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Klivaj predika, or predicate clefts in Haitian
Abstract
Haitian’s well studied predicate cleft and its unstudied predicate reduplication are closely related: the former derives from the latter by A-bar movement of one reduplicant. This claim solves two long standing problems of the construction (why, apparently, this A-bar movement targets a head and leaves no gap). Moreover, it predicts novel restrictions on when predicate clefts are possible and makes possible a straightforward formalization of their semantics.
... 'I had ARRIVED, so-then Paul (had) left.') 'Once I had ARRIVED, Paul (had) left.' VFD constructions are mentioned and discussed in a number of linguistic works bearing on Haitian (Sylvain 1936, Piou 1982a,b, Hutchison 1989, Lefebvre 1989, 1991, Lefebvre & Ritter 1993, Lumsden 1990, Lumsden & Lefebvre 1990, DeGraff 1992, Manfredi 1993, Harbour 2008, other Caribbean (Bernabé 1983, Méry 1988) and Non-Caribbean (Mufwene 1987) French-lexifier creoles, and some African languages (Koopman 1984, Mufwene 1987, 1994, Aboh 2003, Aboh & Dyakonova 2009). Available analyses of VFD are however not consensual, and with one major exception (Lefebvre 1998), they either focus on Kwa languages rather than Haitian (cf. ...
... Available analyses of VFD are however not consensual, and with one major exception (Lefebvre 1998), they either focus on Kwa languages rather than Haitian (cf. Aboh 2003and Aboh & Dyakonova 2009), or on Haitian and/or other French-Caribbean creoles but only on one subcase -generally 5 the one labeled Predicate Cleft (Piou 1982a, Lumsden 1990, Lumsden & Lefebvre 1990, Larson & Lefebvre 1991, Manfredi 1993, Harbour 2008, a term indiscriminately used in reference to (1a) and (1d). Lefebvre (1998) proposes a comprehensive analysis of VFD in Haitian, but her assumptions raise some problems discussed below in section 3.3. ...
... Lefebvre (1998) proposes a comprehensive analysis of VFD in Haitian, but her assumptions raise some problems discussed below in section 3.3. Harbour (2008) focuses on Haitian Predicate-Cleft (e.g. (1d)) but leaves to future research the possible generalisation of his analysis to the other instances of VFD exemplified in (1). ...
Cet article porte sur les constructions à Antéposition du Verbe avec Redoublement (anglais: Verb Fronting with Doubling: VFD) en haïtien, constructions dont la périphérie gauche contient un homonyme nu du lexème verbal, et dont l'interprétation implique la focalisation du verbe. Les auteurs visent à mettre à jour la description de VFD et à atteindre une analyse permettant d'éclairer les questions théoriques centrales pour l'ensemble de l'ouvrage. L'étude de VFD en haïtien conduit aux conclusions suivantes: (i) Les opérations syntaxiques impliquées dans la dérivation de VFD sont disponibles indépendamment du phénomène de réitération; (ii) L'effet sémantique de VFD n'est pas l'"intensification" mais le focus contrastif, et découle de la modification restrictive (cette hypothèse, si elle est correcte, ne permet donc guère d'analyser la relation forme-sens comme "icônique"); (iii) VFD, en haïtien, peut avoir résulté d'une recombinaison parfaitement régulière de traits contribuant à produire des effets de focus en français, en gbe, et dans la Grammaire Universelle.
... 'I had ARRIVED, so-then Paul (had) left.') 'Once I had ARRIVED, Paul (had) left.' VFD constructions are mentioned and discussed in a number of linguistic works bearing on Haitian (Sylvain 1936, Piou 1982a,b, Hutchison 1989, Lefebvre 1989, 1991, Lefebvre & Ritter 1993, Lumsden 1990, Lumsden & Lefebvre 1990, DeGraff 1992, Manfredi 1993, Harbour 2008, other Caribbean (Bernabé 1983, Méry 1988) and Non-Caribbean (Mufwene 1987) French-lexifier creoles, and some African languages (Koopman 1984, Mufwene 1987, 1994, Aboh 2003, Aboh & Dyakonova 2009). Available analyses of VFD are however not consensual, and with one major exception (Lefebvre 1998), they either focus on Kwa languages rather than Haitian (cf. ...
... Available analyses of VFD are however not consensual, and with one major exception (Lefebvre 1998), they either focus on Kwa languages rather than Haitian (cf. Aboh 2003and Aboh & Dyakonova 2009), or on Haitian and/or other French-Caribbean creoles but only on one subcase -generally 5 the one labeled Predicate Cleft (Piou 1982a, Lumsden 1990, Lumsden & Lefebvre 1990, Larson & Lefebvre 1991, Manfredi 1993, Harbour 2008, a term indiscriminately used in reference to (1a) and (1d). Lefebvre (1998) proposes a comprehensive analysis of VFD in Haitian, but her assumptions raise some problems discussed below in section 3.3. ...
