]. For many speakers the scope of (11a–b) is muchos >> no, but some also accept the reverse scope for (11b); (11c) is ambiguous for everybody:8 (11) a.

Muchos estudiantes no aprobaron el examen final. Many students not passed the exam final. muchos >> no / (no >> muchos) b. No aprobaron muchos estudiantes el examen final. muchos >> no / (no >> muchos) c. No aprobaron el examen final muchos estudiantes. ambiguous ‘Many students didn’t pass the final exam.’

Furthermore, individual level predicates (cf. Kratzer 1995) produce ambiguity: (12) is read as muchos >> no (there are many students who are not intelligent), as well as no >> muchos (there are not many students who are intelligent); cf. Sánchez López (1999):

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(12) Muchos estudiantes no son inteligentes. muchos >> no / no >> muchos Many students not are intelligent.pl ‘Many students are not intelligent.’ In brief, scope facts do not provide unequivocal evidence for considering Spanish preverbal subjects to be in A-bar position. This is a welcome result, since it highlights the null hypothesis: the mere interaction of a syntactic position with the inherent/interpretable features of quantifiers working together with the features of certain predicates. This conclusion is valid for Spanish as well as English.

. Binding facts A&A’s final argument in favor of the LD status of Romance subjects is based on Montalbetti’s (1986) observation that embedded overt subject pronouns in NSLs cannot be bound by a matrix quantifier when the alternation overt/null is possible in the language. So (13a) has the bound reading in (13b), but (13c) with an overt subject supposedly does not: (13) a.

Muchos estudiantes piensan que pro son inteligentes. ‘Many students think that they are intelligent.’ Montalbetti (1986: 12b) b. [many x: x a student] x thinks x is intelligent M: (11b) c. Muchos estudiantes piensan que ellos son inteligentes. M: (12a)

These facts have been disputed. For example, Barbosa (1997) observes that an overt pronoun can be bound when in postverbal position in Catalan, though not when preverbal:9 (14) Tots els jugadors estan convençuts que guanyaran ells All the players are convinced that will.win they ‘All the players are convinced that they are the ones who will win.’ The crucial issue is what happens in Spanish (cf. Cardinaletti & Starke 1999: §7.2.2 for Italian). All but one of my consultants are clear in their judgments: although the postverbal positioning of the pronominal subject favors binding, binding is also possible with the preverbal pronoun; that is, all three examples in (15) allow the pronoun to be interpreted as a bound variable (see Luján 1999 for more): (15) a. Todos los jugadores piensan que ellos ganarán la copa. b. Todos los jugadores piensan que ganarán ellos la copa. c. Todos los jugadores piensan que ganarán la copa ellos. ‘All the players think that they will win the trophy.’ To recapitulate Section 1, after scrutinizing A&A’s distributional, interpretational and binding arguments, I have conclusively shown that Spanish does not pattern

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with Greek. Given that these researchers argue that Greek preverbal subjects are LD, and given the various ways in which Spanish differs from Greek, it should be obvious that Spanish preverbal overt subjects should not be LD.

. The proposal If Spanish preverbal subjects are not LD, are they in A-position in SpecT? Before answering this question, I’d like to look at some crosslinguistic analyses and consider their possible implications for the Spanish facts. Very important recent research has been conducted on the Northern Italian dialects (NIDs; cf. Manzini & Savoia, forthcoming; Poletto 2000; Benincá & Poletto 2000; to name a few). The NIDs are interesting because they have overt subjects clitics (SCLs), a fact that has prompted researchers to deconstruct the IP/TP and the CP fields. For example, on the basis of morphological features, Poletto (2000) isolates four classes of SCLs, each in a separate syntactic position, two in the CP area and two in the IP area separated by the strong sentential negator: (16) [LDP invariable SCLi [CP deictic SCL [FP ti [IP [NegP [NumP SCL [HearerP SCL [SpeakerP infl. V [TP] ]]]]]] (Poletto 2000: 36, (63)) The fact that the preverbal subject in a declarative sentence precedes all SCLs leads to the unavoidable conclusion that it must be somewhere in the CP field, specially for those dialects that have an invariable SCL. The subject is in TopP (not LD), in a position higher than non-modal wh-interrogatives. But even for Standard Italian, which does not have SCLs, Poletto posits the structure in (17) where the subject raises from Spec,vP first to SpecHearerP, continues through NumP, and then crosses over the negator to land on TopicP inside the CP field; that is to say, it lands on an A’-position. The movement of the subject is prompted by its need to check the features it is specified for with a head that carries the same features (Poletto 2000: 145). The inflected V originates in head of SpeakerP and moves through HearerH to land on NumH. (17) [TopicP Subject DPi [NegP [NumP ti [Num0 inflVj ] [HearerP ti [Hearer0 tj ] [SpeakerP tj [TP] . . . I have two misgivings about adopting something like (17) for Spanish. The first is conceptual: (17) does not strike me as very economical. Hence, in the spirit of the MP which values economy, I suggest an alternative: instead of all languages having a multiplicity of functional projections (FPs) on analogy to the NIDs, languages without overt SCLs have the option of collapsing uninterpretable features such as person and number within the single head T (also Rizzi 1997 who main-

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Preverbal subject in NSL 

tains that only activated categories manifest themselves).10 My second misgiving is empirical: in (17) the subject is in TopP which is part of the CP field. To confirm this claim, we need a test that distinguishes constituents in A’-position from those in A-position: reconstruction is such a test. Let us verify the status of the preverbal subject with examples where binding is possible, as in (18) through (20) (cf. Zubizarreta 1998). The sentences pattern alike: in the (a) versions, coreference between the elements in italics is possible, but not in the (b) ones where a Principle C effect blocks coreference: (18) a.

[El novio de Lea] la besó en la calle. [The boyfriend of Lea] her-acc kissed in the street b. *La besó [el novio de Lea] en la calle. her-acc kissed [the boyfriend of Lea] in the street ‘Lea’s boyfriend kissed her in the street’

(19) a.

[Una amiga de Hugo] lo defendió. [A friend-F of Hugo] him-acc defended b. *Lo defendió [una amiga de Hugo]. him-acc defended [a friend-F of Hugo] ‘Hugo’s friend defended him’

(20) a.

[Un conocido de su madre] parece haberla [An acquaintance-m of his mother] seems to-have-her-acc entristecido. saddened b. *Parece haberla entristecido [un conocido seems to-have-her-acc saddened [an acquaintance-m de su madre]. of his mother] ‘An acquaintance of his mother seems to have saddened her.’

And the same test indicates that Italian preverbal subjects should also be in an A-position. Examples (21)–(23) are translations of the Spanish ones (my thanks to G. Chierchia): (21) a. [Il ragazzo di Lea] la baciò per strada. b. *La baciò per strada [il ragazzo di Lea]. (22) a. [Una amica di Ugo] lo ha difeso. b. *Lo ha difeso [un amico di Ugo]. (23) a. [Un conoscente di sua madre] sembra averla intristita. b. *Sembra averla intristita [un conoscente di sua madre].

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The outcome argues that preverbal subjects in these NSLs do not reconstruct, an indication that they are in an A-position. Compare this finding with what happens with elements known to be in A’-position, such as the LDed constituents in (24) (I adapt to Spanish Cechetto’s 2000 examples (7) and (8)): (24) a. *[La primer obra de un escritor], pro siempre la escribe con placer. b. [La primer obra de un escritor], siempre la escribe él con placer. ‘The first work of a writer, he always writes it with pleasure.’ As previously argued by Guasti (1996) and Cechetto (2000), the contrast between the (24a–b) demonstrate that the LD constituent reconstructs to a position higher than the merged position of the postverbal subject; to DO CLP position according to Zubizarreta (1998).11 One plausible explanation for the lack of reconstruction of A-moved constituents in (18)–(23) is that these constituents leave no traces/copies behind, a credible hypothesis on the view that theta-roles are features that stay with the moved element (Hornstein 1999; Manzini & Savoia, forthcoming; Boeckx 2000; for different proposals). The absence of traces/copies accounts both for Chomsky’s (1999: §4.7.4) suggestion that there be no reconstruction in A-chains, and Lasnik’s (1998) claim that there shouldn’t be. There is another bit of evidence that points to the A-status of preverbal subjects. Bosque (1999: §1.4.4; see also Bello (1847)/1970: §818) suggests that subjectverb agreement with collective nouns shows that preverbal subjects are not in Topic or LD position. So while the subjects in (25) reject agreement ad sensum even in the conversational register, those clearly in A’-position (26) admit it: (25) a. *El jurado estaban presionados. The jury were-3pl pressured b. *La familia se pusieron de acuerdo. The family were-3pl in agreement c. *La escuadra atacaron a los enemigos. The squad attacked-3pl the enemy (26) a.

El jurado, Mara nos aseguró que estaban presionados. The jury, Mara us assured that were.3pl pressured ‘The jury, Mara assured us that they felt pressured.’ b. La familia, Mara nos aseguró que finalmente se pusieron The family, Mara us assured that finally were de acuerdo. in agreement ‘The family, Mara assured us that they reached an agreement.’

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Preverbal subject in NSL

c.

La escuadra, el general explicó que atacaron The squad, the general explained that attacked-3pl a los enemigos. the enemy ‘The squad, the general explained that they attacked the enemy.’

The contrast is easily explained on the assumption that preverbal subjects are not in A’-position, but rather in SpecTP. Having concluded that Spanish preverbal lexical subjects occupy an A-position still requires that we identify their landing position. In what follows, I update the Cardinaletti and Roberts (1991) and Cardinaletti (1997) specialization hypothesis for subject positions, a hypothesis that allows one to capture certain minor asymmetries between overt and null subjects. Cardinaletti and Starke (1999) argue that pronominal elements (including those with subject function) come in different ‘strengths’ determined through syntactic behavior. In Italian, for example, three levels of ‘strength’ can be detected: overt subjects like Gianni and the lui pronoun series are strong, the egli/esso series is (overt) weak,12 and null pro is the weakest of the three.13 These subtypes distribute differently with respect to the possibility of being separated from the verb by a parenthetical (Cardinaletti 1997). For example, while in Italian all overt subjects may be so separated from the verb (27), in English, there is variation (28): (27) a.

