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The Verbal Complex in Romance: A Case Study in Grammati - cal Interfaces
Abstract
This book explores the interface between syntax and the other components of the grammar, particularly phonology, morphology, and argument structure. It contains case studies, on subjects such as clitics and complex predicates (auxiliary and modal verbs) in Romance and grounding theoretical analysis in constant exemplification. It shows that a careful analysis of their properties can lead to a better understanding of the interaction of the various components of the grammar. The syntactic properties of clitics are considered in relation to their phonological and morphological characteristic. The properties of auxiliary verbs are analysed from the perspective of the interface between argument structure and syntactic structure. Modal verbs are examined at the interface between syntax and phonology. The analyses of clitics and auxiliaries shed new light on the link between Romanian and Balkan/Slavic.
... Marín & McNally, 2011). We treat the se clitic as an affix and not as phrasal (following work by Monachesi, 1993Monachesi, , 2005Miller & Sag, 1997;Bouma et al., 2001;Abeillé & Godard, 2002;Crysmann, 2003;Bildhauer, 2007;a.o.) in order to manipulate the argument structure lexically (cf. Müller & Wechsler, 2014). ...
... Our account reflects the fact that the different interpretations of the se clitic, i.e. in all its various readings, are to some extent related. 22 Furthermore, we treat the secliticization not as a syntactic but as a morphological process in line with Monachesi (1993Monachesi ( , 2005 ical process altering the argument structure of an expression. In a syntactic account, a clitic is understood as an element satisfying an argument position of an expression. ...
... For instance, it states that the input of the LR has to be an element of type word with the HEAD value verb, that is no stems but only inflected verbs are allowed as input of the LRs at the bottom of the hierarchy. Further, we follow (Monachesi, 1993(Monachesi, , 2005, assuming a list-valued feature CL(I)T(IC)S, which stores the clitics of the construction. The input of our constraint states that the input of the rules must have an e(mpty)list of clitics, while the output must have a n(on)e(empty)list since some elements must have been cliticized (cf. Figure 4). ...
In this paper, we model the left-bounded state reading and the true reflexive reading of the se clitic in the Spanish psychological domain. We argue that a lexical analysis of se provides us with a more accurate description of the different classes of psychological verbs that occur with the clitic. We provide a unified analysis where the use of the two readings of se are modeled by means of lexical rules. We take the morphologically simple but semantically more complex basic items (e.g. asustar ‘frighten’) as input of the lexical rules, getting as the output a morphologically more complex but semantically simpler verb (e.g asustarse ‘get frightened’). The analysis for psych verbs correctly allows only those verbs assigning accusative to the experiencer or the stimulus to combine with se , hence preventing dative verbs from entering the lexical rules. The analysis also demonstrates how to account for punctual and non-punctual readings of psych verbs with se incorporating ‘boundaries’ into the type hierarchy of eventualities.
... This paper has two main roots: results of the Prague School on the Topic-Focus Articulation (TFA), which confronts the subjectivity bias of communicative dynamism (CD) to the systemic ordering (SO) within local text and speech (Hajicova et al., 1995; Hajicova, 2006). The second starting point is the analysis of the verbal complex (Monachesi, 2005) (denoted hereafter as verbal group, VG) and its interfaces, especially the syntax interface for the Romanian VG and the phonology interface for the Italian restructuring verbs. The paper benefits from results on functional VG FX-bar projection and restructuring as Verbal SubGroups (VSGs), and experience with TFA and intonational TFA implementation for Romanian (Curteanu et al., 2007a; 2007b). ...
... (i) A general view on the syntax-prosody interface, the non-isomorphism between the two facets of the language (Monachesi, 2005) being conjectured as a proper subsumption mapping between syntax and prosody; (ii) Implementation of the TFA algorithm for the Romanian sentence, with novelties on Intonational TFA and interrogative sentences.; (iii) (De)composing the VG into VSG (Verbal SubGroup) syntactic substructures; (iv) TFA algorithm refinement on complex Romanian VG; (v) Subjectivity / Objectivity discovery based on TFA and CD disordering, with consequences for text analysis and prosody design in e-learning sys- tems. ...
... The SCD marker classes and FX-bar projection structures (Curteanu, 2006c), (Curteanu and Trandabăţ, 2006b ) are concrete steps on this road, taken for both Romanian and English. We completely agree with the remarks in (Monachesi, 2005 ) on the " non-isomorphism between prosodic and syntactic constituents " , but we support an operator such as Ghini's Mapping Algorithm (1993) as a homomorphism of syntactic marker classes on prosodic ones, phonologicallydriven , with the main property of subsumption between syntax and phonology-prosody. ...
The main contributions enclosed within this paper refer to: (i) A general view on the syntax-prosody interface, the non-isomorphism between the two facets of the language being conjectured as a proper subsumption mapping between syntax and prosody; (ii) Implementation of the Topic-Focus Articulation (TFA) algorithm for the Romanian sentence, with novelties on In-tonational TFA and interrogative sentences.; (iii) Devising the verbal group (VG, viz. verbal complex) into verbal subgroup syn-tactic structures; (iv) TFA algorithm re-finement on complex Romanian VGs; (v) Subjectivity / Objectivity discovery based on TFA and communicative dyna-mism disordering, with consequences for text analysis and prosody design in e-learning systems.
... The claim that doubled clitics are agreement markers is further supported by evidence of their behavior as inflectional affixes rather than clitics. We discuss six criteria to distinguish affixes from clitics: degree of selection with respect to the host, rigid ordering, coordination, arbitrary gaps, idiosyncrasies, and verb left-detachment (Zwicky and Pullum, 1983;Monachesi, 1998Monachesi, , 2005. ...
... The evidence, although not conclusive, is compatible with the claim that pronominal clitics behave as inflectional affixes. Monachesi (1998Monachesi ( , 2005, applied those criteria to the analysis of Italian and Romance clitic pronouns. As would be expected, given the similarities between Italian and Spanish clitics, According to Monachesi (1998Monachesi ( , 2005, the templatic distribution of Romance pronominal clitics makes it possible to analyze their placement as the result of the same type of morphological processes that account for the placement of inflectional affixes in morphologically rich languages (agglutinating languages). ...
... Monachesi (1998Monachesi ( , 2005, applied those criteria to the analysis of Italian and Romance clitic pronouns. As would be expected, given the similarities between Italian and Spanish clitics, According to Monachesi (1998Monachesi ( , 2005, the templatic distribution of Romance pronominal clitics makes it possible to analyze their placement as the result of the same type of morphological processes that account for the placement of inflectional affixes in morphologically rich languages (agglutinating languages). ...
... In section 3 I present (as theory-neutrally as I can) the phonological and syntactic generalisations governing the realisation and distribution of clitic pronouns in Romanian. In section 4 I provide a detailed review of one of the most detailed and comprehensive analyses of clitic pronouns in Romanian, namely the analysis provided in Monachesi (2005). After pointing out what I take to be some important shortcomings of this analysis, I will present in 5 an alternative sign-based analysis of clitic pronouns. ...
... In this section I will present and discuss the analysis of Romanian clitic pronouns in Monachesi (2005), which is arguably one of the most detailed and comprehensive analyses of the verb cluster in Romanian. ...
... The basic claim about Romanian clitic pronouns in Monachesi (2005) is that clitic pronouns are not signs, but the phonological realisation of certain features of a verb category. Since this analysis is arguably one of the most comprehensive analyses of the Romanian verb cluster, I will begin with a summary of the analysis of Romanian accusative and dative clitic pronouns in Monachesi (2005). ...
... As with clitics in general, Romanian weak pronouns (hereafter RWPs) have been and still are a highly debated topic of research. Among morphophonological models, Barbu (1999) and Monachesi (2005) claim that the Romanian weak pronouns are affixes, while Popescu (2003) and Gerlach (2002) claim that they are clitics. However, as long as researchers agree upon the entities under scrutiny, i.e., Romanian pronouns that can not be stressed contrastively, labelling them as 'clitics' or 'affixes' is irrelevant. ...
... There is a wide range of formal approaches to RWPs. Among them, one can count generative models such as Dobrovie-Sorin (1999), the dynamic syntax model proposed by Klein (2007), Monachesi (2005)'s Head-Driven Phrase Structure Grammar model, and Optimality Theory models such as Popescu (2003) and Cherecheș (2014). ...
Despite the wide range of formal descriptions for Romanian weak pronouns offered by Generative Grammar, Dynamic Syntax, Head-Driven Phrase Structure Grammar, or Optimality Theory models, there is no grammar implementation that can be tested with real input data. The aim of this project is to offer a description of a formal grammar for generating surface forms of Romanian weak pronouns that can be tested and deployed in a Natural Language Generation system.
... This paper argues that Romanian pronominals have a variety of surface forms as a result of how they are grouped into Prosodic Words within the general phonological grammar of Romanian. Previous research has claimed that Romanian pronominals alternate idiosyncratically and that this can only be captured by positing different allomorphs (Barbu 1999, Monachesi 2005. However, at least one study has shown that it is possible to derive the surface form of Romanian pronominals from a single underlying form (Popescu 2000). ...
... 1 Barbu (1999) and Monachesi (2005) argue that Romanian pronominals are affixes, while Popescu (2000) and Gerlach (2002) argue that they are clitics. 2 The [e " ] is the traditional notation for the onset of the Romanian diphthong /e " a/. ...