... Lefebvre (1998) proposes a comprehensive analysis of VFD in Haitian, but her assumptions raise some problems discussed below in section 3.3. Harbour (2008) focuses on Haitian Predicate-Cleft (e.g. (1d)) but leaves to future research the possible generalisation of his analysis to the other instances of VFD exemplified in (1). ...
... ( 2 Background on verb doubling Since Koopman's (1984) widely received seminal work on verb-doubling verbfronting in Vata, a vast body of theoretical work on the topic has accumulated to date both on bare verb fronting (i.e., V-fronting) and VP-fronting (see, e.g., Piou 1982;Bernabé 1983;Lumsden and Lefebvre 1990;Larson and Lefebvre 1991;Dekydspotter 1992;Manfredi 1993;Stewart 1998;Aboh 1998Aboh , 2006Koopman 2000;Abels 2001;Nunes 2004;Hiraiwa 2005b;Landau 2006;Vicente 2007Vicente , 2009Harbour 2008;Kandybowicz 2008;Aboh and Dyakonova 2009;Bastos-Gee 2009;Trinh 2011;LaCara 2016a). However, most of them describe and analyse the phenomenon in one, sometimes a handful of languages. ...
... Consequently, under this proposal we would expect Germanic V2 languages to exhibit VVPT, contrary to fact. In order to derive the lack of VVPT, one would have to postulate that although both operations are triggered by C, VP movement (and associated CD) takes place before V-movement, i.e. that the features triggering those operations are ordered on C. While ordered features on heads have been proposed (see van Koppen 2005;Müller 2009;Halpert 2012;Georgi 2014;Assmann et al. 2015;Puškar 2018;Murphy and Puškar 2018, among others), this order has to be extrinsically determined. Furthermore, it would remain unexplained why they could not apply in the exact reverse order. ...
In the absence of a stranded auxiliary or modal, VP-topicalization in most Germanic languages gives rise to the presence of a dummy verb meaning ‘do’. Cross-linguistically, this is a rather uncommon strategy as comparable VP-fronting constructions in other languages, e.g. Hebrew, Polish, and Portuguese, among many others, exhibit verb doubling. A comparison of several recent approaches to verb doubling in VP-fronting reveals that it is the consequence of VP-evacuating head movement of the verb to some higher functional head, which saves the (low copy of the) verb from undergoing copy deletion as part of the low VP copy in the VP-topicalization dependency. Given that almost all Germanic languages have such V-salvaging head movement, namely V-to-C movement, but do not show verb doubling, this paper suggests that V-raising is exceptionally impossible in VP-topicalization clauses and addresses the question of why it is blocked. After discussing and rejecting some conceivable explanations for the lack of verb doubling, I propose that the blocking effect arises from a bleeding interaction between V-to-C movement and VP-to-SpecCP movement. As both operations are triggered by the same head, i.e. C, the VP is always encountered first by a downward search algorithm. Movement of VP then freezes it and its lower copies for subextraction precluding subsequent V-raising. Crucially, this implies that there is no V-to-T raising in most Germanic languages. V2 languages with V-to-T raising, e.g. Yiddish, are correctly predicted to not exhibit the blocking effect.
... Verb doubling constructions akin to the Basque strategy discussed so far have been described in a now considerable body of literature on languages including Nupe (Kandybowicz, 2007), Kwa (Aboh 2007), Russian (Abels 2001), European Portuguese (Martins, 2007), Haitian (Harbour, 2008;Koopman 1984;Manfredi 1993), Korean (Jo 2003), ...
... In some languages, the higher copy appears to raise as an XP, in e.g. VP/predicate fronting in Russian (Abels 2001), Hebrew (Landau 2006(Landau , 2007 and Haitian Kreyol (Manfredi 1993, Harbour, 2008. A second scenario described for European Portuguese by Martins (2007) and Nupe (Kandybowicz 2007) is ...
This book is an endeavor to present and analyze some standard topics in the grammar of Basque from a micro-comparative perspective. From case and agreement to word order and the left periphery, and including an incursion into determiners, the book combines fine-grained theoretical analyses with empirically detailed descriptions. Working from a micro-parametric perspective, the contributions to the volume address in depth some of the exuberant variation attested in the different dialects and subdialects of Basque. At the same time, although the contributions focus mainly on Basque data, cross-linguistic evidence is also presented and discussed. After all, the goal pursued in this book is to attempt to explain variation in Basque as a particular instantiation of variation in human language at large. The volume presents and analyzes a wide range of empirical phenomena, many typologically marked among European languages, and will therefore be a welcome resource to linguists looking for detailed description and/or theoretical discussion.
... It is well acknowledged that a focused phrase adds some new information to its respective discourse. Rooth (1985;1992, etc.) shows that such a phrase, furthermore, evokes a set of alternatives, which he refers to as "focus semantic value" (Rooth 2008: 283) and Harbour (2008) calls it "(alternatives) focus set". By way of illustration, compare example (17a) below with (17b = 16c) and (17c) (17b) and (17c), the sentence in (17a), with the original word order and with no prominent stress on any of its constituents, does not evoke a set of alternatives and merely asserts a proposition, adding some new information. ...