(28)

Gianni/Lui, secondo me, è molto simpatico. Gianni/He, according to me, is very nice. b. Egli, secondo me, è molto simpatico. He, according to me, is very nice.

C (45)

a. b. c. d. d .

C (46)

John/He There It It It

(as you know) is a nice guy. (*as you know) was a man in the garden. (*as you know) rained the whole day. (?*as you know) costs too much. (?*as you know) is too expensive.

Standard Spanish has no overt weak subject pronouns, but it is possible to confirm the distribution with the Dominican expletive ello ‘there/it’ (cf. Henríquez Ureña 1939): (29) a.

Juan/Él, a mi parecer, es muy simpático. Juan/he, according to me, is very nice. b. Ello (*a mi parecer) no sería malo estudiar. It, according to me, wouldn’t hurt to study.

Standard Spanish Dominican Spanish

The specialization hypothesis explains the disparities in (27)–(29) by claiming that weak and full subjects occupy different positions. Cardinaletti’s structures



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are found in (30a–b); I have updated them slightly by taking advantage of the possibility for multiple Spec’s, and I have added (30c) for Spanish: (30)

a. [TP {Gianni/lui} [XP parenth. [TP {pro} Vfin { egli } strong/(overt) weak weak b. [TP {John/he} [XP parenth. [TP strong c. [TP {Juan/él} [XP parenth. [TP strong

{it/there} [vP Vfin weak {ello/pro} Vfin weak

Italian

English Spanish

(30) contends that overt subjects are in the upper SpecTP while weak ones are in the lower one. Furthermore, Fernández-Soriano (1999) argues that in impersonal sentences, SpecTP hosts Locative and Dative – represented by the dative clitic – subjects. We can refine her characterization by suggesting that Locative ones (31a) are in the higher Spec while Datives (31b) are in the lower one, as demonstrated by their non-parallel behavior concerning parentheticals:14 (31) a.

En esta clase/Aquí, a mi parecer, faltan sillas. In this classroom/Here, according to me, lack chairs ‘Chairs, according to me, are lacking/needed in this classroom/here.’ b. Me (*a mi parecer) consta que Mara estuvo ausente. To-me (*according to me) is.evident that Mara was absent ‘It was evident to me that Mara was absent.’

Hence, the specialization subject hypothesis admits that all subjects do not behave exactly alike while, at the same time, it fleshes out the conclusion that preverbal overt subjects in Spanish (and Italian) are in an A-position.

. Final remarks Spanish (and Standard Italian) subjects do not necessarily behave as if they were in A-bar position. Crosslinguistically, Spanish was shown not to pattern with Greek in terms of distributional, interpretational and binding facts, contra A&A’s claims. Moreover, reconstruction effects ((18)–(20)) and the possibility for ad sensum agreement with collective subjects ((25)–(26)) unequivocally show that Spanish preverbal subjects are in an A-position. Assuming the correctness of the proposal, a further corollary follows from it: the difference between NSLs and non-NSLs is kept to a minimum and reduces to the fact that the verbal inflection in the former is capable of identifying a null subject category (the original Taraldsen 1978 and Rizzi 1982 hypothesis). Moreover,

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within NSLs there is a further bifurcation: languages with overt SCLs – such as the NIDs – may need to deconstruct T into a series of functional projections to accommodate these ubiquitous elements, while languages without SCLs may concentrate person and number features in a single head (cf. Bobalijk & Thráinsson 1998 for a [±split] IP to differentiate Germanic languages). In other words, parametric variation is restricted to the morphological properties of heads, as suggested initially by Borer (1984).

Notes * My thanks to I. Bosque, L. López-Carretero, J. Gutiérrez-Rexach, C. Collins, C. Cechetto, an anonymous reviewer, and my native consultants for their help with different aspects of this work. . Her claim applies only to tonic pronouns. . His argument rests on Fukui and Speas’ (1986) conceptual assumption that lexical categories do not project a Spec, but functional ones do. Since Contreras considers AgrP to be lexical in Spanish, he concludes that preverbal subjects must be adjoined to IP. . Another of A&A’s objectives is to demonstrate that [SpecAgrP] as the A-position where the EPP is checked is not projected in NSLs. Space constraints prevent me from addressing this issue. . A&A (p. 503) also refer to Piera’s ([1981]/1988) examples in (ia-b) where the “subject competes with adverbs for the preverbal position.” However, all this shows is a very regular process in the language: whenever a raised focused non-subject element fronts and forms a single breath group with the rest of the sentence, VS(X) order must ensue (iia-b). The fronted element does not necessarily need to be contrastively stressed, although it could: (i)

a.

Temprano salía Julia de casa. Early left Julia from home b. *Temprano Julia salía de casa.

(ii) a.

Veintinueve libros compró mi marido por la red. Twenty.nine books bought my husband on the web b. *Veintinueve libros mi marido compró por la red.

The intonation for the grammatical examples is revealing: the main sentential stress falls on the initial constituent and the remainder gets a flatter descending intonation; in other words, these examples do not carry neutral sentential intonation where the main sentential stress falls on the last constituent. Within the MP, they would be analyzed as the subject staying in-situ, V to T (and no higher; Suñer 1994), and the fronted constituent forced to raise to check the focus feature of a Spec (Rizzi 1997; and Gutiérrez-Rexach & Silva-Villar, forthcoming, for two different implementations). . But even (4a) presents a problem. On the assumption that A-bar movement reconstructs but A movement does not, ‘some student’ should reconstruct to its VP internal position

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and be ambiguous, since A&A claim that it is in A’ position (my thanks to an anonymous reviewer). . More formally, the quantification over events would be something like ‘there exists an x so that for each y there exists an e such that [x borrowed y in e]’. . For more scope interaction effects, see Jaeggli (1991), Gutiérrez-Rexach (1996) and (1999), Ordoñez (1998), and Zubizarreta (1998). Gutiérrez-Rexach (1996) classifies Spanish cada as [+universal +distributive +presuppositional]. For an overview on Spanish quantifiers, see Bosque and Demonte (1999: Chapter 16). . It might be worth remembering that the language uses a different tactic for scoping the negator over the subject: (i)

No muchos estudiantes aprobaron el examen final. ‘Not many students passed the final exam.’

. She uses this distribution to foster the notion that preverbal subjects are not in Aposition. . This means that T0 would have several uninterpretable features: at least, u(ninterpretable)P(erson) and uN(umber) in addition to the EPP property. . This finding indicates that LD elements reach their position through movement. . These pronouns cannot be dislocated (as opposed to what happens with lexical subjects and the lui pronoun series): (i)

a. *Egli a Gianni [pro non gli ha parlato ancora]. He to Gianni [he] not to.him has spoken yet b. *Essa questo problema [pro non lo spiega]. It this problem [it] not it explains

C (36)

And interestingly, the weak subject pronoun can precede the epistemic/speaker-oriented adverb probably, a fact that strengthens the conclusion reached for Spanish in (3): (ii) Egli probablemente ha rinunciato. He probably has resigned. . The weakest or most deficient in their scale are the pronominal clitics not pro. Nevertheless, recall that I’m using pro as a cover term for the subject ec without taking a stand with respect to its exact nature (i.e., real pro or a null subject clitic). . In these impersonal sentences, the predicate selects the locative or dative as the external argument. In this respect, they contrast with locative inversion constructions in which the locative is preposed from VP internal position; see Fernández-Soriano (1999) for comprehensive discussion and specially §2.2 for arguments against equating the two types of sentences. Keep in mind also that me ‘to-me’ becomes a clitic post-syntactically.

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References Anagnostopoulou, Elena (1994). Clitic Dependencies in Modern Greek. Unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, University of Salzburg. Alexiadou, Artemis & Elena Anagnostopoulou (1998). Parametrizing AGR: Word Order, V-Movement and EPP-checking. Natural Language and Linguistic Theory, 16, 491–539. Barbosa, Pilar (1997). Subject Positions in the Null Subject Languages. Seminarios de Lingüística, 1, 39–63. Bello, Andrés ([1847]/1970). Gramática de la lengua castellana, with Rufino Cuervo & N. Alcalá-Zamora y Torres. Buenos Aires: Sopena. Benincá, Paola & Cecilia Poletto (2000). Topic, Focus and V2: Defining the CP Sublayers. Forthcoming in The Structure of CP. In L. Rizzi (Ed.). Oxford University Press. Bobalijk, Jonathan & Höskuldur Thráinsson (1998). Two Heads Aren’t Always Better Than One. Syntax, 1, 37–71. Boeckx, Cedric (2000). A Note on Contraction. Linguistic Inquiry, 31, 357–366. Borer, Hagit (1984). Parametric Syntax. Dordrecht: Foris. Boskovíc, Zeljko (1997). The Syntax of Nonfinite Complementation: An Economy Approach. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Bosque, Ignacio (1999). El nombre común. In Bosque & Demonte (Eds.) (pp. 3–75). Bosque, Ignacio & Violeta Demonte (Eds.). (1999). Gramática descriptiva de la lengua española. Madrid: Espasa-Calpe. Bowers, John (1993). The Syntax of Predication. Linguistic Inquiry, 24, 591–656. Cardinaletti, Anna (1997). Subjects and Clause Structure. In L. Haegemann (Ed.), The New Comparative Syntax (pp. 33–63). London and New York: Longman. Cardinaletti, Anna & Ian Roberts (1991). Clause Structure and X-second. Unpublished manuscript. Cardinaletti, Anna & Michal Starke (1999). The Typology of Structural Deficiency. In Henk van Riemsdijk (Ed.), Clitics in the Languages of Europe (Empirical Approaches to Language Typology, 20; Eurotyp, 5) (pp. 145–233). Berlin: Mouton. Cecchetto, Carlo (2000). Doubling Structures and Reconstruction. Probus, 12, 93–126. Chomsky, Noam (1995). The Minimalist Program. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Chomsky, Noam (1998). Minimal Inquiries: The Framework. MIT Ms. Chomsky, Noam (1999). Derivation by Phase. MIT Ms. Cinque, Guglielmo (1999). Adverbs and Functional Heads: A Crosslinguistic Perspective. NY/London: Oxford University Press. Contreras, Heles (1991). On the Position of Subjects. In Samuel Rothstein (Ed.), Syntax and Semantics 25 (pp. 62–79). NY: Academic Press. Fernández-Soriano, Olga (1989). Rección y Ligamiento en español: Aspectos del parámetro del sujeto nulo. Unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, Univ. Autónoma de Madrid. Fernández-Soriano, Olga (1999). Two Types of Impersonal Sentences in Spanish: Locative and Dative Subjects. Syntax, 2, 101–140. Fukui, Naoki & Margaret Speas (1986). Specifiers and Projections. MIT Working Papers in Linguistics, 8, 128–172. Guasti, María Teresa (1996). On the Controversial Status of Romance Interrogatives. Probus, 8, 161–180.

