On the left periphery of Spanish indirect interrogatives

Probus ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 32 (1) ◽  
pp. 55-92
Author(s):  
José María García-Núñez
Keyword(s):  
Speech Act ◽  
First Person ◽  
Left Periphery ◽  
Semantic Property ◽  
Structural Pattern ◽  
Default Option ◽  
Discourse Particles ◽  
Embedded Questions ◽  
Embedded Clauses

AbstractSpanish doubly filled complementizer (DFComp) clauses differ from plain embedded questions in a number of respects (availability of discourse-related projections, islandhood, sequence of tenses, licensing of discourse particles). I argue that the contrast is caused by the presence in the left periphery of these clauses of an illocutionary projection (Haegeman 2004, 2006; Coniglio and Zegrean 2012; Woods 2016b) between the leftmost projection, here identified as Haegeman’s (2004) SubP, and the criterial interrogative projections (InterP and QembP). This illocutionary projection prevents syncretism of the clause-typing and the criterial projections, the default option in plain embedded clauses. This not only explains the range of structural phenomena differentiating DFComp clauses and embedded questions, but also a key semantic property of the former, namely their speech-act denotation. Finally, DFComp clauses are compared with plain embedded questions displaying root behavior under first-person matrix subjects and with English inverted embedded questions. Both are shown to pose minimal variants of the structural pattern proposed for DFComp clauses.

Embedded root phenomena and indirect speech reports

Linguistics ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 0 (0) ◽  
Author(s):  
José María García Núñez
Keyword(s):  
Speech Acts ◽  
Speech Act ◽  
Left Periphery ◽  
Direct Speech ◽  
Indirect Speech ◽  
Complement Clauses ◽  
Embedded Clauses ◽  
Speech Reports

Abstract This article analyzes the occurrence of performative root phenomena in complement clauses. I show that the clauses that host this kind of phenomena have the same distribution as direct speech complements. I argue that the correspondence is based on the fact that, due to their rich syntactic left periphery, these embedded clauses convey speech acts. This assumption receives further support by the grammatical behavior of what I argue are the two major classes of verbs subordinating direct speech and ERP-hosting embedded clauses: locutionary and illocutionary embedding verbs. I analyze illocutionary verbs as bearing an abstract illocutionary predicate selecting either a propositional or a speech-act type, and locutionary verbs as ordinary relational predicates selecting a speech-act type. Taken together, these elements allow for a straightforward syntax-semantics interface and explain the differentiated behavior of root phenomena in complements to locutionary and illocutionary verbs.

The relative cycle in Hungarian declaratives

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Julia Bacskai-Atkari
Keyword(s):  
Word Order ◽  
Relative Position ◽  
Left Periphery ◽  
Word Order Variation ◽  
Order Variation ◽  
Fixed Order ◽  
Embedded Clauses ◽  
Head Positions

This chapter examines word order variation and change in the high CP-domain of Hungarian embedded clauses containing the finite subordinating C head hogy ‘that’. It is argued that the complementizer hogy developed from an operator of the same morphophonological form, meaning ‘how’, and that its grammaticalization path develops in two steps. In addition to the change from an operator, located in a specifier, into a C head (specifier-to-head reanalysis), the fully grammaticalized complementizer hogy also changed its relative position on the CP-periphery, ultimately occupying the higher of two C head positions (upward reanalysis). Other complementizers that could co-occur with hogy in Old Hungarian eventually underwent similar reanalysis processes. Hence the possibility of accommodating two separate C heads in the left periphery was lost and variation in the relative position of complementizers was replaced by a fixed order.

Recycling through perspective persistence in Monsang (Trans-Himalayan)

2020 ◽  
Vol 27 (1) ◽  
pp. 55-77
Author(s):  
Linda Konnerth
Keyword(s):  
Speech Act ◽  
Northeast India ◽  
First Person ◽  
Language Family ◽  
Reported Speech ◽  
Verbal Morphology ◽  
South Central ◽  
The World ◽  
The Future ◽  
Current Speaker

Abstract In a reported intentionality construction, intentionality is expressed as reported speech/thought (‘s/he says/thinks, <I will go>’). The quoted clause must contain a first person form and refer to the future. Reported intentionality displays perspective persistence and an accompanying apparent form-meaning mismatch, as it structurally marks the speech-act participant perspective of the volitional agent despite idiomatically translating only from the perspective of the current speaker. While this construction has been examined in languages around the world, this is the first treatment for the Trans-Himalayan (or Sino-Tibetan/Tibeto-Burman) language family. Monsang (South-Central; Northeast India) is shown to have a reported intentionality construction of the cross-linguistic type. In addition, there is a desiderative construction in the language that does not display perspective persistence but is argued to reconstruct back to a reported intentionality construction. Further evidence from synchronic and diachronic quotative constructions in Monsang is presented that illustrates the prominence of quotative-derived expressions of intentionality in Monsang verbal morphology.