Grammatical accounts of na in Akan identify two different forms: nà with a low tone (LT-na) and ná with a high tone (HT-na). LT-na functions in two ways: as a focus marker or a conjunction, the latter of which can take a prefix and be realized as ɛna. While some scholars treat them as two different na’s, others point to a commonality between the two. HT-na has been analyzed as functioning as past and future tenses, and a logical connector. We argue that these three HT-na along with the two LT-na are subcategories of a super-category. We propose that the super-category is a non-tonal na (call it Root-na), with a common basic meaning which explains all five seemingly unrelated interpretations. Root-na links the na-clause with something in the common ground, i.e., to something that appeared in the previous context or is presupposed. It is spelled out as a LT-na or HT-na, depending on the kind of linking. LT-na marks discourse coherence relations such as focus and narrative-sequence, both of which are shown in the linguistics literature to be anaphoric. HT-na is an intensional marker which links times or possible worlds.
... Le phénomène dit « antéposition du V(P) » a été abordé par un bon nombre de linguistes depuis l'époque de GB. Les travaux concernés abondent dans la littérature : Abels (2001), Aboh (2006), Cable (2004), Davis & Prince (1986), Hagstrom (1995), Harbour (2008), Källgren & Prince (1989), Koopman (1984), Landau (2006), Lefebvre (1992), Manfredi (1993), pour n'en citer que quelquesuns. Concernant la dérivation des constructions à V(P) antéposé, certains linguistes défendent l'hypothèse du mouvement (Aboh 2006, Landau 2006, Manfredi 1993, d'autres l'hypothèse de la génération basique (Cable 2004, Lefebvre 1992. ...
Dans le cadre théorique de la grammaire générative, ce livre traite de deux constructions verbales particulières du chinois mandarin : la construction à copie du verbe et la construction en bǎ. La première de ces constructions est caractérisée par le fait qu’on doit répéter le verbe lorsqu’on veut exprimer dans une même phrase l’objet du verbe et un complément postverbal. La forme de base d’une telle construction est « Verbe-Objet-Verbe-(Marqueur aspectuel)-Autre constituant postverbal ». La deuxième est marquée par un objet préverbal introduit par l’élément bǎ ; sa forme de base est « BA-Objet-Verbe-Marqueur aspectuel-(Autre constituant) ».
Within the theoretical framework of generative grammar, this book deals with two particular verbal constructions in Mandarin Chinese: the verb copying and the bǎ construction. The first of these constructions is characterized by the fact that the verb must be repeated in order to express in the same sentence both the object of the verb and a postverbal complement. The basic form of such a construction is “V-Obj.-V- (Asp) -XP ”. The second construction is marked by a preverbal object introduced by the item bǎ, and its basic form is “BA-Obj.-V-Asp- (XP)”.
... Cheng 2007Cheng , 2017. In a variety of languages, predicate fronting can create verb copying constructions (for instance, Russian (Abels 2001), Classical Hebrew (Harbour 1999), Haitian (Harbour 2008), Modern Hebrew (Landau 2006), among many others), where a higher VP is pronounced in the clausal left periphery, and another VP is spelled out in a lower position. ...
To appear in Proceedings of WCCFL41
... Although similar to the notion of parallel chains suggested in Chomsky (2008) and developed in Aboh (2006); Aboh & Dyakonova (2009) the current proposal differs in that the two movements do not take place simultaneously but rather sequentially. In VP fronting, one of these movements is Ā-movement of the VP into SpecCP, where the verb moves as part of the VP, whereas the other is head movement of the verb to v and/or T. In V fronting, there are two different kinds of movement into SpecCP: (i) the verb either moves as part of a remnant VP that has been evacuated by the internal argument(s) (see den Besten & Webelhuth 1990;Grewendorf & Sabel 1994;Koopman 1997;Müller 1998Müller , 2014Takano 2000;Abels 2001;Hinterhölzl 2002;Aboh & Dyakonova 2009;Bondaruk 2012) or (ii) the verb undergoes Ā-head movement as has first been suggested by Koopman (1984) (see also van Riemsdijk 1989;Larson & Lefebvre 1991;Holmberg 1999;Fanselow 2002;Landau 2006;Vicente 2007Vicente , 2009Harbour 2008;Bastos-Gee 2009). Vicente (2007Vicente ( , 2009 shows that this latter kind of Ā-head movement is not in conflict with current ideas about how movement works, but is rather a logical extension of them. ...
Most known languages seem to follow the intuitive and economical implication that if they show a repair such as verb doubling or 'do'-support when just the verb is fronted, they also show that same repair when the verb is fronted together with its internal argument(s) (provided that the language has both types of fronting). In this paper, I present data from Asante Twi, where the verb is doubled in the former case but there is 'do'-support in the latter instead. I argue that the attested patterns can be accounted for under the Copy Theory of Movement by introducing different orders of the operations Chain Reduction (CR) and head movement (HM) at PF (analogous to what Schoorlemmer 2012 proposed for Chain Reduction and Local Dislocation). CR either bleeds HM giving rise to consistent 'do'-support (as in German) or counterbleeds it leading to consistent verb doubling (as in Hebrew). The Asante Twi pattern is a result of the interaction of the bleeding order with Ā-head movement, where the bleeding effect of the order is neutralised by the inability of Ā-head movement to form chains, which is rooted in the Chain Uniformity Condition (Chomsky 1995). The account provides a unified minimalist analysis of verb doubling and 'do'-support in verbal fronting, which derives all attested patterns but correctly precludes the derivation of the unattested reverse Asante Twi pattern.