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Gutiérrez-Rexach, Javier (1996). The Scope of Universal Quantifiers in Spanish Interrogatives. In Karen Zagona (Ed.), Grammatical Theory and Romance Languages (pp. 87–98). Amsterdam/Philadelphia: Benjamins. Gutiérrez-Rexach, Javier (1999). Spanish Indefinites and Type-driven Interpretation. In J.-Marc. Authier, Barbara Bullock, & Lisa Reed (Eds.), Formal Perspectives on Romance Linguistics (pp. 151–166). Amsterdam/Philadelphia: Benjamins. Gutiérrez-Rexach, Javier & Luis Silva-Villar (1999). Spanish Bare Plurals, Multiple Specifiers and the Derivation of Focus-Related Features. Folia Linguistica, 33, 355–387. Henríquez Ureña, Pedro (1939). Ello. Revista de Filología Hispánica, 1, 209–229. Hornstein, Norbert (1999). Movement and Control. Linguistic Inquiry, 30, 239–245. Jaeggli, Osvaldo (l991). Head Government in LF-representation. In James Huang & Robert May (Eds.), Logical Structure and Linguistic Structure (pp. 79–109). Dordrecht: Kluwer. Kratzer, Angelika (1995). Stage-level and Individual-level Predicates. In Greg Carlson & Francis Pelletier (Eds.), The Generic Book (pp. 125–175). Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press. Lasnik, Howard (1998). On a Scope Reconstruction Paradox. University of Connecticut, Storrs manuscript; available at [http://mitpress.mit.edu/celebration]. Luján, Marta (1999). Expresión y omisión del pronombre personal. In Bosque & Demonte (Eds.) (pp. 1275–1315). Manzini, M. Rita & Leonardo M. Savoia (2002). Parameters of Subject Inflection in Italian Dialects. In Peter Svenonius (Ed.), Subjects, Expletives and the EPP (pp. 157–199). NY/London: Oxford University Press. May, Robert (1985). Logical Form: Its Structure and Derivation. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. McConnell-Ginet, Sally (1982). Adverbs and Logical Form. Language, 58, 144–184. Montalbetti, Mario (1986). How pro is pro? In Osvaldo Jaeggli & Carmen Silva-Corvalán (Eds.), Studies in Romance Linguistics (pp. 137–152). Dordrecht: Foris. Ordoñez, Francisco (1998). Postverbal Asymmetries in Spanish. Natural Language and Linguistic Theory, 16, 313–346. Piera, Carlos ([1981]/1988). Sobre la estructura de la cláusulas de infinitivo. In Violeta Demonte & Marina Fernández Lagunilla (Eds.), Sintaxis de la lenguas románicas (pp. 148–166). Madrid: Ediciones El Arquero. Poletto, Cecilia (2000). The Higher Functional Field: Evidence from Northern Italian Dialects. New York/Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press. Prince, Ellen (1997). On the Functions of Left-Dislocation in English Discourse. In Akio Kamio (Ed.), Directions in Functional Linguistics (pp. 117–144). Philadelphia/Amsterdam: Benjamins. Rizzi, Luigi (1982). Issues in Italian Syntax. Dordrecht: Foris. Rizzi, Luigi (1997). The Fine Structure of the Left-periphery. In Liliane Haegemann (Ed.), Elements of Grammar: Handbook of Generative Syntax (pp. 281–337). Dordrecht: Kluwer. Sánchez López, Cristina (1999). La negación. In Bosque & Demonte (Ed.) (pp. 2561–2634). Suñer, Margarita (1988). The Role of Agreement in Clitic-Doubled Constructions. Natural Language and Linguistic Theory, 6, 391–434. Suñer, Margarita (1994). Verb-movement and the Licensing of Argumental Wh-phrases in Spanish. Natural Language and Linguistic Theory, 12, 335–372.

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Suñer, Margarita (2000a). Object-shift: Comparing a Romance Language to Germanic. Probus, 12, 261–289. Suñer, Margarita (2000b). The Syntax of Direct Quotes with Special Reference to Spanish and English. Natural Language and Linguistic Theory, 18, 525–578. Taraldsen, Knut (1978). On the NIC, Vacuous Application and the that-trace Filter. MIT unpublished manuscript; distributed by Indiana University Linguistics Club, Bloomington, IN. Zubizarreta, María Luisa (1998). Focus, Prosody and Word Order. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Zubizarreta, María Luisa (1999). The Cl(itic) Projection in Questions. Paper presented at the IX Colloquium on Generative Grammar. Bellaterra, Barcelona: UAB.

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Intervention effects in the French wh-in-situ construction Syntax or interpretation?* María Luisa Zubizarreta University of Southern California

.

Introduction

This paper is about the French wh-in-situ construction, described recently in a series of papers by Cédric Boeckx (Boeckx 1999, 2000). He identified three central properties of this construction for the dialect that he describes.1 (1) 1. exhaustivity 2. existence of so-called “intervention effects” 3. locality The question arises whether the properties in (1) are related, and if yes, how. We believe that all three properties are related, but due to space constraints we will discuss only the first two. We will argue that the so-called intervention effects are not to be captured in the syntax, but rather at the interface between LF and the semantic component of the grammar. In making this argument, we will put forth a suggestion of how informational and contrastive focus should be represented and will discuss how these interact with other quantificational-like phenomena at the level of semantic representation. In the conclusion to this paper, we will spell out the implications of our results with respect to certain aspects of the syntactic computation.

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 María Luisa Zubizarreta

. The phenomenon . Exhaustivity Boeckx (op. cit.) has shown that the wh-in-situ question in (2) has semantic properties comparable to the clefted wh-in-situ question in (3) and that it differs semantically from the fronted wh-question in (4). (2) Pierre a parlé à qui? Pierre talked to whom? (3) C’est à qui que Pierre a parlé? It is who that Pierre saw? (4) A qui est-ce que Pierre a parlé? / A qui Pierre a-t-il parlé? ‘To whom did Pierre talk?’ First, while a cleft sentence like (5) constitutes a minimal answer (content wise) to the questions in (2) and (3), it is not a minimal answer to the question in (4), in the sense that (5), as an answer to (4), is perceived as providing information that goes beyond that which is requested by the question (and some speakers may therefore find it to be an unnatural answer form). (5) C’est à Marie que Pierre a parlé. Second, (6) is a felicitous answer to the question in (4), but not to the questions in (2) or (3). (6) (Pierre n’a parlé) à personne. ‘(Pierre did not speak) to nobody.’ Third, the continuation in (7a) (and also to Paul) sounds odd, unless it is interpreted as a correction or afterthought. The latter interpretation can come about if the set of alternatives introduced by the focus in the first sentence is modified in the second sentence to include alternatives that were not present in the original set. The same oddity is felt in the case of (7b) as an answer to the questions in (2) and (3), unless again the second part of the answer (et aussi à Paul) is a correction or an afterthought. On the other hand, (7b) is felt to be a natural answer to the fronted wh-question in (4) without any further qualifications. (7) a.

C’est à Marie que Pierre a parlé. (??)Et aussi à Paul. It is Marie that Pierre talked to. (??)And also to Paul. b. (Pierre a parlé) à Marie. Et aussi à Paul.

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Fourth, while it is perfectly natural to modify the fronted wh-phrase with par exemple ‘for example’, it is odd to modify the wh-in-situ phrase with such an adverb:2 (8) a.

Qui par exemple est-ce que Pierre a invité? Whom for example did Pierre invite? b. *Pierre a invité qui par exemple?

The contrast is even sharper with the modifier entre autres ‘among others’: (9) a.

Qui est-ce que Pierre a invité, entre autres? Who did Pierre invite, among others? b. *Pierre a invité qui, entre autres? Pierre invited whom, among others?

These observations lead us to the conclusion in (10): (10) The wh-in-situ construction, like the cleft-construction, is a case of contrastive focus, while the fronted wh-construction is a case of informational focus. Contrastive focus, but not informational focus, is associated with the property of exhaustivity (to which we will return in Section 2.3).

. Intervention effects The fronted wh-question differs from the wh-in-situ question in another respect: (11) The wh-in-situ construction is subject to “intervention effects”, but not the fronted-wh construction. (Cf. Boeckx 1999, 2000) Boeckx (op. cit.) has suggested that constituents with the +Q feature (i.e., quantificational elements) are the ones that give rise to intervention effects. But a closer look at the data suggests that this is not the case. As it turns out, a QP like chaque NP, beaucoup NP, tous NP can c-command the wh-in-situ. In effect, the question/answer pairs in (12)–(15) are all well-formed.

Chacun de NP ‘Each of NP’ (12) Q: Les enfants se sont mis à table. Chacun (d’entre eux) a droit à combien de pizzas? ‘The children have sat at the table. Each (of them) is entitled to how many pizzas?’ A: Chacun (d’entre eux) a droit à trois pizzas. ‘Each (of them) is entitled to three pizzas.’