Romanian pronominals have an extensive array of surface forms. Most previous literature calls this variation idiosyncratic and focuses on the morphosyntactic status of pronominals. I show that the phonology of pronominals is not only quite regular, but entirely predictable from the general phonology of Romanian. What is special about pronominals is not the constraints that apply to them, but how they are included into the prosodic hierarchy. The prosody of pronominals is partly due to general prosodic constraints, as outlined in Selkirk 1996, and partly due to lexical prespecifications, as in Zec's (2005) analysis of Serbian function words.
... Romanian mai ('more') has been the subject of several syntactic analysis: due to its constrained distribution and clitic-like properties (e.g., it is stressless and must occur in strict preverbal position within the VP), traditional grammars generally label it a 'semi-adverbial' (Ciompec (1985)) or a 'particle' (Nica (1988)); more recent analyses also take it to be a clitic (see Dobrovie-Sorin (1999), DŞL (2001), GALR (2005), Mîrzea Vasile (2008Vasile ( , 2009), an affix (see Barbu (2004)) or an 'intensifier' of the verb (Monachesi (2005)). However, little attention has been devoted to its semantic properties so far (but see Ieremia Arjoca (2005)). ...
... 7 In particular, because of its constrained distribution (i.e., low degree of selection, rigid order) and clitic-like properties (i.e., absence of stress, impossiblity to scope over coordination), traditional grammars generally label mai a 'semi-adverbial' (Ciompec (1985)) or a 'particle' (Nica (1988)). Recent analyses refine the traditional intuition on syntactic grounds and take it to be a clitic (Dobrovie-Sorin (1999), DŞL (2001), GALR (2005), Mîrzea Vasile (2008Vasile ( , 2009), an affix (see Legendre (2000), Barbu (1999Barbu ( , 2004) or an 'intensifier' clitic of the verb (Monachesi (2005)). ...
This paper is concerned with the semantics of the Romanian adverb mai in its occurrence as a VP-modifier. We propose that mai has the core meaning of an additive particle whose argument is a predicate of events. Following this monosemic analysis, we are able to explain the different interpretations of mai (its continuative, iterative and 'experiential' readings) by considering the aspectual information of the sentence and the structural properties of the predicate. Our claim is also supported by a comparison with additive and aspectual adverbs in Italian.
... The FINIte value of the feature TENSe, for each of the four major (lexical and) syntactic categories, is borne at (or inherited from) the lexical level by the verbal complex (to what traditionally is called predicate). For the structure of Verbal Complex, as in Monachesi (2005) and Barbu (1999), we shall continue to use the term "Verb Group" (abbreviated VG), in order to remain consistent with the notions, theoretical and computational approach of the functional FX-bar theory and SCD linguistic strategy. Both correspond, in a great measure, to the concept of verbal predicate in classical grammar. ...
... The verbal group (VG), as XG structure in the BAR = 1 projection level of the FX-bar scheme, contains a semantic head verb, around which one can find pronouns (only in unaccentuated forms, i.e. clitics), special adverbs, auxiliaries, modal verbs (or adverbs), negation. VG is also better known under the label of verbal complex (see Monachesi 2005, Barbu 1999, Legendre 1999, and constitutes what is traditionally called verbal predicate for the classical clause (proposition). The VG Kernel (VGK) was initially introduced in Curteanu et al. (2005) (under the name of default verbal kernel), and represents a basic substructure in the VG parsing. ...
This paper proposes and discusses issues on local and global text structures, all of them being connected to a lexical concept of predication. The main contributions of the present work comprise: (a) A novel functional X-bar (FX-bar) scheme is advised, aiming to reveal, model and relate the local, clause-level markers and text structures. (b) At global level, two FX-bar schemes are proposed, one pursuing the inter-clause level relations, and the other being of discursive, rhetorical nature. (c) There are described local and global classes of markers, together with their graph-based hierarchy, to be incorporated on the projection levels of FX-bar schemes and within SCD (Segmentation-Cohesion-Dependency) linguistic strategy algorithms. (d) The concept of functional generativity is discussed, with implications on parsing algorithm classification and FX-bar projection mechanism. (e) Local FX-bar projection functions have at their core the notion of lexical predication. Direct (towards clause) and inverse (towards lexicon) FX-bar projections of the verbal group (verbal complex) are shown to be efficient tools for a better understanding of the structure and functioning of the Romanian predication and predicate, and for supporting our challenging proposal of handing down the predication from the classical, syntactic level to the lexical one. (f) Finally, direct and inverse global FX-bar projections mediate between larger text spans and inter-clause vs. discourse trees, the intricate relationship between the finite clause and (sub-clause and multi-clause) discourse segment being highlighted.
... Calude (2001) compares Romanian to French and Serbo-Croatian clitics and concludes that Romanian clitics share many more features with their Serbo-Croatian than with their French counterparts. Furthermore, Monachesi (2001) and Monachesi (2005) deal with RWPs using Head-Driven Phrase Structure Grammar, Barbu and Toivonen (2018) models direct object RWPs within a Lexical Functional Grammar framework, while Klein (2007) treats them within the Dynamic Syntax formalism. Optimality Theory is represented by a series of models such as Popescu (2000), Sasaki and Căluianu (2000), Legendre (2001), Popescu (2003), and Cherecheş (2014). ...
In traditional linguistics, pronouns are divided into two classes: those that can bear word stress, coined "strong", "full" or "tonal", and those that cannot, coined "weak", "clitic", or "atonal". However, in the last decades, research on this topic has shown that items generally labeled as clitics are far more complex. Somewhere between words and affixes, these hybrid linguistic entities challenge both description and modeling. As for Romanian, the debate on weak (i.e., clitic) pronouns has been dominated by the question of their categorial status: are these items clitics or affixes? In this article, I present and scrutinize different approaches that support the claim that there are differences between proclitics and enclitics, i.e., between clitics occurring before vs. after the verb; this includes not only positional, but also featural differences. I identify various types of ambiguities in Romanian that could lead to improper data interpretation, and, based on an analysis of syllabicity-the most salient feature of Romanian weak pronouns-I refute claims for treating clitics in preverbal position differently than in postverbal position. Furthermore, using evidence from both historical data and data pertaining to language varieties, I show regularities in the Romanian weak pronoun system, bringing evidence against the claim that Romanian weak pronouns show a great deal of idiosyncrasies.
... 6 This comes directly from the idea in PA models that lexemes are the set of inflected forms in a paradigm (Blevins, 2016). 7 In the case of Kasem, nouns list their singular and plural forms as in Figure 1. 8 Unlike the representations used by Bird & Klein (1994) and Monachesi (2005) which avoid the use of explicit syllable trees, both singular and plural are lists of syllables. 6 Or at least all forms which take part in analogical relations. ...
This paper presents a formalization of proportional analogy using typed feature structures, which retains all key elements of analogical models of morphology. With the Kasem number system as an example, I show that using this model it is possible to express partial analogies which are unified into complete analogies. The analysis presented is accompanied by a complete TRALE implementation.
... It seems relatively straightforward to build a constraint like the PCC into the morphotactic component of the Information-Based morphology. Here we might compare constraints on clitic sequences in Romance (Monachesi (1999(Monachesi ( , 2005 via a CLITICS list. ...
Choctaw, a Muskogean language, shows a complex set of restrictions on verbal prefixes which requires reference both to exponence and position class. An approach like that of Information-Based Morphology Crysmann and Bonami (2016) allows us to model the facts correctly.
... See section 7.2 for further discussion, and Wurmbrand (2001, 146-156) for an analysis of these ideas. 3. Cl Cl approaches based on the idea that cliticsor feature bundles spelled out as cliticsare base-generated in clitic positions are, e.g., Strozer (1976), LaPolla (1988), Miller and Sag (1997), Emonds (1999), Monachesi (2005), and Nishida (2012). The main piece of evidence for theories supporting the base-generation of clitics is clitic doubling, once an XP argument already occurs in what seems to be the object base position (see Clitic Doubling and references therein). ...
... The Spanish morpheme se covers a broad range of grammatical functions, which are illustrated in (11)-(17). The goal of the present paper is to demonstrate how one of the most unusual uses of se, as a completive marker as in (17), is related to, and thus motivated by, other more common and widely discussed cases, such as those in (11) Many descriptive grammarians used to consider the Spanish se a full reflexive pronoun (e.g., Alcina and Blecua 1975;Fernández Ramírez 1987), while more theoretically oriented approaches often analyze se and its cognates in other Romance languages as an inflectional affix (see, e.g., Kaiser (1992) for a generative approach and Monachesi (2005) for a HPSG analysis). ...
Constructions are not predictable but are motivated: Evidence from the Spanish completive reflexive Many researchers seem to think that Construction Grammar posits the existence of only wholly idiosyncratic constructions. However, this misconception betrays a deep misunderstanding of the approach because it glosses over the fact that constructions rarely if ever emerge sui generis. Rather, Construction Grammar aims to balance the fact that some linguistic uses cannot be fully predicted from other well-established uses with the fact that extensions of a construction, while not predictable, are motivated by other senses in the constructional network. This paper illustrates this idea by providing an analysis of the Spanish completive reflexive marker se.
... The same analysis could be extended to the other two particles (cf. data from Avgustinova 1997, Asenova 2002, Alexopoulou and Kolliakou 2002, Monachesi 2005, albeit a continuum is observed across these three languages, as schematized in Table C. All these particles have a rigid ordering in the verbal complex and a strict adjacency to the verb, to be interrupted only by pronominal or adverbial clitics (see Romanian data in (4a) above, Bulgarian data in (6) and Greek data in (7)) 5 , and must be repeated with each coordinated verb (cf. ...