... So, a generalisation seems to be that only type-e elements (as construed in DS) may be licensed at a focus position in Japanese clefts. This contrasts with languages like Haitian (Harbour 2008), where "predicate clefts" are licensed. 4 Unlike the usual treatment of a common noun as a type-<e, t> element (Heim & Kratzer 1998) and of a quantified element as a type-<<e, t>, t> element (Montague 1973), DS utilises the epsilon calculus where ringo is mapped onto a type-e epsilon term, though the epsilon notation is avoided in the present article in the interests of brevity. ...
Japanese and Rangi (a Bantu language) employ cleft constructions to encode pragmatic functions relating to discourse salience. In Japanese, a cleft is formed through the nominaliser 'no,' the topic marker 'wa,' and the copula 'da.' In Rangi, a cleft is formed through the copula 'ní' which appears before the focus. This article provides a description of clefts in these two unrelated languages; in particular, Rangi clefts have been understudied, and our description represents a first systematic treatment. The article also develops an account from the new perspective of how a cleft string is parsed left-toright in an online manner (Dynamic Syntax; Cann, R. et al. 2005. The Dynamics of Language. Elsevier). We propose that a number of seemingly idiosyncratic syntactic properties of clefts in these languages (including new data on case-marking patterns of foci in Japanese clefts and the auxiliary placement in Rangi clefts) can be accounted for by reference to left-to-right, online parsing, and the restriction on structural underspecification that is an integral part of the framework. Our account also models parallelisms and differences in Japanese and Rangi clefts in terms of parsing-dynamics.
... Much work has been done on predicate clefting in other languages, e.g. see Koopman (1984) on Vata, a Kru language, Harbour (2008), Larson and Lefebvre (1991), Lefebvre (1992) on Haitian Creole, Lefebvre (1992) on Fongbe, Cable (2004) on Brazilian Portuguese. While many of the characteristics of predicate clefting in these languages are similar to the facts of Yiddish, to our knowledge none of these languages shows the same root suppletion facts. ...
This chapter investigates some implications of Spell-Out in a phase-based, realizational derivational system. It is argued that all operations on the PF branch within a phase, specifically Vocabulary Insertion and phonological rule application are predicted to have isomorphic domains of application. This has implications for the proposals on how to extend suppletion domains found in Embick (2010) and Bobaljik & Wurmbrand (2013). Ap- parent mismatches in suppletive vs. phonological domains are examined in a number of languages, including English, Yiddish, Turkish, Ojibwe, Malagasy, and German. The data are argued to support modifications to both (i) certain theoretical proposals held in the literature, and (ii) the syntactic location of triggers for suppletion generally assumed.
... Several approaches have been proposed in the literature concerning the syntactic derivation of PCCs (see Harbour 2008, Kandybowicz 2006, Manfredi 1993Hiraiwa 2005a2005b. ...
... More generally, a thetic statement can be characterized as a compact sentential information unit that avoids any possible internal IS profile that might be induced by its semantic and syntactic complexity. A construction primarily detopicalizing or even focusing on subjects/agents can be paradigmatically opposed to a categorical sentence and is then prone to create differential subject marking (DSM) and marked subjects in general (e.g., König 2006, De Hoop & De Swart 2008, Handschuh 2014. A promising line of research is to give more prominence to the idea that the origin of these phenomena is recurrently related ultimately to a noncanonical pragmatic status of the subject/agent. ...
Information structure has been one of the central topics of recent linguistic research. This review discusses a wide range of current approaches with particular reference to African languages, as these have been playing a crucial role in advancing our knowledge about the diversity of and recurring patterns in both meaning and form of information structural notions. We focus on cross-linguistic functional frameworks, the investigation of prosody, formal syntactic theories, and relevant effects of semantic interpretation. Information structure is a thriving research domain that promises to yield important advances in our general understanding of human language.
... In Haitian, for instance, intensive reiteration of some lexical items is productive, but reiterated lexemes triggering contrastive effects are generally moved away from their 'reduplicand' by Focus Raising (cf. Harbour 2008, Glaude & Zribi--Hertz 2012. Under SSU's restricted definition, Haitian would therefore look like an 'intensive--TR avoider', an awkward result from a descriptive and typological viewpoint. ...
The project that led to this volume was triggered by previous research (Stolz 2004) revealing total reduplication (TR) as a characteristic feature of the Circum-Mediterranean area, shared by such genetically different languages as Turkish, Hebrew, Maltese, Greek, Italian, and Basque. This result turned out to be at odds with Rubino's (2005a,b) claim that TR is globally absent from Europe (with a few exceptions). Finding that TR is also attested in various other European languages, Thomas Stolz, Cornelia Stroh, and Aina Urdze (SS&U) decided to embark on a systematic areal study of TR on the Old Continent.