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 María Luisa Zubizarreta

(13) Q: Pierre a acheté plusieurs livres. Il a envoyé chacun des livres à qui? ‘Pierre bought several books. He sent each of the books to whom?’ A: Il a envoyé chacun des livres à l’un de ses amis. ‘He sent each of the books to one of his friends.’

Beaucoup de NPs ‘Many of NPs’ (14) Q: Pierre a donné beaucoup de bonbons à qui? ‘Pierre has given a lot of candies to whom?’ A: Pierre a donné beaucoup de bonbons à Marie. ‘Pierre gave a lot of candies to Marie.’ Tous NPs ‘All of NPs’ (15) Q: Ils ont donné tous les bonbons à qui? ‘They gave all the candies to whom?’ A: Ils ont donné tous les bonbons à leur meilleur ami. ‘They gave all the candies to their best friend.’ Note though that there is a constraint in the interpretation: only the unique answer form (individual or functional reading) is available. The so-called pair-list (PL) answer form is not available. In this respect, the wh-in-situ question contrasts with the fronted wh-question, which allows both the unique answer form and the PL answer form. To illustrate, consider the questions in (16). The fronted wh-question in (16a) allows the PL answer forms in (17) and the unique answer forms in (18).3 On the other hand, the in-situ question in (16b) only allows the unique answer forms in (18). It is the form, and not the content, of the answer that counts. The PL answer form involves an unpacking of the elements in the set, while the unique answer form does not. Thus, while (17b) and (18b) are extensionally equivalent, they constitute different answer forms. (16) a.

Qui est-ce que chacun (d’entre eux) devrait inviter? ‘Who should each of them invite?’ b. Chacun (d’entre eux) devrait inviter qui? ‘Each of them should invite whom?’

(17) a.

Pierre devrait inviter Marie, Jean devrait inviter Sophie . . . ‘Pierre should invite Marie, Jean should inviter Sophie . . . ’ b. Pierre devrait invité Marie et Jean aussi [devrait invité Marie]. ‘Pierre should invite Marie and Jean also.’

(18) a.

Chacun (d’entre eux) devrait inviter son meilleur ami. ‘Each (of them) should invite his best friend.’ b. Chacun (d’entre eux) devrait inviter Marie. ‘Each of them should invite Marie.’

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We turn next to floated quantifiers. Here we find that the presence of a floated quantifier does not give rise to ungrammaticality unless it is emphatic or contrastively focused. It is unnatural to have contrastive stress on floated chacun; see (19a). Therefore, the presence of this floated quantifier does not lead to ungrammaticality in the wh-in-situ construction; see (19b). (19) a.

??Ils devraient CHACUN inviter Pierre.

They should EACH invite Pierre. b. A ton avis, ils devraient chacun inviter qui? In your opinion, they should each invite whom? Floated tous may, but need not be emphatic; see (20). And only when it is emphatic does floated tous give rise to illformedness; see (21). (20) a.

Ils ont tous mangé une PIZZA (et non pas une tarte à la crème). ‘They have all eaten a pizza, and not a creme pie?’ b. Ils ont TOUS mangé une pizza (*et non pas une tarte à la crème).

(21) a.

Ils ont tous mangé quoi? ‘They have all eaten what?’ b. *Ils ont TOUS mangé quoi? ‘They have ALL eaten what?’

Floated beaucoup is unambiguously emphatic, as shown by the illformedness of (22b). And its presence in the in-situ question inexorably leads to ungrammaticality; see (23) and compare it with (21a). There is no pronunciation that renders (23) acceptable.4 (22) a.

Pierre a BEAUCOUP mangé de pizzas. Pierre has a-lot eaten of pizzas ‘Pierre has eaten lots of pizzas.’ b. *Pierre a beaucoup mangé de PIZZAS (et non pas des tartes à la crème).

(23) *Pierre a beaucoup donné de livres à qui? ‘Pierre has a lot given of books to whom?’ The data on floated quantifiers suggest that the class of elements that give rise to an intervention effect in the French wh-in-situ construction is limited to contrastively focused elements. This suggestion is confirmed by the data in (24). In effect, the presence of a contrastively focused DP in the wh-in-situ construction gives rise to illformedness. (24) a. *JEAN a parlé à qui? (mais pas Pierre) ‘JOHN talked to whom? (but not Pierre)’

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b. *Pierre a donné un LIVRE à qui? (mais pas un disque) ‘Pierre gave a BOOK to whom? (but not a record)’ The presence of NPIs also gives rise to illformedness, as shown in (25). (25) a. *Pierre n’a jamais vu qui? Pierre not has ever seen whom? b. *Pierre n’a presenté personne à qui? Pierre not has introduced anyone to whom? c. *Pierre n’a donné aucun bonbon à qui? Pierre not has given any candy to whom? Following Krifka (1995), we might consider NPIs to be contrastively focused elements of some sort. The generalization that then emerges is the one given in (26). (26) The elements that create an “intervention effect” in the French wh-in-situ construction are contrastively focused constituents. The examples below show that contrastively focused elements do not give rise to “intervention effects” in the fronted wh-construction. (27) a. Qu’est-ce qu’ils ont TOUS mangé? b. À qui est-ce qu’il a BEAUCOUP donné de livres? ‘To whom did he a lot give of books?’

Cf. (21b) Cf. (23)

(28) a.

À qui est-ce que JEAN a parlé? (mais pas Pierre) ‘To whom did JEAN talk? (but not Pierre) b. À qui est-ce que Pierre a donné un LIVRE? (mais pas un disque) ‘To whom did Pierre give a BOOK? (but not a record)’ Cf. (24)

(29) a. Qui est-ce que Pierre n’a jamais vu? b. À qui est-ce que Pierre n’a presenté personne? c. À qui est-ce que Pierre n’a donné aucun bonbon?

Cf. (25)

We summarize the main properties that distinguish the wh-in-situ construction vis-à-vis the fronted wh-construction: (30) 1. The French wh-in-situ construction: a. It has the property of “exhaustivity” (like the cleft-construction). b. QPs are not “intervenors”, but block the PL answer form. c. Contrastively focused elements are “intervenors”. 2. The fronted wh-construction: a. It lacks the property of exhaustivity. b. QP/wh-interaction gives rise to PL answer forms. c. Contrastively focused elements are not “intervenors”.

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One might attempt to account for the intervention effects in terms of Minimality at the level of the syntactic computation. This may be achieved by marking contrastively focused elements, including the wh-in-situ, with the feature +F, thus restricting the class of “intervenors” to exactly these elements. Specifically, we could say that the operator in the Comp of the wh-in-situ construction attracts a +F wh-constituent. Due to Minimality, such an operation would be blocked by any intervening +F element. The problem with this analysis is that it fails to account for the unavailability of the PL answer form in this type of questions. A successful analysis should relate the semantic property of exhaustivity of the wh-in-situ construction with the other two properties, namely (a) the unavailability of the PL answer form and (b) the fact that the presence of a contrastive focused constituent leads to ungrammaticality. In the following section I will attempt to put forward the outline of such an analysis. This analysis will capture the so-called intervention effects in the wh-in-situ construction at the interface between LF and the semantic (or logical) structure of the sentence.

. The analysis . Some preliminaries We will begin with some preliminaries, which will provide us with the necessary concepts to define the property that distinguishes informational (or nonexhaustive) focus from contrastive (or exhaustive) focus. Frege proposed that a sentence denotes its truth value (Frege 1892). We shall depart from that view by distinguishing between elementary (or non-quantified) sentences and complex sentences. We take Frege’s conjecture to hold for elementary sentences, but not for complex sentences (namely, quantified sentences in the standard sense, as well as conjunctions and disjunctions). In the case of a complex sentence S, we take S to denote a truth-assignment to a set of elementary sentences. Furthermore, we assume that the possible truth-values for elementary sentences (or TPs) are True and Undefined. The value false is derived from a case in which “not TP” is true. We summarize these assumptions below. (31) 1. The denotation of an elementary (or non-quantified) sentence (or TP) is its truth-value. Cf. Frege (1892). 2. A quantified (or complex) sentence is associated with a set of propositions (or TPs). A set of propositions does not have a truth-value. Instead, each elementary TP in the set is associated with a truth-value.

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3. There are two basic types of truth-values that can be associated to a TP: true (T) and undefined (U). The value false is derived from a case in which “not TP” is true (i.e., if “not TP” is true, then “TP” is false). To illustrate, consider the conjunction TP1 and TP2, where both TPs are elementary sentences. The denotation of this conjunction is as in (32). In other words, the conjunction itself does not have a truth-value, but each one of the conjoined TPs has a truth-value, namely the value True. (32) TP1 and TP2: {TP1 (T), TP2 (T)} Consider next the disjunction TP1 or TP2, where TP1 and TP2 are elementary sentences. We assume that a disjunction involves an additional level of complexity compared to a conjunction. Namely, the denotation (or meaning) of or is a family of sets of truth-assignments, as shown in (32). Again, the complex sentence is not assigned a truth-value, but each proposition in each of the sets is assigned a truth-value. This family of truth assignments captures the fact that in a standard disjunction only one of the conjuncts needs to be true. (33)

TP1 or TP2 : {TP1 (T), TP2 (U)} {TP1 (U), TP2 (T)} {TP1 (T), TP2 (T)}

The view of conjunctions and disjunctions just outlined will underlie the analysis of informational and contrastive focus that we will propose shortly. But before we turn to the discussion of focus, we also need to say a few words about the analysis of another quantified sentence, namely a sentence that contains a DP headed by each. We cannot give an analysis of all types of quantified sentences here, but the case of each will be sufficient to illustrate how focus interacts with quantification. A general account must of course include a formula that applies to all cases. But for the sake of clarity, here we will limit ourselves to an informal presentation of the ideas, which we will illustrate with particular examples. We analyze each as denoting a conjunction of true propositions. Thus, a sentence like (34a) may be analyzed as a mapping of a set of students onto an open proposition x read Aspects, as shown in (34b). (We restrict the set of students to two for sake of simplicity of exemplification.) This mapping gives rise to the set of true propositions in (34c). (34) a. Each student read Aspects. b. {St1, St2} → x-student read Aspects c. {St1 read Aspects (T), St2 student read Aspects (T)} We will call the set of truth-assignments like those in (32), (33), and (34c) the logical structure (or LS) of the sentence. A caveat is in order: we will use the syntactic

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term ‘TP’ and the semantic term ‘proposition’ interchangeably to talk about LS. Nothing hinges on this terminology; we therefore expect our analysis to be translatable into more standard semantic notation. With these preliminaries in hand, we now turn to the characterization of informational versus contrastive focus.