On the nature of inverse systems

Diachronica ◽  
2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Linda Konnerth
Keyword(s):  
Speech Act ◽  
First Person ◽  
Theoretical Discussion ◽  
Inverse Systems ◽  
Functional Motivation ◽  
Pseudo Inverse

Abstract Previous theoretical discussion about inverse systems has largely revolved around the synchronic and diachronic relationship between the inverse and the passive. In contrast, this study argues for the antipassive origins of two inverse constructions in Monsang (Trans-Himalayan), which are used for 3→SAP and 2→1 scenarios. This questions central assumptions from previous accounts about the functional motivation underlying inverse systems, and suggests that strategies of avoiding overt reference may be at play. The diachronic pathway proposed here connects the traditional inverse with other special marking patterns that involve speech act participant objects, in particular the “pseudo-inverse” construction of innovative first person object indexation.

Indices of a ‘subjectivity-prominent’ language

2005 ◽  
Vol 3 ◽  
pp. 132-164 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yoshihiko Ikegami
Keyword(s):  
Speech Act ◽  
Native Language ◽  
Cognitive Activity ◽  
The Other ◽  
First Person ◽  
Second Person ◽  
Third Person

The speaker of language is primarily conceived of as locutionary subject (or ‘sujet parlant’), i.e. as a person who exchanges linguistic messages with his/her counterpart — typically in dialogic situations where the two alternate in their roles as speaker and hearer. In this setting, the speaker and the hearer are equal as speech-act participants and thus the contrast is ‘first/second person’ vs. ‘third person’ (or ‘speech-act participant’ vs. ‘non-speech-act participant’). There is, however, another aspect of the speaker — the speaker as cognizing subject, i.e. as a person who, prior to his/her locutionary act, construes the situation to be encoded, being engaged in the monologic cognitive activity of choosing what to encode and how to encode what is to be encoded. In this capacity, the speaker is contrasted with everything he/she may want to encode and thus the contrast here is ‘first person’ vs. ‘second/third person’ — or better, ‘ego’ vs. ‘alter’. Language may manifest features that count as indices of either of these two types of linguistic subjectivity. But individual languages may differ in the extent to which they manifest more features indicating one type of subjectivity than the other. I propose to discuss these two contrasting typological orientations by referring to my native language, Japanese, which seems to be an eminently ego-centered, or subjectivity-prominent, language.

Linearization and typology

2019 ◽  
pp. 497-522
Author(s):  
D. Gary Miller
Keyword(s):  
Word Order ◽  
Linear Order ◽  
Left Periphery ◽  
Prepositional Phrases ◽  
Subject Pronouns ◽  
Discourse Particles ◽  
Default Position ◽  
Object Pronouns

This chapter focuses on the linear order of phrasal constituents. Subject pronouns preferentially precede the verb directly. Object pronouns generally follow the verb. Reflexives with few exceptions follow the verb and precede non-reflexives. D-words generally precede nouns and adjectives. Only prepositional phrases occur, from which non-deictic Ds are excluded. Attributive and possessive adjectives tend to follow the noun, quantifiers to precede. The default position for genitives is postnominal. Partitive genitives are nearly always postposed. Discourse particles belong to the left periphery. Some force their host to sentence-initial, especially V1, position. In native Gothic, verbs follow predicate adjectives and auxiliaries follow verbs, as is typical of verb-final languages. Imperatives raise to the left periphery. The negator ni forms a tight constituent with the verb. The chapter closes with a brief overview of Gothic in the context of Germanic word order typology.

scholarly journals A Balkan View on the Left Periphery: Modal and Discourse Particles

Languages ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 75
Author(s):  
Anna Roussou
Keyword(s):  
Lexical Item ◽  
Similar Distribution ◽  
Left Periphery ◽  
Lexical Borrowing ◽  
Discourse Marker ◽  
Modal Particles ◽  
Discourse Particles ◽  
The Future ◽  
Analytic Expressions