The general picture that emerges from their research is that TR is a phenomenon of its own, that TR-languages are, as a whole, the norm, and TR-avoiders the exception, and that contrary to Rubino's (2005a,b) claims, TR is a widespread phenomenon in Europe, with TR-languages located in the south and east, and TR-avoiders in the north and center. European TR-constructions are shown to share the formal and semantic properties of the TR-constructions found in countries bordering Europe to the east and south. This areal distribution suggests that European TR-languages are part of larger, intercontinental isoglosses.
The book is subdivided into four parts. Part A, 'How to approach total reduplication', is a general advanced course on reduplication, which after a brief introduction (section 1) surveys (section 2) contemporary general textbooks and specialized literature on the chosen topic, and proposes an explicit definition of TR: a prototypical instance is characterized as involving two identical, complete, adjacent occurrences of a meaningful expression, whose doubling conveys some specific linguistic function. The identity criterion crucially involves both phonological and categorial identity (this excludes cognate objects from TR, for example). TR is distinguished from partial reduplication (where completeness does not obtain) and from repetition (a mere, unrestricted, stylistic device). TR is also distinguished from the accidental adjacency of two identical words brought about by syntactic recursivity. Section 3, 'History', surveys theories of reduplication since the beginning of the nineteenth century. Section 4, 'Universal vs. areal', discusses the universal character of TR assumed by Moravcsik (1978) and introduces the view that TR is a 'potential' rather than 'absolute' universal. Section 5 discusses the linguistic functions of TR (e.g. intensification, diminution, number, distributivity, reciprocity, indefiniteness), their respective statuses with respect to the grammar vs. discourse dichotomy, and the issue of iconicity (here the authors adopt Stolz's (2007) model, according to which TR generally signals a deviation with respect to some norm).
Part B, 'Total reduplication: The Maltese experience', presents a detailed description of TR in Maltese, based on an array of written corpora. TR in this language is shown to target adjectives, adverbs, verbs (finite or nonfinite, mostly imperfective and intransitive), and cardinals. The functions of TR are claimed to include intensification, absoluteness, secondary predication, adverbialization, duration, the prolative, the distributive, and lexicalization.
Part C, 'Total reduplication: The European perspective', presents an in-depth areal study of European languages with respect to TR, which disconfirms Rubino's (2005a,b) claim that Europe is the only region of the globe that is practically TR-free. According to Rubino, the only TR-languages of Europe are Abkhaz, Armenian, Georgian, Hungarian, and Turkish. SS&U lay out their quantitative methodology, centrally based on the comparative scrutiny of multilingual translations of Saint-Exupéry's Petit prince and J. K. Rowling's Harry Potter and the philosopher's stone.
Quantitative results show that TR is productively attested in Europe not only in the five languages acknowledged by Rubino, but also in many others. Within Europe, TR is less frequent in Indo-European than in non-Indo-European languages. However, neither Indo-European nor non-Indo-European languages behave homogeneously with respect to TR. Some Indo-European languages are TR-avoiders (e.g. Germanic, Slavic), while some have productive TR (e.g. Corsican, Albanian). The same heterogeneity is found in the non-Indo-European group, where TR is active in, for example, Azeri and Turkish but not in Kazakh, among others. Since the status of TR in a given language cannot be predicted on the sole basis of its genetic affiliation, SS&...
... The term 'predicate fronting' is used descriptively: it denotes the construction in which the clause-initial topic position is 5 It has been observed for several languages that Ā -fronting of the verb requires double pronunciation of the sort similar to what is observed in Hebrew. See, for example, Aboh and Dyakonova (2009) for Gungbe, Cable (2004) for Yiddish, Cozier (2006) for Trinidad English, Kandybowicz (2008) for Nupe, Harbour (2008) for Haitian and Vicente (2007) for Spanish. To the best of my knowledge, these languages are VO languages. ...
One version of the copy theory of movement holds that syntactic traces are full-fledged constituents which undergo a PF-deletion rule. In this paper, I propose a constraint on this rule. The constraint says that the lower copy of a chain can be phonologically deleted only if it ends an XP. I show that this constraint, conjoined with proposals that have been made concerning phrase structure (Chomsky 1994) and the semantics of NP in classifier languages (Chierchia 1998), explains a variety of facts in Dutch, German, Hebrew, Norwegian, Swedish and Vietnamese.
... There have been a number of proposals about the syntactic derivation of PCCs (Koopman 1984Koopman , 1999 Manfredi 1993; Harbour 2008; Hiraiwa 2005a Hiraiwa , 2005b Kandybowicz 2006 (42) CP/DP Parallelism (Hiraiwa 2005aHiraiwa , 2005b) One important property that is shared by PCC languages cross-linguistically is that a predicate is doubled in PCCs: the predicate is pronounced in the focused position as well as in the original position. Abels (2001) proposes that this follows from a morphological principle. ...