This paper deals with the distribution and the interpretation of the subjunctive in Romanian, focusing on its morpho-syntactic pattern and its use in main interrogative clauses, where it displays Balkan Sprachbund properties. First, we provide evidence for the impact of the Balkan pattern by demonstrating an affixal status for the Romanian subjunctive marker să, an analysis that could be extended to the Bulgarian particle da and to the Greek particle na. Second, we argue that main interrogative clauses with subjunctive verbs are root clauses, not elliptical constructions. We then propose a typology of the subjunctive uses in main interrogatives, by using two discursive strategies (i.e. Question / Assertion pair, and Question / Question pair) and two distribution tests (i.e. free-context uses and dialogical uses). We propose an analysis that takes into account both the pragmatic and the semantic level. Crucially, subjunctive interrogatives involve a weak call-on-addressee and implicit modality arising from the intrinsic properties of the subjunctive itself. Our study shows a richer semantic and pragmatic potential of the subjunctive mood in Romanian interrogatives compared to other Romance languages. We finally provide a historical overview of the subjunctive use in Romanian, aiming to show that there is no evidence for language contact with respect to the emergence of the subjunctive in Romanian.
... Other work focuses more on typology in minimalism, for instance, Franks & King (2000) provide a very detailed analysis of Slavic clitics; or, on Romance interfaces such as Monachesi (2005) in Head-driven Phrase Structure Grammar (hpsg), a unification based framework closely related to lfg, an extension from work on Italian clitics to Monachesi (1999). Based on various theoretical frameworks Miller & Monachesi (2003) offer a very comprehensive discussion of Romance clitics including object, subject and adverbial clitics. ...
Generative linguists have mostly been concerned with either idealised data sets that nicely fit their theory, or an idealised relationship between speakers and their homogeneous speech community. Lexical-Functional Grammar is different from other formal theories. In allowing for a less rigid theory, structures and constraints can be linked to incorporate linear order and information structure. This constraint-based theory accommodates variation and change, it allows for my descriptive analysis of nonstandardised variation. The goal of this dissertation is to explore the complex relationship between differential object marking and clitic doubling in nonstandardised variation data from Lime{u00F1}o Spanish contact varieties (LSCV). The main focus of this study is on the microvariation of the person three clitic paradigm cooccurring with extended differential object marking in nonstandardised linguistic phenomena. In particular I focus on 'strange lo', a featureless and invariate form, which is part of the feature specifying third person direct object clitic paradigm, used to optionally crossreference animate and inanimate objects in LSCV. Contact speakers use a double object marking strategy that allows them to use either marked or unmarked forms. Dynamic competition of these morphosyntactic forms leads to competing grammars, a process that contributes to language change. Both mark essentially the same grammatical relation, however motivated by a difference in semantic and pragmatic strategies. In this work I argue that nonreferential grammaticalised direct object clitics are a vital part of a pragmatic marking strategy to mark the direct object in a monotransitive clause as the secondary topic. The motivation for these grammaticalisation processes is analysed as information packaging taking also into account the correlation between contact and inherent changes as trigger factors. Ultimately the syntactic strategy is twofold, firstly to mark the secondary topic of a monotransitive clause and secondly, to compete with the indirect object for the primary object space. The latter may lead to a new accusative case marker which would imply a typological change in monotransitive constructions only. This proposal is supported by similar findings from typologically related and related languages such as Hindi/Urdu, Persian, Basque, Ibizan Catalan and Mexican Spanish. The major linguistic elements for the historical development of the third person object clitics and object marking are multiple grammaticalisation processes of clitics and the differential object marker a, inherent diachronic instability of the clitic paradigm and prolonged contact mediated by Andean Spanish. All factors combined provide the setting for the variation found that may ultimately lead to change. An example for completed change would be the single clitic paradigm found in Ecuador and Paraguay. My hypothesis is based on two competing but not mutually exclusive theories. Alsina (1996b) proposes a binary distinction of [DAT+] and [DAT-] for Romance languages such Catalan and Spanish, where both objects are internal arguments, direct functions and distinct from the external arguments subject and oblique. In that case, the unmarked object is the semantically restricted theta role bearing object. In a new theory of differential object marking (Dalrymple & Nikolaeva, 2007), the differences between marked and unmarked objects are analysed as different information structures expressed in syntactic terms representing two different grammatical functions. Different from semantically-based theories, this new approach takes the communicative context into account. In these terms, marked direct objects can be analysed as the primary object and the secondary topic in a monotransitive clause. Both analyses are not mutually exclusive but complementary, signaling different stages of language change.
... Other authors focus on typology in a minimalist framework, for instance, Franks and Holloway King (2000) provide a very detailed analysis of Slavic clitics; or, on Romance interfaces such as Monachesi (2005), an extension from work on Italian clitics in Monachesi (1999) in Head-driven Phrase Structure Grammar, a unification-based framework closely related to Lexical-Functional Grammar. Using various theoretical frameworks, Miller and Monachesi (2003) offer a very comprehensive discussion of Romance clitics, including object, subject and adverbial clitics. ...
This book is about the genesis of a subset of feature-reduced clitics and their syntactic/pragmatic functions in Limeño Spanish contact varieties of Peruvian Spanish. These clitics, which arise as non-standardized variation embedded in a variety of contact and second language acquisition scenarios, exhibit different grammaticalization stages and extended grammatical functions. The book presents a theoretically oriented description linking the clitic variation and innovation found in these dialects to language change in progress. The argument is then extended to show that these innovations are not restricted geographically but can be found in contact situations across the Spanish-speaking world.
... The same analysis could be extended to the other two particles (cf. data from Avgustinova 1997, Asenova 2002, Alexopoulou and Kolliakou 2002, Monachesi 2005, albeit a continuum is observed across these three languages, as schematized in Table C. All these particles have a rigid ordering in the verbal complex and a strict adjacency to the verb, to be interrupted only by pronominal or adverbial clitics (see Romanian data in (4a) above, Bulgarian data in (6) and Greek data in (7)) 5 , and must be repeated with each coordinated verb (cf. ...
This paper deals with the distribution and the interpretation of the subjunctive in Romanian, focusing on its morpho-syntactic pattern and its use in main interrogative clauses, where it displays Balkan Sprachbund properties. First, we provide evidence for the impact of the Balkan pattern by demonstrat- ing an affixal status for the Romanian subjunctive marker să, an analysis that could be extended to the Bulgarian particle da and to the Greek particle na. Second, we argue that main interrogative clauses with subjunctive verbs are root clauses, not elliptical constructions. We then propose a typology of the subjunctive uses in main interrogatives, by using two discursive strategies (i.e. Question / Assertion pair, and Question / Question pair) and two distribution tests (i.e. free-context uses and dialogical uses). We propose an analysis that takes into account both the pragmatic and the semantic level. Crucially, sub- junctive interrogatives involve a weak call-on-addressee and implicit modality arising from the intrinsic properties of the subjunctive itself. Our study shows a richer semantic and pragmatic potential of the subjunctive mood in Romanian interrogatives compared to other Romance languages. We finally provide a his- torical overview of the subjunctive use in Romanian, aiming to show that there is no evidence for language contact with respect to the emergence of the sub- junctive in Romanian.
... Without doubt, the most striking development affecting the verb system in the passage from Latin to Romance is the transferral of numerous verb-related inflectional categories to analytic preverbal auxiliaries or invariable particles (Vincent 1987;2014, §5), the overt realization of a functional category Infl(ection). The overt lexicalization of an Infl head thus correlates directly with the grammaticalization of a number of originally lexical verbs to produce a wide range of auxiliaries, a process whose effects are not uniformly mapped onto the semantic, phonological, morphological and syntactic structures of the various Romances varieties (Ledgeway 2012, §4.3.1), which not only show considerable differences in relation to otherwise similar constructions (Green 1987;Pountain 1982;Vincent 1987;Remberger 2006), but which individually also display considerable variation from one auxiliary construc-tion to another (Pottier 1961;Jones 1988;Alboiu/Motapanyane 2000, 14-20;Monachesi 2005). ...
The present chapter critically reconsiders the traditional typological distinction between Latin and Romance in terms of a syntheticity-analyticity opposition, according to which core grammatical categories and distinctions are marked morphologically in Latin but syntactically in Romance. After considering a wide selection of the Romance evidence for innovative analytic structures manifested in the emergence of a series of functional categories lexicalizing various functional heads within the nominal, verbal and clausal domains, a number of empirical and theoretical problems and limitations with this superficial dichotomy are reviewed. These highlight how the observed differences between Latin and Romance cannot be simplistically reduced to a synthetic-analytic opposition. Rather, it is argued that the observed rise of Romance analyticity should be considered an epiphenomenal development, ultimately the manifestation of a deeper change, but not, significantly, its cause, related to a change in the head directionality parameter from head-finality to head-initiality.
... In a variant of this hypothesis, the clitic is generated in its surface position, while the argument position is filled by the empty pronominal pro (Strozer, 1976;Rivas, 1977;Jaeggli, 1982;Borer, 1984;among others). On the other hand, according to what we will refer to as the Clitics as Agreement Hypothesis, pronominal clitics are agreement morphemes, part of Inflection and not generated in argument position (e.g., Jaeggli, 1986;Suñer, 1988;Fernández Soriano, 1989;Monachesi, 2005 among others). ...