. Informational focus We assume that focus (in general) introduces a set of alternatives (as suggested by Rooth 1985). Consider the case of an assertion like (35a), where the direct object is the informational focus of the sentence. It gives rise to the mapping in (35b), where Aspects, LSLT, etc. are the alternative values. These are mapped onto the open proposition John read x. This mapping generates the set of propositions in (35c). (Note that, although the specification of the set of alternatives may be implied by the discourse context, as we are assuming in the example under discussion, it may also be the case that the set of alternatives is unspecified by the discourse context. This does not affect the logic of the analysis that we will propose.) (35) a. John read {ASPECTS} b. {Aspects, LSLT . . . } → John read x c. {John read Aspects, John read LSLT, . . . } We propose to capture the non-exhaustive nature of informational focus in an assertion in the following way. As in the case of a disjunction, only one of the propositions in the set needs to be assigned the value True. To illustrate, consider again the case of (35). Its LS would be as in (36), where only one of the alternatives is assigned the value True. The others are assigned the value Undefined. (36) {John read Aspects (T), John read LSLT (U) . . . } Let us now turn to fronted wh-questions, which, as we said earlier, present a case of informational focus, in that they lack the property of exhaustivity. We assume with Hamblin (1973) that the meaning of a question is constituted by the set of propositions that can function as its answer. Given our proposal to analyze informational focus as having properties of a disjunction, the LS of an informational focused question will be constituted by a family of sets of propositions, in which some of the alternatives may be undefined with respect to truth value. To illustrate, consider the fronted wh-question in (37a) (or its French counterpart). It will be analyzed as generating a family of sets of propositions, as shown in (38). Each set represents a particular truth-assignment, corresponding to the notion of partition in Higginbotham (1997). Each partition corresponds to a possible answer. For example, the LS in (36), which underlies the answer in (35), corresponds to the first line in (38).

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(37) a. What did John read? b. {Th1, Th2 . . . } → John read x (38) {John read Th1 (T), John read Th2 (U), . . . } {John read Th1 (U), John read Th2 (T), . . . } {John read Th1 (T), John read Th2 (T), . . . } Consider next the fronted wh-question in (39), which, as we know, is compatible with PL answers like those in (40). Alternatively, it may give rise to uniqueanswer forms, as those in (41). Recall that the PL answer involves an unpacking of the set of students, while the unique answer form does not. Thus, while (40b) and (41a) are extensionally identical, and so are (40c) and (41b), the form of the answer in each case is very different, and it is the form, not the content, of the answer that matters. (39) What did each student read? (40) a. Student 1 read Aspects and student 2 read LSLT. b. Student 1 read Aspects and LSLT and student 2 did too. c. Student 1 read Aspects and student 2 did too. (41) a. Each student read Aspects and LSLT. b. Each student read Aspects. The question in (39) involves two variables, as shown in (42a), a variable in subject position (which ranges over the set of students) and a variable in object position (which ranges over the set of things). These give rise to the mappings in (42b) and (42c), which generate the set of propositions in (43a) and (43b), respectively. Let us call the set of propositions generated by each, the each-set, and the set of propositions generated by the wh-phrase, the wh-set. (Again, for sake of simplicity, we restrict the values in each set to two members.) (42) a. x read y b. (St1, St2) → x read y c. (Th1, Th2) → x read y (43) a. {St1 read y, St2 read y} (the each-set) b. {x read Th1, x read Th2} (the wh-set) The PL interpretation is a case where the truth value assignment to the wh-set is dependent on the truth value assignment to the each-set. And this is done as follows. The truth-assignment to the each-set proceeds as usual: each proposition in the set is assigned the value True. On the other hand, there is no truth value assignment to the wh-set. Instead, each proposition in the each-set is associated with (or mapped onto) a set of propositions in the wh-set (possibly a singleton).

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Thus, the mapping can give rise to various outputs: one-to-one (44a), many-tomany (44b), or many-to-one associations (44c). (44) Pair-list (or dependent) reading:

A process that we will call Unification then applies: (45) Unification merges two (or more) sets of propositions into one single set. The purpose of Unification is to associate all variables in a true proposition with a value. In the case of dependent truth-assignments, the pairings established by the mapping rigidly specify how the merging proceeds. Unification converts (44) into (46). Any proposition with a variable not associated with a value is automatically assigned the value Undefined (as is the case in (46c)). (Cf. answer (40a)) (46) a. {[St1 read Th1 ](T), [St1 read Th2 ](T)} b. {[St1 read Th1 ](T), [St1 read Th2 ](T), [St2 read Th1 ](T), [St2 read Th2 ](T)} (Cf. answer (40b)) c. {[St1 read Th1 ](T), [St2 read Th1 ](T), [x read Th2 ](U)} (Cf. answer (40c)) The set of propositions in (46a) underlies the PL answer in (40a), the set in (46b) underlies the PL answer in (40b), and the set in (46c) underlies the PL answer in (40c). We now turn to the so-called independent reading of (39a), which underlies the unique answer form. The claim is that this case arises when the truth value assignment to the each-set is independent of the truth value assignment to the whset. This is illustrated in (47). (47a) is the set generated by each and (47b) is the set generated by the wh-phrase. (47) Independent reading: a. {[St1 read y](T), [St2 read y](T)}

(each-set)

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b. {[x read Th1](T), [x read Th2](T)} {[x read Th1](T), [x read Th2](U)} {[x read Th1](U), [x read Th2](T)}

(wh-set)

As stated in (48), we furthermore assume that: (48) a.

When the assertion of a sentence contains two (or more) sets of propositions with independent truth-value assignment, an operation that we will call Wrap must apply prior to Unification. b. Wrap applies within each of the sets and reduces all the propositions with the same truth-value into one single proposition. This is done by gathering all the values associated with the same variable into one single set.

Wrap converts (47) into (49). In (49a) all the values for ‘student’ are gathered together in the same set. In the first line in (49b), all the values for ‘thing’ are gathered together in the same set. (49) a. {[[St1, St2] read y](T)} b. {[x read [Th1, Th2]](T)} {[x read Th1](T), [x read Th2](U)} {[x read Th1](U), [x read Th2](T)}

(each-set)

(wh-set)

Unification then merges the sets in (49a) and (49b), as shown in (50). The first line in the set in (50) underlies the unique answer form in (41a) and the second or third line underlies the unique answer form in (41b). (50) {[[St1, St2] read [Th1, Th2]](T)} {[[St1, St2] read Th1](T), [x read Th2](U)} {[x read Th1](U), [[St1, St2] read Th2](T)}

Cf. answer (41a) Cf. answer (41b)

We summarize in (51) the important properties to be retained with respect to the mapping between an each-NP and the informational wh-focus. Note that the description of PL (or dependent) reading vs. unique (or independent) reading that we have given here can be viewed as giving semantic content to the ordering of quantifiers in the standard LF analysis of scope in terms of Quantifier Raising. (51) a.

In the PL-answer form, truth-value assignment goes from the each-set to the wh-set. b. In the single-answer form, the truth value assignment is independent for the each-set and for the wh-set. c. The final LS must be a set in which all variables in a true proposition must be assigned a value. This is achieved by the process of Unification.

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d. When the truth-value assignment to one set of propositions is dependent on the truth-value assignment to another set of propositions, the process of unification is dictated by the mapping between the two sets. e. When two sets of propositions are assigned truth-values independently, each set must be wrapped into a minimal set before undergoing unification. Wrapping applies to the set of true propositions, gathering all the values associated with the same variable across propositions into one single set We turn next to contrastive focus and the property of exhaustivity.

. Contrastive focus We propose that bare contrastive focus arises when a sentential operator that we will call ‘A-not-A’ associates with the focused constituent, as shown in (52). By bare contrastive focus, we mean a focus that is not otherwise associated with an overt operator like only or even. (52) [A-not-A]i [John read Aspectsi ] (not LSLT) We assume that all cases of constituent negation are cases in which a focused constituent is associated with the A-not-A operator. Thus, the sentence “John did not read Aspects” has the pre-spell out structure in (53a) and the LF in (53b). (53) a. [Johnj [A-not-Ai [ej did not read Aspectsi ] (but LSLT) b. [A-not-A]i [John read Aspectsi ] (but LSLT) Recall that the focused constituent introduces a set of alternatives. We propose here that the implicit contrast given in parenthesis in (52) and in (53) is part of the meaning of the sentence. More precisely, we propose that: (54) When the focused constituent is associated with the A-not-A operator, the set of propositions generated by mapping the set of alternatives onto an open TP is partitioned into two well-defined subsets: ‘TP’ and ‘Not TP’, each of which is assigned the value True. This captures the exhaustive nature of contrastive focus. To illustrate, consider the example in (52), which gives rise to the mapping in (55a). This mapping generates the set of TPs in (55b), which the A-not-A operator partitions as in (55c). ‘Not TP (T)’ is, by definition, the contrast set of ‘TP (T)’. Note that contrastive focus is like a conjunction in that all the propositions in the set are assigned the value True. (55) a.

{Aspects, LSLT}→ [A-not-Ax [John read x]}

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b. {[John read Aspects], [John read LSLT]} c. {[John read Aspects](T), Not [John read LSLT](T)} As for NPIs, like personne and rien, we assume that they are truncated cases of contrastive focus.5 More precisely, (56) An NPI is associated solely with the ‘not-A’ part of the operator. Thus, (57a) has the LF in (57b). This LF generates propositions that are solely of the form ‘Not TP(T)’. In such a case, there is no value assignment to the variable bound to the ‘Not’ operator that renders the TP true. (57) a.