Dàgáárè (a Gur language) allows various patterns of predicate clefting together with object pied-piping. This article investigates
interactions of Predicate Cleft Constructions (PCCs) and object-sharing Serial Verb Constructions (SVCs) in Dàgáárè and argues
that the object in object-sharing SVCs is symmetrically shared. Namely, we argue, building on Citko (2005), that it is an instance of Parallel Merge. Thus we present support for Baker’s (1989) insight of the Double-Headedness and against Collins’ (1997) VP-shell structure with a pro. This kind of empirical evidence is not available in other languages (cf. Baker 1989, Collins 1997 among others) and hence Dàgáárè provides a novel argument for a permissible structure of object-sharing SVCs and the availability
of symmetric structure in UG.
This book is a collection of contemporary essays and squibs exploring the mental representation of Spanish and other languages in the Romance family. Although largely formal in orientation, they incorporate experimental and corpus data to inform questions of synchronic and diachronic importance. As a whole, these contributions explore two areas of particular interest to linguistic theorizing. The first is linguistic interfaces with chapters on syntax-information structure, syntax-prosody, syntax-semantics, and lexicon-phonology. The second consists of explorations of noun phrases of all sizes—from clitics to nominalized clauses. The results and conclusions of these studies encourage researchers to continue to explore individual languages in particular in order to gain insight on human language in general. This edited volume in honor of Dr. Paula Kempchinsky is reflective of the diversity of approaches that inspired her teaching, research, and mentoring for over thirty years at the University of Iowa and beyond.
In this article, I discuss secondary predication in Biblical Hebrew, showing that contrary to what linguists such as Rothstein (2004. Structuring events . Malden, MA & Oxford: Blackwell) suggest, there are languages with verb phrases as secondary predicates.
In particular, I deal with a construction in Biblical Hebrew I refer to as the double infinitive-absolute construction , where in addition to a finite verb, the sentence contains two conjoined occurrences of an infinitive absolute, where the first is of the same root and binyan (pattern) as the finite verb but deprived of temporal and agreement features, while the second is of a different root and (maybe) binyan. I show that Biblical Hebrew uses this construction to form a new complex verb with the primary predicate, such that it shares the subject or the object with the primary predicate, depicting a situation that overlaps in time with the situation depicted by the primary predicate or results from it.
The present study offers data from native Spanish speakers who possess receptive competence in Palenquero, a Spanish-lexified creole spoken in the Afro-Colombian village of San Basilio de Palenque. Until recently Palenquero was endangered, but language revitalization activities are now underway in Palenque. These efforts are resulting in young L2 Palenquero speakers and receptive bilinguals, who do not actively use the language but who are exposed to it within the community and through occasional classes. This study, based on experimental research conducted in Palenque, examines receptive bilinguals' grasp of Palenquero subject-verb structures as a demonstration of how the divergence between active and receptive bilinguals' grammars can go undetected within the speech community. Receptive bilinguals sometimes produce referential null subjects instead of overt pronouns even in the absence of other disambiguating cues. Receptive bilinguals also do not systematically differentiate Palenquero pre-verbal particles, in a fashion suggestive of a maximally simplified subject-verb configuration.
Breton tensed verbs show a synthetic/analytic alternation (I.know vs. to.know I.do), that is not conditioned by their semantic or aspectual structure but by their syntactic environment, namely word order. Such a paradigm of verb-doubling poses a strong case against iconicity, because knowing where a verb can double requires full information about the entire derivation of the sentence. The sentence is correct if and only if the tensed element is not at the left edge of the sentence. The infinitive form of the analytic construction prevents the tensed element from occurring in the most left-edge position. This paper proposes that the analytic structure (to.know I.do) responds to the same trigger as expletive insertion (expl I.know). I claim that analytic tense formation is a last resort strategy that forms the equivalent of an expletive by excorporation of the verbal root out of the tensed complex head. The excorporated lexical verb appears fronted as an infinitive form by default. The tensed auxiliary is either realized as a dummy 'do' auxiliary (to.know I.do), or, for an idiosyncratic list of verbs, as the tensed reiteration of the excorporated verb itself (do.ubling; to.know I.know).