Pronominal dependencies have been shown to be more resilient to attraction effects than subject-verb agreement. We use this phenomenon to investigate whether antecedent-clitic dependencies in Spanish are computed like agreement or like pronominal dependencies. In Experiment 1, an acceptability judgment self-paced reading task was used. Accuracy data yielded reliable attraction effects in both grammatical and ungrammatical sentences, only in singular (but not plural) clitics. Reading times did not show reliable attraction effects. In Experiment 2, we measured electrophysiological responses to violations, which elicited a biphasic frontal negativity-P600 pattern. Number attraction modulated the frontal negativity but not the amplitude of the P600 component. This differs from ERP findings on subject-verb agreement, since when the baseline matching condition obtained a biphasic pattern, attraction effects only modulated the P600, not the preceding negativity. We argue that these findings support cue-retrieval accounts of dependency resolution and further suggest that the sensitivity to attraction effects shown by clitics resembles more the computation of pronominal dependencies than that of agreement.
... Such adjustments often display sensitivity to such notions as weight distribution, speech rate, and so on, which are irrelevant to case adjacency. See Kaisse 1985, Ghini 1993and Monachesi 2005 for models of prosodic phrasing that come close to what we suggest here. A further consequence of case theory being constrained by the initial prosodic structure is that traces can still play a role in the checking procedure. ...
In this paper we argue that English allows both traditional left-branching VPs
and right-branching VP-shell structures (as first proposed in Larson 1988a, 1990). The
choice between these depends on case theory and economy. Case theory triggers VP-
shell formation whenever the verb is merged with a DP-object after it has been merged
with some other category. The reason is that VP-shell formation allows verb and object
to surface in adjacent positions, which is a prerequisite for case checking in English.
Economy has the effect that in all other circumstances, VP-shell formation is blocked.
We show that this proposal correctly regulates word order in transitive and ditransitive
VPs, as well as in VPs that contain a particle. However, the main independent evidence
we present comes from object-oriented floating quantifiers, whose distribution is limited
to VP-shell structures. In developing this argument, we will propose an analysis of
floating quantifiers as anaphoric adverbials. We will also compare this analysis with
alternatives according to which floating quantifiers are stranded by movement.
Keywords: Floating quantifiers, VP-shells, case checking, NP-raising.
... In Romanian, for instance, the auxiliary and the lexical verb have an internal hierarchical structure and thus they must be in monoclausal relation. According to Monachesi (2005), Romanian does not present any construction in which the subject or the verbal complements can intervene between the auxiliary and the lexical verb as illustrated in (6) and (7), taken from Monachesi (2005: 137). ...
Cross-linguistically, it has often been observed that there is no any specific language-independent formal definition that can be used to determine the characterization of any given element as an auxiliary verb. This paper, though it agrees to some extent with this observation, argues that there is still room to find some universal properties that help us end up with the conclusion that auxiliaries and lexical verbs are two distinct types of syntactic entities. To this end, this paper describes the characteristics necessary for what is to count as an auxiliary verb. Having done that, the paper turns to illustrate the most common properties that can be found among languages in order to find a clear universally agreed definition of an auxiliary verb.
... Without doubt, the most striking development affecting the verb system in the passage from Latin to Romance is the transferral of numerous verb-related inflectional categories to analytic preverbal auxiliaries or invariable particles (Vincent 1987;2014, §5), the overt realization of a functional category Infl(ection). The overt lexicalization of an Infl head thus correlates directly with the grammaticalization of a number of originally lexical verbs to produce a wide range of auxiliaries, a process whose effects are not uniformly mapped onto the semantic, phonological, morphological and syntactic structures of the various Romances varieties (Ledgeway 2012, §4.3.1), which not only show considerable differences in relation to otherwise similar constructions (Green 1987;Pountain 1982;Vincent 1987;Remberger 2006), but which individually also display considerable variation from one auxiliary construc-tion to another (Pottier 1961;Jones 1988;Alboiu/Motapanyane 2000, 14-20;Monachesi 2005). ...
... Pronominal object marking in Moro can be analyzed using a lexical process similar to ones that have been proposed for Romance clitics (e.g., Miller 1992;Miller & Sag 1997;Monachesi 1999Monachesi , 2005. While this intuition has been implemented a number of ways in the HPSG literature, the basic idea is that arguments are canonically realized as syntactic dependents (either SUBJ or COMPS), but they may also be realized by various non-canonical means, including as an affix on the verb. ...
This paper examines the syntactic and semantic behavior of object arguments in Moro, a Kordofanian language spoken in central Sudan. In particular, we focus on multiple object constructions (ditransitives, applicatives, and causatives) and show that these objects exhibit symmetrical syntactic behavior; e.g., any object can passivize or be realized as an object marker, and all can do so simultaneously. Moreover, we demonstrate that each object can bear any of the non-agentive roles in a verb’s semantic role inventory and that the resulting ambiguities are an entailment of symmetrical object constructions of the type found in Moro. Previous treatments of symmetrical languages have assumed a syntactic asymmetry between multiple objects and have developed theoretical analyses that treat symmetrical behaviors as departures from an asymmetrical basic organization of clausal syntax. We take a different approach: we develop a Head-Driven Phrase Structure Grammar account that allows a partial ordering of the argument structure (
arg-st
) list. The guiding idea is that languages differ with respect to the organization of their
arg-st
lists and their consequences for grammatical function realization: there is no privileged encoding, but there is large variation within the parameters defined by
arg-st
organization. This accounts directly for the symmetrical behaviors of multiple objects. We also show how this approach can be extended to account for certain asymmetrical behaviors in Moro.
... Pronominal object marking, as in (4a), can be expressed using a lexical device similar to ones that have been proposed for Romance clitics (e.g., Miller and Sag (1997), Monachesi (2005)): ...
This paper examines the syntactic and semantic behavior of object arguments in Moro, a Kordofanian language spoken in central Sudan. In particular, we focus on multiple object constructions (ditransitives, applicatives, and causatives) and show that these objects exhibit symmetrical syntactic behavior; e.g., any object can passivize or be realized as an object marker. Moreover, we demonstrate that each object can bear any of the non-agentive roles in a verb's semantic role inventory and that the resulting ambiguities are an entailment of symmetrical object constructions of the type found in Moro. Previous treatments of symmetrical languages have assumed a syntactic asymmetry between multiple objects and have developed theoretical analyses that treat symmetrical behaviors as departures from an asymmetrical basic organization of clausal syntax. We take a different approach: we develop an HPSG account that allows a partial ordering of the ARG-ST list. The guiding idea is that languages differ with respect to the organization of their ARG-ST lists and their consequences for grammatical function realization: there is no privileged encoding, but there is large variation within the parameters defined by ARG-ST organization. This accounts directly for the symmetrical behaviors of multiple objects. We also show how this approach can be extended to account both for certain asymmetrical behaviors in Moro as well as for variation in the typology multiple object constructions.
... The ultimate prosodic phrasing will also depend on factors such as speech rate and pauses. For motivation of such a two-step model of prosodic phrasing (initial domains determined by mapping from syntax at PF, later adjustments in phonology), see Ghini 1993, Monachesi 2005, and Dehé 2006 Consider the different effects that the alignment rule in (3) has on structures in which an XP immediately follows a head H, as in (5a); structures in which a head Z intervenes between H and XP, as in (5b); structures in which a maximal projection ZP intervenes between H and XP, as in (5c); and structures in which XP precedes H, as in (5d). The prosodic phrasing that results from applying (3) to the respective syntactic structures is given on the right-hand side in (5). ...
Benmamoun and Lorimor (2006) dispute the claim made in Ackema and Neeleman 2003 that certain agreement alternations in Standard Arabic, and various related phenomena, can successfully be analyzed in terms of postsyntactic spell-out rules that are sensitive to prosodic structure. In this reply, we argue that the data discussed by Benmamoun and Lorimor do not warrant their conclusion, and in fact provide further evidence in favor of our original analysis.
... In predominantly head-initial languages, like English and Dutch, the right edges of syntactic XPs correspond to the right edges of prosodic phrases (φs): The initial prosodic structures are input to later readjustment rules that are concerned with things like proper weight distribution. This is irrelevant here, because spell-out takes place before these readjustment rules apply (since they operate on the basis of the overt phonological material present; for related discussion, see Ghini 1997 andMonachesi 2003). Let us consider how this helps us explain the pattern in (29). ...
This article argues for keeping the domains of morphology and syntax distinct, but within the larger domain of the syntactic module. It also indicates that 'morphology' is actually 'Word syntax', whereas what is traditionally called syntax is actually just a submodule concerned with 'Phrasal syntax'. The article concentrates on the relation between syntax and morphology, and more specifically, on the question of whether there is a generative system for word formation separate from syntax. The arguments for a distinct word-syntax module are described. These arguments provide a solid case for the hypothesis that the systems which generate the syntax of words and the syntax of phrases must be separated. The general conclusion is that there are no direct interactions between word syntax and phrasal syntax. They interact only indirectly, via the process of insertion that connects structures from both submodules, and via the rules which connect morphosyntactic structures with morphophonological ones. © 2007 editorial matter and organization Gillian Ramchand and Charles Reiss the chapters their various authors. All rights reserved.
... Sportiche (1992) argues that these facts severely hinder a lexical-attachment analysis of complement clitics, since they must appear attached to a verb that does not license the argument they represent. However, analyses in Abeillé & Godard 2002, Miller & Sag 1997, and Monachesi 2005 show that this problem can in fact be overcome. These authors convincingly analyze cases of clitic climbing as argument sharing or projection, and although they are working within various lexicalist frameworks, Abeillé and Godard (2002) provide arguments that are essentially independent of the particular framework. ...