Pierre n’a vu personne. ‘Pierre didn’t see anybody.’ b. Notx [Pierre saw x]

.. The wh-in-situ construction This construction has a contrastive focused interpretation by virtue of the fact that the wh-in-situ is bound to the A-not-A operator. Its semantics is therefore comparable to that of an assertion with a contrastive focused constituent. In other words, there must be a value assignment to the focus variable that renders ‘TP’ true and there must be a value assignment to the focus variable that renders ‘Not TP’ true. This captures the exhaustive interpretation of this construction. To illustrate, consider the syntactic form in (58a). It gives rise to the mapping in (58b), which generates the set of propositions in (58c). The A-not-A operator partitions this set. A possible partitioning is the one given in (59). (58) a.

[[A-not-A]i [Jean a lu quoii]? ‘Jean read what?’ b. {Th1 ,Th2 } → [A-not-Ai [Jean a lu xi ]] c. {[Jean a lu Th1 ], [Jean a lu Th2 ]}

(59) {[Jean a lu Th1 ](T), Not [Jean a lu Th2 ](T)}

.. On the interaction of the wh-in-situ with an NPI Recall that there is no value-assignment to an NPI variable that can render the proposition true. For this same reason, the French wh-in-situ, as well as any other case of contrastive focused DP, cannot coexist with an NPI in the same proposition. This is exemplified below. (60) a. *Pierre n’a présenté personne à qui? Pierre didn’t introduced anyone to whom?

Cf. (25b)

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b. *Pierre n’a présenté personne qu’à Paul. Pierre did not introduce anybody to someone other than Paul. Cf. Pierre n’a présenté Marie qu’à Paul. Let us examine the example in (60b) more closely (a similar analysis would apply to (60a)). Its LF representation would be as in (61). Paul has a contrast set, which is all other than Paul. The TP must be ‘Not True’ of the contrast set, but it must be ‘True’ of Paul. The latter is incompatible with the meaning of the NPI. As mentioned earlier, the NPI, by virtue of being bound only to the ‘Not A’ part, prevents the TP from being assigned a value True. Another (more mechanical) way of saying the same thing is that it is not possible to access a subpart of the complex A-not-A operator (in this case, the ‘not A’ part). (61) *[A [Not A]y ]x [Pierre présenté y qu’à x] Compare (60a) with (62), which contains two NPIs and is perfectly wellformed. The latter has the LF representation in (63). (62) Pierre n’a presenté personne à personne. ‘Pierre did not introduce anybody to anybody.’ (63) [Not A]x,y [Pierre a présenté y à x] We are now in a position to understand some of the facts discussed in Section 1.1: why (6) (repeated in (64a)) is a possible answer to the fronted wh-question in (4) (repeated in (64c)) but not to the in-situ question in (2) (repeated in (64b)). (64) a. (Pierre n’a parlé) à personne. b. Pierre a parlé à qui? c. A qui est-ce Pierre a parlé? (64a) is associated with the LS below: (65) [Notx [TP Pierre spoke to some x]](T) The LS in (65) can function indirectly as an answer to (64c) in the following way. We suggest the existence of a metalinguistic negative operator NOT (not to be confused with constituent negation ‘Not’). While ‘Not’ has the proposition (or TP) in its scope, metalinguistic NOT has scope over the set of propositions (or TPs). It says that none of the propositions in the set generated by the focused wh-phrase is true: (66) NOT [[TP Pierre spoke to P1 ](T), [TP Pierre spoke to P2 ](T), . . . ] Now note that (66) implies (65). Therefore, (64a) is a possible (indirect) answer to (64c). Consider next the in-situ question in (64b), which introduces the partitioning of the focus set into ‘TP is True’ and ‘Not TP is True.’ (64a) cannot be a direct

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answer to such a question because, as we saw earlier, the NPI is a truncated focused phrase, which is incompatible with a contrastive focused phrase in the same TP. The question then arises as to why (64a) cannot function as an implied or indirect answer to the in-situ question. For this situation to arise, we must apply the metalinguistic NOT operator to the partitioned set generated by the contrastive focused wh-in-situ, as shown in (66). We can easily see that (67) does not imply (65). (67) NOT [TP Pierre spoke to P](T), [Not [TP Pierre spoke to ‘contrast set of P’]](T)

.. On the interaction of ‘chaque’ NP and the wh-in-situ Recall that a wh-in-situ may be c-commanded by a DP headed by chaque, but that such questions disallow the PL answer form. It is compatible only with a unique answer form. Consider (68a). It has the LF representation in (68b), which gives rise to the mappings in (69a) and (69b). {L1, L2} is the set of books introduced by chaque and {P1, P2} is the set of persons introduced by the focused wh-phrase. (Again, for sake of simplicity of exemplification, we restrict the set of alternatives to two values.) (68) a.

Pierre a donné chaque livre à qui? ‘Pierre gave each book to whom?’ b. [A-not-A]i [Pierre a donné chaque livre à quii ]

(69) a. {L1 , L2 }→ [A-not-A]y [Pierre gave x-book to y-person] b. {P1 , P2 }→ [A-not-A]y [Pierre a donné x-book to y-person] As we have seen in Section 3.2, these mappings generate two sets of propositions: the each-set and the wh-set. There are two possible LS analyses, one in which each of the sets is assigned a truth value independently of the other (the independent reading) and another in which the truth value assignment to the wh-set is dependent on the truth value assignment to the each-set (the dependent reading). Consider the independent reading first. On the one hand, each proposition generated by the operator chaque is assigned the value ‘True,’ as shown in (70a). On the other hand, the set of propositions generated by the wh-phrase is partitioned into two subsets by the A-not-A operator to which it is bound: those that are in the set ‘TP (T)’ and those that are in the set ‘Not TP (T)’. A possible partitioning is the one given in (70b). (70) a. {[Pierre gave L1 to y](T), [Pierre gave L2 to y](T)} (each-set) b. {[Pierre gave x to P1 ](T), [Not [Pierre gave x to P2 ]](T)} (wh-set)

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The set in (70a) undergoes the operation Wrap (see (48)), giving rise to a reduction of propositions, as shown in (71b). Wrap does not affect (70b) since one of the subset has the value ‘True’ and the other the value ‘Not True’. (71) a. {[Pierre gave [L1 , L2 ] to y](T)} b. {[Pierre gave x to P1 ](T), NOT [Pierre gave x to P2 ](T)} (= (70b)) The operation of Unification (see (45)) then merges the two sets of propositions in (71) into a single set. It is important to recall that ‘TP (T)’ and ‘Not TP (T)’ in (71b) are two sides of the same coin. We therefore assume the convention given below: (72) In the case of the set {TP (T), Not TP (T)}, if the operation of Unification applies to one of the conjuncts, then the same operation extends to the other conjunct. Thus, if Unification merges ‘TP’ (T) in (71a) with ‘TP’ (T) in (71b), the same process extends to ‘Not TP’ (T): ‘TP’ (T) in (71a) merges with ‘Not TP’ (T) in (71b). The output is shown in (73). (73) {[Pierre gave [L1 , L2 ] to P1 ](T), [Not [Pierre gave [L1 , L2 ] to P2 ]](T)} The set in (73) gives rise to a unique answer form, as exemplified in (74). P may be a definite description or a name (e.g., Marie) or it may be a function (e.g., author of (x), which contrasts with other functions such as owner of (x)). (74) Pierre a donné chaque livre à P (P=à Marie, à son auteur) “Pierre gave each book to P” (P=to Marie, to his author) Consider next the representation that would underlie the impossible PL interpretation of (68a) and try to determine why it fails. Recall that the PL reading is one in which the truth value assignment to one set of propositions is dependent on the truth value assignment to the other set of propositions. In the case under discussion, this means that we must partition both sets in terms of ‘TP (T)’ and ‘Not TP (T)’ but this is not possible because the A-not-A operator is not associated with the direct object chaque livre; it is only associated with the wh-phrase. Therefore, we cannot construct a PL interpretation for (68a).

..

On the interaction of a wh-in-situ phrase and a contrastive focused constituent As we have seen in §2.2.3, wh-in-situ questions that contain a contrastive focused constituent are illformed. These are cases in which both the wh-in-situ and some other constituent in the sentence are associated with the A-not-A operator, as illus-

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trated in (75). In the configuration in (75b), known as “absorption” (in the sense of Higginbotham & May 1981), truth-values are assigned to pairs of variables. In other words, a configuration of absorption requires a dependent truth-value assignment, which gives rise to a PL answer form. (75) a. *Pierre a donné un LIVRE à QUI? (pas un DISQUE) ‘Pierre gave a book to whom?’ (not a record) b. [A-not-A]i/j [Pierre a donné un LIVREi à QUIj ] (pas un DISQUE) The LF form in (75b) gives rise to the mapping in (76): (76)

Given the convention in (72), the mapping in (76) has the general form in (77). When Unification applies to (77) and merges A with C, it also merges A with D by extension (as indicated by broken lines). Similarly, when B merges with D, B also merges with C by extension (again indicated by broken lines). (77)

A {TP(T), C

B NOT TP(T)} D

The mapping in (76), in conjunction with the convention in (72), gives rise to the set of propositions in (78). As we can see, the contrastive interpretation for the focused direct object is completely obliterated. In each set, there is a contrast established between the indirect object P1 and P2, but there is no contrast established between the direct objects L1 and L2. (78) {[Pierre gave L1 to P1 ](T), NOT [Pierre gave L1 to P2 ](T), [Pierre gave L2 to P1 ](T), NOT [Pierre gave L2 to P2 ](T)} Hence, we conclude that what is at play here is the following constraint: (79) When a focused constituent is linked to the A-not-A operator, the process of Unification cannot obliterate the “not-A” part of its meaning. The constraint in (79) follows from the more general principle known as Full Interpretation, or more precisely from a slightly revised version of it. The Principle of Full Interpretation (FI) says that all lexical items present at LF must be assigned

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a semantic interpretation (cf. Chomsky 1986). For our purposes, we need to refine FI as follows: (80) All lexical items present at LF must be assigned a semantic interpretation congruent with its syntactic representation. In the LF form (75b), the A-not-A operator is bound both to the direct and the indirect object. An interpretation that is congruent with such representation would be one in which the LS partitions the set of propositions into a positive and a negative subset with respect to the direct object and with respect to the indirect object. As we have seen, this is indeed the case with respect to the indirect object, but not with respect to the direct object; cf. (78). Hence, the LF/LS pair (75b)/(78) violates FI. The analysis presented above predicts that two contrastively focused constituent cannot coexist within the same proposition. This prediction appears to be borne out:6 (81) a.