Le breton fait partie des langues qui permettent deux formes de conjugaison analytique (terme abrégé ici en ‘CA’). Dans le cas le plus courant, l’infinitif précède l’auxiliaire ‘faire’ qui porte alors ses marques de temps et d’accord comme en (1)a. Dans l’autre, le verbe infinitif précède sa propre forme fléchie comme en (1)b. Le verbe lexical est alors doublé, sans que le critère thématique impose une multiplication des arguments. Dans les deux cas en (1), les deux occurrences verbales diffèrent phonologiquement, sont contraintes par l’ordre relatif [VINF-V], et le verbe lexical non-tensé satisfait à la règle qui impose que le verbe fléchi se trouve en seconde position (langue dite à verbe second; ‘V2’). (1) a. Mont a ran d’ ar jardrin. aller R fais.1SG P DET jardin ‘Je vais au jardin.’ b. Mont a yan d’ ar jardrin. aller R vais.1SG P DET jardin ‘Je vais au jardin.’ Je vais montrer que la conjugaison en (1)a est pleinement productive, mais pas celle en (1)b, qui porte la marque d’un processus non syntaxique mais morphologique: l’idiosyncrasie. Peuvent doubler uniquement certains verbes qui ne forment pas entre eux une classe syntaxiquement homogène. Il existe une variation dialectale, voire idiolectale, dans la liste des verbes qui peuvent doubler. Cette restriction idiosyncratique sur la conjugaison en (1)b est très importante sur le plan théorique pour deux raisons. Tout d’abord, elle modifie notre conception des processus de redoublement du verbe à travers les langues, car elle montre que quelle que soit la technologie formelle utilisée pour dériver ces redoublements du verbe, il faut que cette technologie soit adaptée à une restriction idiosyncratique. Ensuite, la construction en (1)b a les propriétés de dernier ressort de satisfaction de l’ordre V2, or, puisque cette opération s’applique dans un module morphologique, on ne peut éviter la conclusion surprenante que l’ordre des mots d’une langue V2 peut être obtenu par un processus morphologique et non syntaxique. Cette dernière conclusion ouvre des perspectives intéressantes pour l’unification des phénomènes d’effet second comprenant les langues V2, mais aussi les langues à clitique second (Warlpiri, Tagalog, langues slaves …).
This book investigates a large range of changes and their motivations in all parts of the grammar and lexicon. The core argument is that, in the absence of a Grand Unification Theory in linguistics, a unified account of change is impossible without ignoring the bulk of natural language changes. Changes occur in successive formal grammars. Differences among successive I-languages constitute a change in the E-language, but this work rejects the customary high premium on acquisition to the near exclusion of the role of adults and adolescents in the incrementation of change. Many innovations arise from competition in contact accommodation, but contact is only a catalyst. Features determine parametric variation and structures provide evidence (cues) for features. Since changes are typically not macroscalar, this work adopts a (micro)cue theory of parametric variation. The traditional view required a categorical (off/on) value setting. Through multiple binary cuts and different microcues, the new view permits a language to have, for instance, V2 in some structures but not others. With the reduction of UG (Universal Grammar) to a universal inventory of formal features, the once extravagant role of UG has been largely replaced by principles of efficient computation to explain crosslinguistically frequent changes. Additionally, neurolinguists have concluded that some constraints have evolved over time into a multilevel representation in the nervous system. Taking this and structure-building features into account, this work argues that some changes are grounded in synchronic cognitive constraints, a large number in principles of computation, many in extralinguistic factors, some in processing and functional motivations, and some just accidents of history.
Children are extremely gifted in acquiring their native languages, but languages nevertheless change over time. Why does this paradox exist? In this study of creole languages, Enoch Aboh addresses this question, arguing that language acquisition requires contact between different linguistic sub-systems that feed into the hybrid grammars that learners develop. There is no qualitative difference between a child learning their language in a multilingual environment and a child raised in a monolingual environment. In both situations, children learn to master multiple linguistic sub-systems that are in contact and may be combined to produce new variants. These new variants are part of the inputs for subsequent learners. Contributing to the debate on language acquisition and change, Aboh shows that language learning is always imperfect: learners' motivation is not to replicate the target language faithfully but to develop a system close enough to the target that guarantees successful communication and group membership.
Most work on predicate clefts seems to presuppose the implication that if a language shows verb doubling when the verb alone is fronted it also shows verb doubling when the verb is fronted together with its internal argument(s). In this paper, I present data from Asante Twi, where the verb is doubled in the former case but there is do-support in the latter instead. I argue that the patterns can be accounted for by varying orders of the operations Chain Reduction (CR) and Head-to-head movement (HHM) at PF. CR may either bleed HHM giving rise to consistent do-support (as in German) or counterbleed it leading to consistent verb doubling (as in Hebrew). The Asante Twi pattern then is a result of neutralisation due to the inability of A'-head movement to form chains. The account provides a unified analysis of verb doubling and do-support in predicate clefts, which derives all attested patterns to the exclusion of the unattested reverse Asante Twi pattern.