The status of subject clitics in French has been heavily debated (Kayne 1975, Rizzi 1986, Roberge 1990, Auger 1994b, Miller & Sag 1997, De Cat 2007b, and many others). Distributional properties of French subject clitics have led Kayne (1975), Rizzi (1986), and others to analyze them as argument-bearing elements occupying canonical subject position, cliticizing to the verb only at the level of the phonology. While this hypothesis enjoys a wide following, a growing body of evidence suggests that it fails to capture patterns of subject-clitic use in colloquial French dialects/registers (Roberge 1990, Auger 1994b, Zribi-Hertz 1994, Miller & Sag 1997). Using new evidence from prosodic and corpus analyses, speaker judgments, and crosslinguistic typology, this article argues that (i) European Colloquial French exhibits differences from Standard French that impact how subject clitics are best analyzed, and more specifically (ii) subject clitics in European Colloquial French are affixal agreement markers, not phonological clitic arguments.
... In order to address the problems PG person restrictions raise for current analyses, we first have to see the two main styles of account that have been employed within recent years in dealing with the PCC. The first type of analysis, endorsed by Bonet (1991Bonet ( ,1994, Cuervo (2002) Monachesi (2005), Heap (2005) and Pescarini (2010) inter alia, assumes that person restrictions in clitic clusters are morphological in nature: a postsyntactic mechanism is blamed for both the bans on specific clitic clusters and their replacement with either alternative clitic forms or obliteration. For example, under a recent analysis of this style of explanation, Pescarini (2010) argues that person restrictions result from a "constellation of different constraints". ...
In this paper, using new evidence from Pontic Greek (PG) in addition to Standard Modern Greek, we argue that the Person Case Constraint (PCC), generally presumed to be an irreducible morphosyntactic constraint on clitic pronoun combinations and argued by several to provide evidence of feature-driven syntactic operations, is a direct consequence of processing considerations, these new data being inexplicable under any of the current feature-driven analyses (Anagnostopoulou 2003, 2005; Béjar & Rezac 2003; Bianchi 2006; Adger & Harbour 2007; Nevins 2007; Pescarini 2010 among others). Adopting the Dynamic Syntax (DS) perspective of Cann et al. (2005), in which syntax is defined as the monotonic incremental growth of semantic structure, with structural underspecification and update as the core syntactic notion, we argue that the PCC is wholly due to restrictions on tree-growth imposed by the logic of finite trees: that these should underpin observed gaps in possible clitic combinations is due to clitics being calcified reflexes of previously available tree-growth update-sequences whose variability is the source of word order variation. More specifically, we argue that PCC effects, including the problematic PG data, are the consequence of a tree-logic restriction that only one unfixed node can be present in a tree at any stage in the tree growth process. PG, a dialect in which no 3rd person clitic clusters are allowed, provides strong evidence for such a feature-free account. Contrary to current feature-based analyses, which would preclude such data, the analysis presented here is shown to directly predict the Pontic Greek data, thus pointing towards a feature-free account of the PCC.
... Recent analyses refine the traditional intuition and take it to be an affix (Legendre (2000); Barbu (2004)) or an ntensifier' of the verb (Monachesi (2005)). ...
Ro-manian (section 2) and to give a brief overview of its previous syntactic analyses (section 3) ; ii To suggest a semantic analysis of mai as an additive particle in the event domain (section 4) ; iii To provide some evidence based on crosslinguistic comparison within Ro-mance languages (section 5). 2 The data 2.1 Distribution Romanian mai is a monosyllabic word which appears in several contexts. It may combine with different categories, namely APs (1), adverbials (AdvPs (2), PPs (3)), VPs (4).
After reviewing the different meanings attributed to the concept ‘complex predicate’, a set of syntactic diagnostics for the identification of a complex predicated is established. This set of diagnostics is then discussed in relation to modern and old Romance structures such as: (i) auxiliary constructions (with habere, esse, and other verbs), most of which emerged in the passage from Latin to Romance, and their Tense-Mood-Aspect make-up; (ii) the periphrastic passive compared to the reflexive passive (with special reference to past participle agreement, the inventory of passive auxiliaries, the double passive, and the ordering of elements in the passive cluster); (iii) aspectual auxiliaries; (iv) modal complex predicates; (v) causative complex predicates; and (vi) complex predicates headed by perception verbs. Putting aside the various meanings associated with the concept ‘complex predicate’ and the enormous variety of the syntactic structures which to varying degress satisfy the complex predicate diagnostics, this chapter seeks an answer to the deeper question of how the Romance languages are theoretically and empirically relevant for a better understanding of complex predicates.
The present study aims at investigating the nature of object indexed elements in Persian. This is an essential element for deciding about the layered structure of the clause in the framework of the Role and Reference Grammar.Because of the inefficiency of the mere formal approaches, we appeal to the Role and Reference Grammar, a functional-structural model which considers all morpho-syntactic units with regard to their usage in the context. The goal of the Role and Reference Grammar is to uncover the universal aspects of the clause structure, without imposing features on languages in which there is no evidence for them. The research is descriptive-analytic and uses the standard colloquial Persian as its data. To do this, the data of standard spoken Persian are extracted from various resources and then analyzed syntactically.The behavior of indexed elements signifies that they have not turned into the agreement markers, although they behave like them somehow. So in representing the clause structure of transitive sentences, we posit the indexed elements in INDEX node outside the AGREEMENT node. In the absence of overt object noun phrase, the indexed element can function as the argument in the clause.
Keywords
object indexation Clitic agreement marker Role and Reference Grammar layered structure of the clause
La monografia dell'autore Saša Moderc, dedicata ai clitici italiani, si articola in due volumi. In questo primo volume l'autore presenta i clitici, le loro funzioni, le possibili posizioni rispetto al verbo, le classi di verbi con i quali si possono combinare i singoli clitici. Particolare attenzione viene dedicata all'interpretazione dei clitici polifunzionali (p.es. "ci", "ne", "si", "gli"). La trattazione è corredata di numerosi esempi, tratti - nella maggior parte dei casi - da pagine Internet, specialmente quelle in cui si riconoscono i tratti sintattici peculiari del parlato. Questi usi marginali dei clitici, e a volte agrammaticali, quasi di regola vengono ignorati dai testi di grammatica italiana. L'autore propone anche una riflessione sulla distinzione tra gli usi passivo e impersonale del clitico "si", problema al quale solitamente viene dedicato poco spazio nell'insegnamento sia dell'italiano L1 che L2.
La lingua dell'esposizione è volutamente semplice, senza eccessivi tecnicismi. I rimandi alle fonti e le note a piè di pagine sono ridotti al minimo necessario. I due volumi e l'opera nel suo complesso sono destinati a studenti di livello avanzato che desiderino approfondire le proprie conoscenze sui clitici; nei due volumi si offre un modello di riflessione linguistica e di analisi degli esempi proposti, si instaurano correlazioni con le nozioni presentate nelle grammatiche della lingua italiana e si mettono in evidenza determinati usi aberranti e anomali dei clitici: questi non vengono rigettati dall'autore, bensì vengono inquadrati in una logica linguistca che, in alcuni suoi tratti, forse nel tempo potrà assurgere a norma.
In this article, I report on two analyses of variation in Transylvanian Saxon (TrSax), an endangered Germanic language in contact with German and Romanian, used in settings predictive of structural influences among languages. My goals are to document the structural properties of the target variables and to evaluate if processes of language contact have an effect on synchronic variation in TrSax. I identified two areas of TrSax that display variation at the morphosyntactic level, and in each case one of the variants has a corresponding structure in German, while the other variant has a corresponding structure in Romanian. To tease apart contact-induced variation from internally motivated variation, I compare data from multilingual speakers with different linguistic profiles and assess the effect of sociolinguistic factors on variation through mixed effects analyses. Variation that patterns similarly across these two groups can provide a clearer account of the structure of TrSax, while differences between the groups can shed light on trajectories of change in TrSax. Furthermore, results of this study have implications for borrowing hierarchies in language contact.
A driving concern of this dissertation is to explore morpho-syntactic variation in Viscri Saxon, a dialect of Transylvanian Saxon (TrSax), originating in Viscri, Romania. I aim to determine if/how German and Romanian, the languages in contact with Viscri Saxon, affect the structure of the language. The two grammatical domains of Viscri Saxon under consideration are two-verb clusters, i.e. auxiliary/modal + verb constructions in the right periphery of a clause, and conjunctions.
If contact effects are observable, are some domains of Viscri Saxon morpho-syntax more affected by contact effects than others? Do German and Romanian affect Viscri Saxon to different degrees? Can contact effects on Viscri Saxon be identified by comparing a variety from Romania to a variety from Germany?
I address these questions by combining methods from language contact (focusing on factors that facilitate morpho-syntactic transfer) with methods from sociolinguistics (focusing on quantitative analyses that explore the effects of sociolinguistic factors on variation).
The presence of two forms of the future and conditional paradigms in Old Spanish is well-attested. The analytic form, which was marked by a mesoclitic, was more syntactically restricted, while the synthetic form, which surfaced with either a proclitic or an enclitic, was essentially free to appear in any syntactic context. It is notable that the analytic form was only acceptable in contexts in which finite verbs obligatorily hosted enclitics. In this article, I test various morphosyntactic factors to determine the level of variation among the analytic and synthetic future and conditional forms across six centuries of Old Spanish. The factors of verb tense, preverbal constituent, and verb stem morphology significantly affect the emergence of mesoclisis or enclisis, as does the century during which the verb is produced; however, subject expression is not a significant factor.