Ils ont TOUS lu quatre livres They ALL read four books b. Ils ont tous lu QUATRE livres (non pas CINQ) They all read FOUR books (not FIVE) c. *Ils ont TOUS lu QUATRE livres (non pas CINQ) They ALL read FOUR books (not FIVE)

Due to space constraints, we will not discuss clefted wh-in-situ questions here; cf. (3). We will only mention that this type of questions has the property of exhaustivity but exhibits neither the constraint on the PL interpretation nor the so-called intervention effects (see Vergnaud & Zubizarreta 2001 for a discussion and analysis of such facts). This shows that the French wh-in-situ question (such as (2)) should not be analyzed as a hidden clefted question (such as (3)).

. Conclusion We have shown that a syntactic Minimality-based account of the so-called “intervention effects” in the French wh-in-situ gives the wrong result. It cannot successfully relate such effects with the property of exhaustivity and the lack of PL readings. We have argued that this phenomenon is to be accounted for at the interface between LF and the semantic component of the grammar. The failure of syntactic Minimality in the case at hand is informative. This approach relies on the annotation of syntactic constituents with the feature +F. Since this notation has proven to be unrevealing at best and wrong at worst in the analysis of the French

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wh-in-situ construction, we may construe this as suggesting that the syntactic representation should not be annotated with the feature F (for focus). See Zubizarreta and Vergnaud (2000) for a similar conclusion on the basis of different data.

Notes * The research reported in this paper is part of an ongoing collaboration with Jean-Roger Vergnaud. . Our inquiries confirm the existence of these three properties for the French whconstruction for a number of speakers. But we are aware that for some speakers the French wh-in-situ lack all of these properties. This suggests that there might be another grammar for French wh-in-situ for certain speakers, which coexists with the one reported and analyzed in this article. If there are two parallel grammars coexisting within the population, this could be taken as suggesting that there is a process of language change going on with respect to this construction (cf. Kroch 1989). This is undoubtedly a very interesting issue which merits further investigation, but which goes beyond our present goal. From now on, when we refer to the French wh-in-situ, we refer solely to the dialect that exhibits the properties in (1). It is also important that, in pronouncing the wh-in-situ question, any abrupt change in pitch be avoided immediately preceding the wh-phrase, so as to insure that no prosodic phrase boundary is introduced at that point. Such a pronunciation might very well be associated with another type of question. And of course, it is only the non-echo interpretation that interests us in this paper. . As mentioned in the previous note, it is important to control for intonation when judging the in-situ questions discussed here. . Note that the functional reading , but not the PL reading, is available in the wh-in-situ construction. This suggests that Chierchia’s (1993) proposal whereby the PL reading derives from the functional reading is incorrect. . There is independent evidence for the unambiguous emphatic nature of floated beaucoup. As shown in the examples (i)–(ii), beaucoup de N is ambiguous: either the range or the determiner may bear phrasal stress, giving rise to different interpretations. In (i), the DP is focused and the contrast set is “the set of things eaten”. In (ii), the quantity is the focus and the contrast set is “the set of pizzas eaten.” There is agreement between the predicate adjective and the object in (ii) but not in (i). Cf. Azoulay-Vicente (1985). (i)

Il a mangé beaucoup de PIZZAS de chaud/*de chaudes. “He ate a lot of pizza of warm (masc. sing.)/of warm (fem. pl.).”

(ii) Il a mangé BEAUCOUP de pizzas *de chaud/de chaudes. On the other hand, as shown by the paradigm below, floated beaucoup is not ambiguous: (iii) Il a BEAUCOUP mangé de pizzas *de chaud/de chaudes. (iv) Il a beaucoup mangé de PIZZAS *de chaud/*de chaudes.

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French wh-in-situ construction  . This analysis remains silent on contrasts such as Nobody/*anybody came vs. I didn’t see anybody/*nobody. . The example in (i), which sounds fine, should be analyzed as a case of contrastive focused TP (rather than as a case of double contrastive focused DPs): (i)

MARY kissed BILL (it is not the case that SUE kissed JEFF).

An anonymous reviewer points out examples of topicalized DPs, such as the following, as potentially problematic: (ii) Now this charity, I just wouldn’t give anything to. But such examples are probably cases of contrastive topic, rather than of contrastive focus.

References Azoulay-Vicente, A. (1985). Les tours comportant l’expression de+adjectif. Droz, Geneva. Boeckx, Cédric (1999). Some in-situ, some in Spec CP. Unpublished manuscript, University of Connecticut, Storrs. Boeckx, Cédric (2000). Properties of French Interrogatives. Unpublished manuscript, University of Connecticut, Storrs. Chierchia, Gennaro (1993). Questions with Quantifiers. Natural Language Semantics, 1, 161–234. Chomsky, Noam (1986). Knowledge of Language. Praeger, New York. Frege, Gottlob (1892). Über Sinn und Bedeutung. Zeitschrift für Philosophie und philosophische Kritik (new series) 100, 25–50. English translation in Peter Geach & Max Black (Eds., 1952), Translations from the Philosophical Writings of Gottlob Frege. Oxford: Blackwell. Hamblin, C. L. (1973). Questions in Montague English. Foundations of Language, 10, 41–53. Higginbotham, James & Robert May (1981). Questions, Quantifiers, and Crossing. The Linguistic Review, 77, 278–312. Higginbotham, James (1993). Questions. In Ken Hale & Samuel J. Keyser (Eds.), The View from Building 20. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Krifka, Manfred (1995). The Semantics and Pragmatics of Polarity Items. Linguistic Analysis, 25, 209–257. Kroch, Anthony (1989). Reflexes of grammar in patterns of language change. Journal of Language Variation and Change, 1, 199–244. Rooth, Mats (1985). Association with focus. Ph.D. dissertation, University of Massachusetts at Amherst. Reproduced by GLSA, Linguistics Department, University of Massachusetts, Amherst. Zubizarreta, María Luisa & Jean Roger Vergnaud (in press). Phrasal Syntax and Stress. In Elena Anagnostopoulou & Marc van Oostendorp (Eds.), Twenty Years of Grammatical Models. The Dutch Royal Academy of Sciences.

Index

A A-position 331, 341, 342, 344, 348–353 accusative clitic 182, 191, 192 adaptation 11, 69, 209–211, 225, 226 affrication 17 ad sensum agreement 352 agreement 3, 4, 7, 217, 224, 226, 273, 274, 276–279, 281, 286, 287, 295, 308, 313, 314, 316, 317, 319–324, 332, 333, 335, 339, 350, 352, 378 agreement marker(s) 3, 4, 7, 16 analogical criterion 216 analogy 200, 216, 226, 348 animate 182, 224, 296, 313, 314, 317, 322–324 ANOVA 186–188, 190 antitopic 205 argument structure 152, 156, 157, 159 aspect 236, 255–257, 264, 269, 270, 280, 300, 301, 313, 314, 327 aspect/aktionsart 12, 253, 255, 264, 269, 270 aspiration 21–27, 29, 30, 32–36 atelic 256–260, 263–266, 269, 271 attenuation 129 avoidance uncertainty 175, 187 B bare nominals 291, 292, 294–297 Basque Spanish 182, 311–323 benefactive sentences 236 bilingual settings 209

speakers 182–186, 188, 191, 192, 211, 321 biological adaptiveness hypothesis 211 Brazilian Portuguese 151, 152, 154, 156, 159–162, 309, 312, 313, 320

C c-command 250, 318, 319, 361 Chunk Hypothesis 321, 324 Clitic doubling 233, 237, 247, 248, 316, 322, 323 clitic group 16, 42 clitic sequences 3, 4, 7, 10, 18 codeswitching vs. borrowing 223 cognitive interpretation 256, 265–269 cognitive load 181, 212, 216 collective nouns 350 complement clause(s) 262, 264–266, 271 conditionals 10, 128, 133–135, 140–143, 145–148 consonant epenthesis 39, 40, 48, 49, 55 contact-induced change 11, 209, 210, 213 contact languages 182 contrastive focus 359, 361, 366, 367, 371, 372, 379 conversational implicature 122 corpus study 99 Correspondence Theory 39, 47, 72, 77 Creole languages 295, 298, 299

 Index

D dative 152, 164, 181–183, 187, 188, 191, 193, 233–247, 249, 250, 321–323, 352, 354 alternation 152, 156, 159–161, 233 decreasing operators 122 default forms 274, 277, 280, 284–286 degree expressions 123 denial 120, 122, 124, 126 direct object 196–200, 266, 311, 332, 342, 367, 375–377 clitics 6 nominals 316 position 152, 153, 155, 156, 162, 182, 188, 335, 336, 339 disjunctive pronouns 100 ditransitive constructions 151, 152, 154, 156, 158, 159 duration rhythm 66, 76, 77 E emphatic NPIs 123 endpoint (in a scale) 123 entailment 236, 244, 307 epenthesis 3, 4, 6–17, 39, 40, 42, 46–50, 54, 55 European Portuguese 151, 162 evidentiality 267–269 exhaustivity 13, 359–361, 364, 365, 367, 371, 377 external modifications 171, 175, 177 F faithfulness constraint 284 floating constraint 282 French 4, 7–9, 12–14, 17, 18, 32, 39, 42–44, 46–48, 53, 54, 83–85, 90, 92–96, 99–102, 106, 108–111, 113–115, 168, 205, 209, 223, 227, 236, 243, 273–280, 282, 286, 296, 297, 299, 302, 303, 309, 315–317, 320, 327–329, 332–336, 339, 359, 363, 364, 367, 372, 377, 378

functional projections

280, 348, 353

G geminate(s) 18, 60, 64, 65, 68, 70, 76, 77 consonants 7, 18 vowels 69 gender 103, 169, 181–186, 189–192, 210, 214–218, 222–227 agreement 323 classes 213 features 322 system 213, 223 generalized quantifiers 122 genitive 151 grammatical change 99