This is my reply to the commentaries on Trinh (2009). I thank the commentators – Enoch Aboh, Josef Bayer, Nigel Duffield, Roland Hinterhölzl, Anders Holmberg, Shinichiro Ishihara and Gereon Müller – for their helpful critiques, which point out several shortcomings of the target paper, opened up areas where new predictions can be made and raised questions to be investigated in future research. It is unfortunate that these critiques and this reply did not appear in the same volume. The first section of the reply will hence be a brief summary of my proposal. The theory will be presented in a slightly different way, more transparent than the original formulation but equivalent with it in content. It is my hope that the reformulation will address some of the questions raised in the commentaries. Other issues are discussed in the sections that follow
This article bears on three “verb cognate” (VC) constructions attested in Haitian Creole, where the verb and a homonymous replica of the verb cooccur within the same clausal domain. In the first two constructions – VC1 and VC2 – the verb's cognate is crucially unstressed and supports further lexical material, while in the third construction – VC3, which subsumes the subcase known as Predicate Cleft – the verb's cognate bears primary stress and is reduced to a lexical head. Haitian VC constructions differ from so-called “Cognate Object” constructions discussed for English and other languages by the strict-identity condition which – in Haitian – bears on the verb and its cognate, and by the arguably non “nominal” categorial specification of the verb's cognate. We describe the morphosyntactic properties and interpretations of VC1, VC2 and VC3, and pro-pose a syntactic derivation for each construction. We argue that the Cognate Phrase in all three cases instantiates a VP modifier – an adverbial – rather than an argument, but that the “cognateness” property should not be uniformly analysed across the three constructions: in VC1 and VC2, we argue that the verb's cognate is an expletive – a phonological filler whose function is to make a structural (head) position visible – while in VC3, we analyse it as a freely merged VP-modifier whose lexical identity with the verb triggers a contrastive-focus effect, which favours raising of the focused modifier to the clause periphery. Haitian verb cognates share some characteristics of “reduplicative” structures as presented by Stolz et al. (2011), but they do not seem to comply with these authors' view of “Total Reduplication”. Our results and assumptions are on the other hand consistent with Pereltsvaig's (1999a, b, 2002) claim that “Cognateness”, as such, has no relevance for syntactic theory.
The findings for adverbs and adverbial phrases in a naturalistic corpus of Miami Haitian Creole–English code-switching show that one language, Haitian Creole, asymmetrically supplies the grammatical frame while the other language, English, asymmetrically supplies mixed lexical categories like adverbs. Traces of code-switching with an English frame and Haitian Creole lexical categories suggest that code-switching is abstractly BIDIRECTIONAL. A quantitative methodology that codes the language-indexation of the token in addition to the surrounding lexical items was used for all mixed (e.g. xYx/yXy, xYy/yXx, yYx/xXy) and unmixed (xXx/yYy) adverbs. Discourse position, especially the left-periphery, is found to be a significant factor in adverb code-switching. Sociolinguistic and psycholinguistic analyses which acknowledge the ‘low’ status of one language and the ‘high’ status of the other explain better the frequency of mixed English adverbs in a Haitian Creole frame and the rarity of mixed Haitian Creole adverbs in an English frame than a minimalist approach, such as MacSwan's (1999 and subsequent work), which uses phi-feature valuation and entails asymmetry without bidirectionality. While I provide confirmation for Myers-Scotton's (1993) Matrix Language Frame approach, I emphasize that trace bidirectional data need to be accounted for by a theory that is grounded in the sociolinguistic and psycholinguistic realities.
Emphatic verb doubling, developed as a diagnostic of T-to-C movement in Classical Hebrew, demonstrates that discontinuous agreement is not a consequence of movement to between hypothetical Person and Number phrases.
This paper discusses predicate fronting with doubling in Russian and Gungbe and argues that it is an instance of parallel chains in the sense of Chomsky (2005). Under this analysis, what superficially looks like a spell out of multiple copies of a single chain turns out to be the instantiation of two simultaneous chains anchored to the same foot. The latter is successfully deleted at PF and only the heads are spelled out, as is normally the case under chain reduction.
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Unaccusative diagnostics come in two types. Ne-cliticization, there-insertion, and locative inversion count as diagnostics of surface unaccusativity; auxiliary selection and the resultative construction are diagnostics of deep unaccusativity. This chapter deals with one of the diagnostics of the latter type: the resultative construction. This construction is said to be indicative of unaccusativity because only the object can be predicated by the resultative XP. The chapter is organized as follows. Section 10.2 introduces serial verb constructions. Section 10.3 discusses unaccusative verbs and their relevance for the structure of serial verb constructions. Section 10.4 examines passives. Section 10.5 concerns the status of the 'shared' object. Finally, the analysis is presented in Section 10.6. © Artemis Alexiadou, Elena Anagnostopoulou, and Martin Everaert, 2004. All rights reserved.
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Predicate clefting is a commonly used construction in Haitian Creole. This paper considers two properties of the construction that have not been noted before: (1) a restriction on the class of verbs that can undergo clefting, and (2) ambiguities that arise when the subordinate clause contains aspectual elements and/or complements of a particular kind. It is argued that these properties are explained, and the general construction illuminated, under a quantificational analysis of predicate cleft, in which a predicate phrase moves at the level of Logical Form, and there is an accompanying quantification over events.
The meanings expressed by reduplication, or linguistic doubling, are similar across a wide array of languages. Interestingly, some of these shared meanings do not concern doubling, repetition, or plurality. This non-arbitrariness of the sign may be attributable to the interplay of two forces: iconicity, and conceptuallybased semantic extension. Cross-linguistic evidence supporting this account is presented. More generally, this paper argues that the interaction of iconicity and semantic extension constitutes a potentially powerful source of non-arbitrariness in the mapping between sound and meaning.
On argument structure and the lexical expression of syntactic relations The View from Building 20 The two types of predicate clefts: Classical Hebrew and beyond
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