The arguments of certain Spanish verbs of psychological experience exhibit morphosyntactic properties similar to those of Germanic "oblique subject" verbs, as described, for example, in Barodal (2001) and Barodal & Eythórsson (2005). In this article, we show how the behavior of dative experiencers looks neither "quirky" nor "non-canonical" when grammatical privilege is accounted for directly in terms of semantic macroroles in the sense of Role and Reference Grammar (Van Valin 2005), provided that the standard set of Actor (A) and Undergoer (U) macroroles is augmented to include a third, i.e., Receptor (R), that corresponds roughly to Fillmore's (1968) Dative category of semantic case and the Relational Grammar indirect object relation (Perlmutter 1984). Adding R to the set of macroroles enables us to account straightforwardly for the subject and non-subject properties of dative experiencers in Spanish, as well as parallel properties of possessor/recipient arguments across construction types, without having anything hinge either on dative case per se or on the notion of subject.
The current study examined the production of Hebrew verbal passives across adolescence as mediated by linguistic register and verb morphology. Participants aged eight to sixteen years and a group of adults were asked to change written active-voice sentences into corresponding passive-voice forms, divided by verb register (neutral and high), binyan pattern (Qal / Nif'al, Hif'il / Huf'al, and Pi'el / Pu'al), and verb tense (past and future tense). Results showed that Hebrew passive morphology is a very late acquisition, almost a decade later than in other languages, that passivizing neutral-register verbs was less challenging than high-register verbs, and that past tense verbs were easier to passivize than future tense verbs. An order of acquisition was determined among the three binyan pairs. The paper provides an account of these findings grounded in the event-telling role of Hebrew passives in discourse and the spurt of abstract, lexically specific vocabulary in Later Language Development.
This thesis seeks to shed light on the inner lives of the Romanian people via the
language they use to communicate about their emotions. It is the first detailed
study that analyses Romanian emotions by examining the words referring to
them, as well as the syntactic constructions in which they occur. It also highlights
Romanian belief systems and other cultural aspects that influence the Romanian
emotional experience. In particular, the thesis focuses on ‘Romanian anger‐like
emotion words mânie and supărare and the happiness‐like words fericire and
veselie.
By using the Natural Semantic Metalanguage (NSM) and by drawing on instances
of natural language, mainly extracted from the Romanian Corpus Linguistic, as
well as proverbs, sayings, poems and songs, this study shows that Romanians
feel very intensely and have highly responsive behaviors and reactions. In
addition, it was found that Romanians feel and think socially rather than
individually; for example, Romanians’ ability to feel something good is
intensified when they share this good feeling with someone else.
Another strength of this thesis is that it demonstrates that basic and universal
labels such as anger or happiness cannot be applied to emotion terms in the
Romanian language because the emotional reality expressed in Romanian does
not match the Anglo concepts described by these labels.
Italy constitutes a fertile terrain for research into language change, both because of the richness of the dialectal variation and because of the length of the period of textual attestation. Such diversity has long been the staple of research in general and Romance historical phonology, morphology, and lexis, but much less attention has been devoted to the same issues within the domain of grammar. In this book therefore, a team of leading international scholars addresses a range of topics designed to exploit and explore the interaction of the geographical and historical dimensions of morphosyntactic change. The opening chapter establishes the conceptual and empirical background. There follow a series of case studies investigating the morphosyntax of verbal and nominal constructions and the organization of the clause. Exemplification is drawn from the full range of Romance dialects spoken within the borders of modern Italy, from Sicily and Sardinia through to Piedmont and Friulia. Some of the studies narrow the focus to a particular construction within a particular dialect; others broaden out to compare different patterns of evolution within different dialects. There is also diversity in the theoretical frameworks adopted by the various contributors. Our aim is both to take stock of the current state of the field and to set out new results and new questions to help move forward the frontiers of that research. The results are of relevance not only to those who specialize in the study of Italo‐Romance, but also to other Romanists and to those whose interest lies in the understanding of the mechanisms of linguistic change, whatever their languages of specialization
The article gives a detailed description of the three types of subjects that the Romanian infinitive may take - controlled, raised, and lexical subjects -, bringing new information both from the contemporary and from the old language. The data is often compared to the situation in other Romance languages. The constraints to which the three types are subject will be presented by using tools and concepts borrowed from the generative framework.
This article examines the syntactico-semantic structure of periphrastic causatives in chiShona, a southern Bantu language spoken mainly in Zimbabwe. We argue that periphrastic causatives involve complex predication and are monoclausal. Evidence from scope related clause bound aspects in the form of negation, reflexivization, object and subject marking and passivization is used to corroborate the monoclausality. We utilise analytical insights from the notion of Argument Composition (AC) and Head-Driven Phrase Structure Grammar (HPSG) theory. Since AC is considered as a lexical process, its account of complex predicates satisfies strict compositionality whilst at the same time maintaining lexical integrity. Through the constraint satisfaction mechanisms of HPSG and the embedded semantic meta-theory of Lexical Resource Semantics (LRS) we provide evidence for the well-formedness of feature structures of periphrastic causatives in chiShona. We also demonstrate that as complex predicates, these causatives satisfy both the general and specific principles of both theories. The main argument that is proffered in this article is that through AC, the periphrastic causative shares much in common with its morphological counterpart, especially in the areas of valence, argument structure and lexical and compositional semantics.
This paper provides a formal theory of inflectional periphrasis, the phenomenon where a multi-word expression plays the grammatical role normally played by a single word filling a cell in an inflectional paradigm. Expanding on the literature, I first identify and illustrate six key properties that a satisfactory theory of periphrasis should account for: (i) the phenomenon of periphrasis is found in the inflection of all major parts of speech; (ii) the logic of the opposition between periphrasis and synthesis is the logic of inflection; (iii) auxiliaries as used in periphrases are morphosyntactic hybrids; (iv) some periphrases are morphosyntactically non-compositional; (v) periphrasis is independent of phrase structure, but (vi) the parts of a periphrase are linked by a grammatical function. The rest of the paper presents a lexicalist theory of periphrasis, relying on a version of HPSG (Pollard and Sag 1994) for syntax combined with a version of Paradigm Function Morphology (Stump 2001) for inflection. The leading idea is that periphrases are similar to syntactically flexible idioms; the theory of periphrasis is thus embedded within a more general theory of collocation. Periphrasis is accounted for in a strictly lexicalist fashion by recognizing that exponence may take the form of the addition of collocational requirements. I show how the theory accounts for all key properties identified in the first section, deploying partial analyses for periphrastic constructions in English, French, Czech, and Persian.
In the literature, there are two major proposals for resolving the syntax-semantics mismatch characterizing complex predicates. The ‘verb-raising’ approach resolves the mismatch via syntactic movement (or its analog), whereas the ‘argument-sharing’ approach does so by positing merged argument structures for complex predicates at the syntax-semantics interface. Focusing on two types of complex predicates in Japanese—syntactic compound verbs and the so-called -te form complex predicate—I discuss some novel empirical data posing challenges to both approaches in addition to the set of well-known observations from the literature illustrating the tension between the two strategies.
The paper then argues for a synthesis of these two approaches within a variant of categorial grammar, taking advantage of the logical perspective on the syntax-semantics interface characteristic of certain recent variants of categorial grammar. The proposed analysis integrates the analytic insights of the two previous approaches seamlessly, and has both theoretical and empirical advantages over the two: theoretically, it clarifies the deeper connection between the theory-neutral analytic intuitions guiding the two approaches; empirically, it provides straightforward solutions for both the old and new empirical problems, enabling a previously unattained unified treatment of complex predicates that has a wider empirical coverage than its competitors.
In this paper we argue that the Person Case Constraint, generally presumed to be an irreducible morpho-syntactic constraint on clitic pronoun combina-tions is a direct consequence of processing considerations. Adopting the Dynamic Syntax (DS) perspective of Cann et al. (2005) and Cann & Kempson (2008) in which syntax is defined as the monotonic incremental growth of semantic structure, with structural underspecification and update as the core syntactic notion, we argue that the PCC is wholly due to general restrictions on tree-growth: that these should underpin observed gaps in possible clitic combinations is due to clitics being calcified reflexes of previously available tree-growth update-sequences whose variability is the source of word order variation. We argue that the PCC is the consequence of a tree-logic restriction that only one unfixed node can be present in a tree at any stage in the tree growth process. Strong evidence for this account comes from Pontic Greek, whose preclusion of 3rd person clitic clusters emerges as a consequence of this constraint, in sharp contrast to feature-based accounts which, in being de-fined to match the license for these combinations in other languages, would directly preclude these data, thus pointing towards a feature-free account of the PCC.
Any theory of person features must account for known typological patterns (including the inventory of persons and generalizations about syncretism), but also provide a handle on the person morphology of individual languages. In this paper, we develop an analysis of person based on the following core assumptions. (i) Person features represent functions that operate on an initial set of possible discourse referents, or on the output of other person functions. Which combinations of person features are well-formed follows from the properties of the functions they represent (compare Harbour 2011b, 2011c). (ii) There are two such person features. Their semantic specification implies that one is shared by first and second person, while the other is shared by second and third person (see Kerstens 1993; Halle 1997; Bennis and MacLean 2006; Aalberse and Don 2011). (iii) Rules that operate on features (including rules of impoverishment and spell-out rules) are sensitive to the order in which the functions represented by person features apply. The main results of the proposed theory are (a) an explanation of the typological inventory of persons (first, second and third in the singular; first inclusive, first exclusive, second and third in the plural); (b) an explanation of the typological observation that syncretism between first and third person is much rarer than syncretism between either first and second, or second and third person (see Baerman et al. 2005; Baerman and Brown 2011); (c) a descriptively adequate analysis of person agreement in Dutch where two person endings arrange themselves in such a way that there is a 2-3 syncretism in the regular case, a 1-2 syncretism under subject-verb inversion, and an optional 1-3 syncretism with a particular lexical class of verbs (modals).