The present paper discusses two sets of so-called particles in the Balkan languages, arguing that the correspondences attested in the E-languages reveal abstract properties at the level of the I-language. The first set involves modal particles which participate in the analytic expressions of the “future” and the “subjunctive”. Future markers are construed as V-related elements externalizing a scope position of the verb, while the subjunctive markers take their features from the nominal set. The second set of data involves the discourse marker “haide” which is argued to externalize features associated with the force of the sentence and its anchoring to the discourse participants. In the case of modal particles, the languages under consideration retain their own lexica, while in the case of the discourse marker, they share the same lexical item (lexical borrowing). Analysis of these phenomena supports an articulated left periphery which also accounts for the similar distribution of the discourse marker “haide”. At the same time, the different externalizations leave room for further microparametric variation.

scholarly journals Pragmatic person features in pronominal and clausal speech act phrases

2021 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 484
Author(s):  
Hailey Hyekyeong Ceong
Keyword(s):  
Speech Act ◽  
Asymmetric Distribution ◽  
First Person ◽  
Unequal Distribution ◽  
Person Plural ◽  
Person Pronoun ◽  
Person Features ◽  
First Person Plural

This paper proposes the necessity of pragmatic person features (Ritter and Wiltschko 2018) in pronominal and clausal speech act phrases in Korean, giving three main arguments for such necessity: (i) pragmatic person [addressee] is needed for hearsay mye which expresses the meaning of you told me without the lexical verb of saying, (ii) pragmatic person [speaker] is needed for the unequal distribution of first-person plural pronouns with exhortative ca ‘let us’, and (iii) pragmatic persons [speaker], and [addressee] are needed for the asymmetric distribution of a dative goal argument in secondhand exhortatives. Based on the compatibility and incompatibility of exhortative ca- and secondhand exhortative ca-mye clauses with a first-person pronoun (e.g., na ‘I’, ce ‘I’, wuli ‘we’, and cehuy ‘we’), I argue that pragmatic person features are needed in syntax to account for their distribution.

Multiple functions of the inclusive: examining synchronic variation in light of diachronic shift in South-Central Trans-Himalayan

2021 ◽  
Vol 55 (s42-s1) ◽  
pp. 175-204
Author(s):  
Pavel Ozerov ◽  
Linda Konnerth
Keyword(s):  
Speech Act ◽  
First Person ◽  
Language Usage ◽  
The South ◽  
Reference Pattern ◽  
Multiple Functions ◽  
South Central ◽  
Plural Marking ◽  
The Cross ◽  
Generic Usage

Abstract A few languages of the South-Central branch of Trans-Himalayan (Tibeto-Burman/Sino-Tibetan) display diachronic shifts of the inclusive to become innovative markers of 1sg or 2sg. Such shifts are rarely reported in the cross-linguistic literature. In conjunction with phylogenetic-comparative evidence on cases of actual diachronic shift, we offer a synchronic usage-based analysis of the inclusive in one particular language, Anal Naga. In this language, usage frequencies suggest that a shift of the inclusive is underway: apart from the frequent generic usage, the inclusive now commonly has a humbling, empathy-seeking first person (1sg/excl) reference. In contrast, forms that combine inclusive and plural marking pattern more like a prototypical inclusive, i.e., with regular reference to the local speech act participants of speaker and addressee(s). The optional plural marking is the most important factor to determine the reference pattern of the inclusive. Other factors (irrealis setting; lexeme semantics) only play a marginal role; person form (bound indexes or free pronouns) and syntactic role are not indicative.

Person Features and Pronominal Anaphora

2011 ◽  
Vol 42 (2) ◽  
pp. 193-224 ◽  
Author(s):  
Denis Delfitto ◽  
Gaetano Fiorin
Keyword(s):  
First Person ◽  
Left Periphery ◽  
Person Features ◽  
De Se ◽  
Asymmetric Relation ◽  
Third Person ◽  
Pronominal Anaphora

This article aims at clarifying the role of person at the interface between syntax and the interpretive systems. We argue that first person interpretations of third person pronouns (de se readings) stem from the option of leaving the referential index underspecified on the pronoun, thus accounting for the interplay of this phenomenon with the anaphoric usage of first person indexicals (pronoun shifting) and logophoric pronouns. The results include proposals on the connection between the semantics of first person and the syntax of the left periphery, a neo-Davidsonian treatment of the semantics of first person indexicals, and a novel view of pronominal anaphora according to which Higginbotham's (1983) asymmetric relation of linking involves a mechanism of θ-role inheritance tied to the semantics of first person.

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