H Haitian Creole 291, 297, 329 ‘have for be’ parameter 328, 333, 337, 338 head incorporation 330, 331, 335, 336, 338 historical change 39, 41, 46, 99

I iconicity 205 idiom chunks 245 imperfecto 253, 255–260, 262–265, 268–271 inalienable possession 161 indefinite meaning 109–111, 113–115 indirect requests 168–170, 176, 177 indirectness 168–170, 176, 177 individual level predicates 346 informational focus 361, 367 intervenors 364, 365 intrusive consonants 39, 40, 42, 44, 47, 48, 54 Italian 3, 10, 14, 59–62, 65–70, 72–77, 134, 140, 142, 145, 227, 273, 294, 298, 299, 301, 302, 306,

Index 

307, 330, 332, 334, 337, 341, 347–349, 351, 352 L language acquisition 273 language contact 182, 311, 320 leísta 317 levels of cliticization 16 lexical effects 27, 30, 33, 36 light verb 153, 157–159, 161 linguistic adaptiveness hypothesis 211

optional infinitive 273–275, 286 overt preverbal subjects 341, 342 oye 171–173, 177

N n-words 119, 122 negation 105, 109, 120–122, 193, 323, 371, 373 negative particle 9, 99, 114, 120, 130 New York City Spanish 210 non-declaratives 128 non-finite root forms (NRFs) 273 null objects 13, 311–318, 320, 322–324 null pronominals 312, 314, 315, 319 null subject 273, 341, 352, 354

P partial ranking 282–284 passé surcomposé 327, 333 Peninsular Spanish 167, 169, 177, 187, 320 periphrastic 115, 153, 157–161 personal meaning 109, 112, 113 phonological clitics 7 phonotactic patterns 33, 34, 36 plural morphology 292, 306, 307, 309 Plural Parameter 291–293, 300, 301, 306, 308 potentially light 152–154, 156, 159, 161 pragmatic scales 119 pragmatics 119, 141, 167, 253, 255, 264, 269 preposition a, para 151, 153, 155, 156, 161, 162 prepositional dative 233–237, 239–247, 249 pretérito 253, 254, 256–259, 261–267, 269–271 Principle C 316, 349 Principle of Full Interpretation 376 pro 151–155, 222, 311, 316–319, 322, 341, 347, 350, 351, 354 pro-drop 115 propositions 90–92, 124, 141, 144, 256, 257, 365–377

O object clitics 4, 6, 7, 100, 105, 312 Old French 39, 42–44, 46–48, 53, 54 Old Spanish 39–44, 46–49, 54, 55 Optimality Theory 47, 51, 59, 62, 67, 68, 71, 77, 274, 280, 281, 287

Q quantifier scope 345 que digamos 119, 121–130 Quechua 182, 311, 313, 314, 322 Québec colloquial French 17

M markedness constraint 75 Marsican 74–76, 78 metathesis 17, 18, 54 Mexican-American Spanish 183 Minimalist Program 318, 341 Minimality 365, 377 Morpheme Contiguity 13 morphological affixes 3, 7, 102 morphologization 99, 101, 102, 105–107, 114

 Index

R Raddoppiamento 59–61, 65, 66, 68, 69, 73, 75, 76 referential null objects 311, 312, 315, 316, 320 reflexive clitic se 321 role play 169 S scale of expectations 119, 125, 130, 131 semantic change 99, 103, 256 semantic pragmatic changes 185 sensory interpretation 255, 267, 268 sequence of tense(s) 12, 253, 270 simplification 60, 181, 189, 191, 209, 212, 216 social distance 170, 176, 177 social power 170 sonority 39, 41, 42, 44, 46, 50, 54, 64 distance 8 profile 45 rising sonority 39, 41, 42 rising sonority profile 47–48 rising sonority slope 45 specialization hypothesis 342, 351 specificity 155 speech acts 96, 167 stress 24, 26, 27, 29, 30, 33, 41, 60, 62, 65, 69–71, 84, 195, 200–207, 329, 353, 363, 378 Stress-to-Weight Principle 69 subject clitic inversion 6, 9 subject pronouns 3–6, 9, 106, 107, 114, 115, 347, 351 subjunctive 121, 133–135, 141, 148, 193, 253, 323 subordinate language 191, 211 Syllable Contact 10, 13, 14, 45, 47, 48, 50 Syllable Contact Law 45, 47 synchronic variability 99 T tampoco 122, 129, 130

telic 256–259, 263–266, 269, 270 temporal flexibility 134 tense 10, 12, 70, 134, 135, 137, 139, 142, 146, 147, 253–256, 258, 261–264, 266–268, 270, 273, 274, 277–279, 281, 283, 284, 286, 287, 300, 308, 316, 321, 323 tentativeness 168, 169, 176, 177 topic shift or continuity 195, 203 topic saliency 205 Transfer Hypothesis 314 typological status 99 U unaccusative verb constructions 332, 334, 335 unergative constructions 331, 332, 334 Universal Sonority Hierarchy 45, 47 Uruguayan Spanish 167–169, 176–178 usage-based model of phonology 29 V variable rule analysis 24, 28, 29, 36 variation 21, 23, 30, 32, 34, 74, 152, 156, 161, 162, 167, 191, 274, 280, 281, 283, 291, 292, 328, 331, 336, 351, 353 auxiliary variation 330, 334 dialectal variation 327 free variation 94 Labovian variation 154, 155 language-internal variation 18 parametric variation 338 synchronic variation 99 verbal arguments 4 W Weak Crossover 316 wh-in-situ construction 359, 361, 363–365, 372, 378 word order 83, 90, 94, 115, 158, 195, 196, 199, 201–203, 207, 235, 237, 238, 240, 245, 249, 250, 323

CURRENT ISSUES IN LINGUISTIC THEORY E. F. K. Koerner Zentrum für Allgemeine Sprachwissenschaft, Typologie und Universalienforschung, Berlin The Current Issues in Linguistic Theory (CILT) series is a theory-oriented series which welcomes contributions from scholars who have significant proposals to make towards the advancement of our understanding of language, its structure, functioning and development. CILT has been established in order to provide a forum for the presentation and discussion of linguistic opinions of scholars who do not necessarily accept the prevailing mode of thought in linguistic science. It offers an alternative outlet for meaningful contributions to the current linguistic debate, and furnishes the diversity of opinion which a healthy discipline must have. A complete list of titles in this series can be found on the publishers website, www.benjamins.com/jbp 205. DIRVEN, René, Roslyn M. FRANK and Cornelia ILIE (eds.): Language and Ideology. Volume 2: descriptive cognitive approaches. 2001. 206. FAWCETT, Robin P.: A Theory of Syntax for Systemic Functional Linguistics. 2000. 207. SANZ, Montserrat: Events and Predication. A new approach to syntactic processing in English and Spanish. 2000. 208. ROBINSON, Orrin W.: Whose German? The ach/ich alternation and related phenomena in ‘standard’ and ‘colloquial’. 2001. 209. KING, Ruth: The Lexical Basis of Grammatical Borrowing. A Prince Edward Island French case study. 2000. 210. DWORKIN, Steven N. and Dieter WANNER (eds.): New Approaches to Old Problems. Issues in Romance historical linguistics. 2000. 211. ELŠÍK, Viktor and Yaron MATRAS (eds.): Grammatical Relations in Romani. The Noun Phrase. 2000. 212. REPETTI, Lori (ed.): Phonological Theory and the Dialects of Italy. 2000. 213. SORNICOLA, Rosanna, Erich POPPE and Ariel SHISHA-HALEVY (eds.): Stability, Variation and Change of Word-Order Patterns over Time. 2000. 214. WEIGAND, Edda and Marcelo DASCAL (eds.): Negotiation and Power in Dialogic Interaction. 2001. 215. BRINTON, Laurel J.: Historical Linguistics 1999. Selected papers from the 14th International Conference on Historical Linguistics, Vancouver, 9-13 August 1999. 2001.. 216. CAMPS, Joaquim and Caroline R. WILTSHIRE (eds.): Romance Syntax, Semantics and L2 Acquisition. Selected papers from the 30th Linguistic Symposium on Romance Languages, Gainesville, Florida, February 2000. 2001. 217. WILTSHIRE, Caroline R. and Joaquim CAMPS (eds.): Romance Phonology and Variation. Selected papers from the 30th Linguistic Symposium on Romance Languages, Gainesville, Florida, February 2000. 2002. 218. BENDJABALLAH, S., W.U. DRESSLER, O. PFEIFFER and M. VOEIKOVA (eds.): Morphology 2000. Selected papers from the 9th Morphology Meeting, Vienna, 24–28 February 2000. 2002. 219. ANDERSEN, Henning (ed.): Actualization. Linguistic Change in Progress. 2001. 220. SATTERFIELD, Teresa, Christina TORTORA and Diana CRESTI (eds.): Current Issues in Romance Languages. Selected papers from the 29th Linguistic Symposium on Romance Languages (LSRL), Ann Arbor, 8-11 April 1999. 2002. 221. D'HULST, Yves, Johan ROORYCK and Jan SCHROTEN (eds.): Romance Languages and Linguistic Theory 1999. Selected papers from ‘Going Romance’ 1999, Leiden, 9-11 December. 2001. 222. HERSCHENSOHN, Julia, Enrique MALLÉN and Karen ZAGONA (eds.): Features and Interfaces in Romance. Essays in honor of Heles Contreras. 2001. 223. FANEGO, Teresa, María José LÓPEZ-COUSO and Javier PÉREZ-GUERRA (eds.): English Historical Syntax and Morphology. Selected papers from 11 ICEHL, Santiago de

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