There is considerable disagreement between theories of morphology concerning the complexity attached to words consisting of more than one morpheme. While, e.g., Distributed Morphology views complex words as a hierarchical structure of individual pieces associated with morpho-syntactic features, inferential frameworks such as A-Morphous Morphology and Paradigm Function Morphology treat complex words as morphologically simplex, consisting merely of a phonological string without any morphological constituent structure. Based on evidence from the Bolivian language Baure this paper argues that the restrictiveness of the latter view prevents an elegant analysis of certain syncretism patterns. The pervasive property of the Baure paradigm is that all agreement markers may appear in word-initial and work-final positions. This pattern can only be directly expressed in the analysis if complex words actually have more than just phonological structure. The argument thus challenges rule-based frameworks of morphology.
Two types of bound morphemes-clitics and inflectional affixes-are found attached to (free) words in many languages. At least six lines of evidence separate the clear cases on each side: the degree of selection between the dependent morpheme and the word to which it is attached; arbitrary lexical gaps; phonological idiosyncrasies; semantic idiosyncrasies; syntactic operations affecting the combinations; and restrictions on the combinability of clitics with inflectional affixes. These criteria all indicate that English contracted auxiliaries (She's gone) are clitics, but that the English contracted negative (She hasn't gone) is an inflectional affix-a rather surprising conclusion that turns out to have satisfying consequences.
Abstract : The aim of this paper is to account for the phonology,of French clitics. But this
The virtues of viewing the lexicon as an inheritance network are its succinctness and its tendency to highlight significant clusters of linguistic properties. From its succinctness follow two practical advantages, namely its ease of maintenance and modification. In this paper we present a feature-based foundation for lexical inheritance. We shall argue that the feature-based foundation is both more economical and expressively more powerful than non-feature-based systems. It is more economical because it employs only mechanisms already assumed to be present elsewhere in the grammar (viz., in the feature system), and it is more expressive because feature systems are more expressive than other mechanisms used in expressing lexical inheritance (cf. DATR). The lexicon furthermore allows the use of default inheritance, based on the ideas of default unification, defined by Bouma [7]. These claims are buttressed in sections sketching the opportunities for lexical description in feature-based lexicons in two central lexical topics: inflection and derivation. Briefly, we argue that the central notion of paradigm may be defined directly in feature structures, and that it may be more satisfactorily (in fact, immediately) linked to the syntactic information in this fashion. Our discussion of derivation is more programmatic; but here, too, we argue that feature structures of a suitably rich sort provide a foundation for the definition of lexical rules. We illustrate theoretical claims in application to German lexical structure. This work is currently under implementation in a natural language understanding project (DISCO) at the German Artificial Intelligence Center (Deutsches Forschungszentrum für Künstliche Intelligenz).
Albanian, Bulgarian, Modern Greek, and Rumanian share the following clause structure: [CP C0 [MP M0 [T/AgrP T/Agr0 [AuxP Aux0 [VP V0]]]]]. In Balkan clauses, the phrase headed by the complementizer takes a phrase headed by an invariant modal particle as complement. The Tense/Agreement complex, the auxiliaries, and the main verb follow MP. In addition, Balkan languages share interesting varieties of X0-movement for non-finite verbs, with theoretical consequences for principles of UG. In Bulgarian and Rumanian, (Long) Head-movement raises V0 to C0 across the finite Aux0, as inProel sm knigata I have read the book; such structures comply with the Empty Category Principle via Relativized Minimality, and escape the Head Movement Constraint. In Albanian, Greek, and Rumanian, Head-movement places the imperative V0 in C0, as inGhrpse to Write it!. Albanian imperatives show Long Head Movement and comply with the ECP like other LHM patterns in cases where the V-stem precedes the clitic and the affix in that order:Tregoj-i-ni Tell him!. Greek and Rumanian Gerunds display Head-movement to M0, as inI Maria kratndas to Mary holding it. In similar Albanian constructions M0 is filled, and this prevents V0-raising, as inPash [Brixhiden [M
0
duke]kenduar] I saw Brigitte singing.
The syntactic rule of Restructuring explains the syntactic properties of so-called 'Clitic Climbing' sentences in Italian. However, Restructuring alone fails to account for the semantic properties of such sentences. This paper argues that lexical governance of Restructuring is inadequate. Instead, a syntactic rule operating freely whenever its structural description is met, and followed by semantic interpretation rules, not only adequately but insightfully handles the data. A crucial claim is that the derived structure of the verbal complex in a restructured sentence is identical to that of a complex of auxiliary + past participle, so that the same semantic interpretation rules apply to both.
In this squib I present evidence against the syntactic accounts of the second-position effect in Serbo-Croatian (SC) (see, among others, Franks and Progovac 1994, Cavar and Wilder 1994, Progovac 1996, Roberts 1994, Halpern 1992, 1995, Schutze 1994). Most of these syntactic accounts of the second-position effect crucially assume that in overt syntax SC clitics are found in a cluster adjoined to each other and very high in the tree, allowing enough space for at most one element to precede them. Considering the behavior of SC clitics in VP-ellipsis, I show, however, that in overt syntax clitics need not be adjoined to each other and that each clitic may be located in a separate maximal projection. I further show that these new facts fit nicely into Boskovic's (1995, 1997) account of the second-position effect
This paper proposes an analysis of some morphophonological phenomena of Romanian pronominal clitics which have been treated so far as idiosyncrasies. I argue that pronominal clitics have only one underlying form and that surface forms are different because of the different environments in which they appear and because of their morphological properties. As will be shown, an Optimality Theoretic ranking of morphological and phonological constraints can account for the surface realisation of the clitics.
We develop a theory of movement operations that occur after the syntactic derivation, in the PF component, within the framework of Distributed Morphology.The theory is an extension of what was called Morphological Merger in Marantz 1984 and subsequent work.A primary result is that the locality properties of a Merger operation are determined by the stage in the derivation at which the operation takes place: specifically, Merger that takes place before Vocabulary Insertion, on hierarchical structures, differs from Merger that takes place postVocabulary Insertion/linearization.Specific predictions of the model are tested in numerous case studies.Analyses showing the interaction of syntactic movement, PF movement, and rescue operations are provided as well, including a treatment of Englishdo-support.
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While a consensus has been reached about the monoclausality of the Romance construction with an auxiliary verb and its verbal complement, questions remain about its syntactic structure. We focus here on French auxiliaries-the past tense auxiliaries (avoir and etre), and the passive auxiliary (etre)-which are unique in French in contributing only tense and aspect and triggering obligatory clitic climbing. Three syntactic structures have been proposed for such auxiliaries: a VP complement analysis, a verbal complex analysis, and a 'flat' VP analysis. We show here, working within a HEAD-DRIVEN PHRASE STRUCTURE GRAMMAR framework and basing our arguments on classical constituency tests, bounded dependencies, and lesser-known properties of a subset of manner adverbs, that the flat-structure analysis is to be preferred for tense auxiliaries, which take as their complements the bare participle as well as the complements subcategorized by this participle and 'inherited' from it. In contrast, the passive auxiliary, which we identify with the copula, has a predicative complement with different realizations: either an ordinary phrase, 'saturated' for its complements, or a 'partial' complement, where the predicative head lets some or all of its complements be inherited by the auxiliary. Our analysis allows for a solution to the well-known problem of auxiliary selection, which, we argue, should not be taken as an indicator of syntactic structure but is best handled via lexical constraints.*
The clitic sequences of Italian present various difficulties to the universal account of clitic ordering in the form of a single positively stated surface structure constraint posited in Perlmutter (1971). On the basis of the Italian data, which reinforce previous doubts about such an analysis, it will be necessary to adopt the following devices to remedy the inadequacies of the SSC approach: a negative constraint, a post-SSC reordering rule, and the admission of non-superficial syntactic and phonological information in determining clitic order. While such modifications affect the original degree of motivation of the SSC approach, they offer additional strength to the claim of superficial arbitrariness of clitic ordering imposed at the surface by a (variety of) linearization device(s).
One of the most promising new developments of recent research into theoretical syntax within the model of Government and Binding (GB) as presented in Chomsky (1981) and (1982) has been the new importance given to the study of languages other than English. This has stimulated a great deal of work into a variety of languages (see, for example, Rizzi, 1982; Borer, 1983; Bouchard, 1984; Huang, 1984 and others). It has also been welcomed by linguists outside the TG tradition. Thus, Comrie, (1984:155) expresses his delight that ‘Chomsky (1981) makes clear that generative grammarians have come to realize that an adequate study of syntax within universal grammar requires the study of languages of different types. Chomsky's main concern has always been to formulate a theory that would achieve ‘explanatory adequacy’ by providing a restrictive set of principles which could characterize universally the notion ‘natural language’. However, detailed and in-depth analyses of various languages have revealed that in order to achieve ‘descriptive adequacy’ the theory has to allow for cross-linguistic differences, or ‘parametric variation’. The concept of parametric variation weakens some-what the restrictiveness of the universal grammar (UG) hypothesis and even more so its purported innateness, since the values for the parameters must be arrived at by the child through induction from empirical evidence. Nevertheless, explanatory adequacy may still be attained if the number of parameters is very small and each parameter has few values.(Received February 12 1987)
The presentational focus construction in Norwegian can have an agent in object position, as in Det arbeidet en mann i skogen It worked a man in the-woods'. This creates problems for linking theory, in which a robust generalization says that agents are not realized as objects. Optimality Theory makes possible a new approach to this classical problem in Scandinavian generative grammar. The constraint that agents are not realized as objects must compete with other constraints. In Norwegian, it is ranked below a requirement that a presentational focus must be realized in object position. The Norwegian situation is compared to languages with different constraint rankings
In heavily inflected languages, a word’s inflectional affixes are often required to appear in a fixed sequence; in such cases,
the affixes can be classified according to the position(s) which they may occupy in that sequence. Consider, for instance,
the partial inflectional paradigm of the Swahili verb ‘to want’ in (1). In this partial paradigm, three distinct prefix position
classes can be distinguished, as in (2): the slot nearest the verb root is occupied by a class of prefixes which mark tense,
slot II is occupied by a class of prefixes marking person/number agreement, and slot III is occupied by a class of prefixes
marking negative polarity.1
We began with the premise that doubling with DO- and IO-CLs requires that both elements of the chain agree in features. With IOs, doubling is universal because the features of the IO argument are practically irrelevant (section 1.1). However, since DO-CLs are inherently specific, this feature is crucial for DO-doubling to be grammatical. Animacy is the second feature necessary in most contexts. However, as pointed out in section 1.3.1, doubling may operate even in the absence of the latter. The same matching of features required of doubling constructions is required under extraction (a subset of doubling structures), hence, no special mechanisms are needed to reject ill-formed sentences. What causes ungrammaticality in extractions from CL-D DOs is a clash between the specific referential CL and a nonspecific interpreted object argument, a violation of the Matching Principle. Since lexical partitives and unagreement phenomena are productive ways to signal the specificity of the DO, extractions at LF and in the syntax proper can produce well-formed sentences (section 2.2). Moreover, the Matching Principle follows directly from the unique indexing peculiar to chain coindexing and Spec-head agreement.These results have two main consequences: (a) the hypothesis that CLs are agreement morphemes which do not absorb Case becomes viable. This claim is supported by the doubling of inanimates (section 1.3.1) and even of some animates (17) in the absence of a, by facts about Case with IOs (section 1.3.2), and by weak cross-over effects (section 3.1) where CLs-as-agreement serve to identify the relevant empty category. (b) Since extractions of both CL-D IOs (section 2.1) and CL-D DOs (section 2.2) are possible, it follows that CLs are not theta-role absorbers, because the doubled constituent must be in an argument position. The moral is that the absence of extraction does not itself show that the double is in an A' position. Rather one must look deeper to discover whether independent principles in the language can account for lack of extraction in such contexts.1
Finally, the assumption that datives in a CL-chain are NPs and not PPs (see Appendix) makes possible the generalization that contemporary Spanish CLs — whether direct or indirect — enter only into nominal chains, a generalization confirmed by their parallel behavior with respect to weak crossover and scope (sections 3.1–3.2). This conclusion brings the analysis of Spanish in line with those of French and Rumanian (Steriade 1980/81) where datives have been argued to be NPs, and it opens the door for the possibility that datives in all the Romance languages might be nominal in nature.2
The verbal morphemes in the Papuan language Nimboran are rigidly ordered; moreover, morphemes with identical ordering properties are in complementary distribution. This suggests that verbal morphemes belong to position classes, each permitting at most one member to surface. Certain morphemes belong simultaneously to more than one position class, with corresponding blocking of all morphemes in the relevant classes. A striking generalization is that position classes blocked in this joint fashion must be contiguous.
The problem is that linear order and blocking diagnose two incompatible orderings for the position classes. The solution rests in reinterpreting verbalpositions as levels in a fixed morphological hierarchy; we resolve the ordering paradox by exploiting the distinction between dominance and precedence available in a hierarchical structure.
This paper adduces new support for the theory of level-ordering and offers a formal theory of position class morphology, a well-known phenomenon which deserves attention in morphological theory. It also covers a large corpus of data — and certain phenomena — not previously discussed in the generative literature.
In this paper it is argued that Catalan sequences of a (semi)-modal verb and an infinitive, which are traditionally known as RESTRUCTURING CONSTRUCTIONS, should be analyzed as base-generated monosentential complexes. It is claimed that in such complexes the infinitive verb, not the modal or the semi-modal, is the primary predicate determining the argument structure of the sentence and its basic syntactic configuration. Modals with the epistemic reading are analyzed as constituents of INFL, whereas root modals and semi-modals are analyzed as VP adjuncts. Evidence for this analysis is provided by a number of independent phenomena, including the distribution of en/ne cliticization of the subject, locality conditions on argument chain formation, interpretation of adjacent modals, restrictions on infinitive and gerund markers, interpretation of plural null pronominals, the distribution of auxiliaries, and clitic climbing.
The constituency and the behavior of the clausal clitics in Serbo-Croatian, Macedonian and Bulgarian are analyzed. It is argued that, while in Serbo-Croatian the clausal clitics are moved to CP and the cluster is formed in a node that is right-adjoined to C°, in Macedonian and Bulgarian the clitics are base-derived in IP, and the cluster is formed to the immediate left of V. The movement of the clitics to CP reflects the propensity of the clitics in Common Slavic to occur in clitic-second or Wackernagel position. Nevertheless, this propensity is overruled to the extent to which the verb forms a local domain with the clitics.
In Macedonian, where the verb does form a local domain with the clitics, the clitic cluster is formed in IP, to the immediately left of the finite verb, so that, when the verb moves, the cluster trails along (piggy-backing). In contrast, in Serbo-Croatian, the verb does not form a local domain with the clitics and the clitic cluster is formed in reference to a specified syntactic position (the complementizer, in this case), rather than with reference to a specified syntactic category. In Bulgarian, where the verb and the clitics are weakly tied, the clitic cluster is formed in IP, but there is a discrepancy between syntactic and phonological ‘allegiance’.
Since the restriction on multiple adjunction in the specifiers to the left of C° follows from the clustering of the clitics in it, while the clitics cluster in C° if they do not form a local domain with the finite verb of their clause, we may conclude that the Wackernagel Effect indirectly depends on whether or not the clitics form a local domain with that verb. The discrepancy between the syntactic and phonological behavior of the Bulgarian clitics can be explained by the fact that the propensity of the Bulgarian finite verb to form a local domain with the clitics is still weak, so that, while their syntactic properties have changed, the phonological properties of the Bulgarian clitics reflect those of their common Slavic ancestor.
The French clitic system has posed a persistent challenge to transformational syntactic analysis, which has never produced a successful account of problems such as clitic ordering. Lexicalist alternatives, however, have never been reconciled with the full range of familiar problems and the growing body of known lexical idiosyncracies. We present a lexicalist treatment of the French clitic system that treats all `clitics' as lexical pronominal affixes, whose ordering is templatic in nature. On our account, the order of French pronominal affixes is independent of the general properties of syntactic structures; cliticized words, derived from verbal lexemes in keeping with general type constraints, enter the syntax fully inflected. The conclusions we reach challenge grammatical architectures that seek to explain the behavior of clitics in terms of functional projections, head movement and/or the Mirror Principle. Introduction For more than a quarter century, French pronominal affixes (ind...
Croatian, along with other Slavic, and some Romance languages, has type of verb-fronting — the ‘Long Head Movement’ (LHM) construction — in which a non-finite verb raises to C0 across a finite auxiliary, in apparent contravention of the Head Movement Constraint. Rivero and Roberts have each argued on the basis of LHM-data that the Minimality condition of the ECP should permit one head to cross another under certain conditions. A detailed investigation of the properties of LHM in Croatian shows that the conclusions drawn by these authors with respect to the ECP are inadequate in two respects. Firstly, the structural analysis for LHM sentences in Croatian assumed by Rivero and by Roberts is incorrect. Clitics in Croatian are syntactically enclitic, right-adjoining to C0. The auxialiary involved in LHM-constructions is a clitic form, hence is located in C0 at S-structure, and not lower down in the clause. Since the verb and clitic auxiliary in LHM occupy the same position, the Croatian data fail to support the view that the ECP must allow for one head to move across another. Secondly, although the notion of ‘last resort’ is alluded to by these authors in connection with the ‘triggering’ of LHM in grammatical instances, the role of ‘economy’ in ruling out starred examples is not properly considered, rendering argumentation with respect to ECP based on such (ungrammatical) examples invalid. However, LHM does involve ‘long movement’ in the sense of ‘acyclic incorporation’. We conclude that the correct definition of Minimality is one based on Baker's notion of ‘distinctness’ of heads.
Lexical Functional Grammar (LFG) is a linguistic theory which studies the various aspects of linguistic structure and the relations between them. Traditional LFG analyses focus on two syntactic structures. Constituent structure (cstructure) represents word order and phrasal groupings, and functional struc- ture (f-structure) represents grammatical functions like subject and object. These structures have separate representations, but are related to each other in systematic ways. Recent LFG work includes investigations of argument structure, semantic structure, and other linguistic structures and their relation to c-structure and f-structure.