scholarly journals Verb-second and the verb-stranding verb phrase ellipsis debate

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Emily Walker Manetta
Keyword(s):  
Present Article ◽  
Head Movement ◽  
Verb Second ◽  
Verb Movement ◽  
Standard Account ◽  
Verb Phrase Ellipsis ◽  
Verb Phrase ◽  
Argument Ellipsis

Verb-stranding verb phrase ellipsis (VPE), when a verb is stranded outside of the VP-sized ellipsis site in which it originated, has been identified in a number of languages (Irish, McCloskey 1991; Hebrew, Doron 1991, Goldberg 2005; Greek, Merchant 2018; Uzbek, Gribanova 2019, i.a.), and has been invoked productively in analyses investigating the position to which verbs move and the timing of verb movement in the grammar. Recently, Landau (2018, 2019, to appear) proposes a phase-based negative licensing condition on head-stranding ellipsis that precludes verb-stranding VPE altogether. He claims that apparent verb-stranding VPE must be reanalyzed either as Argument Ellipsis (Oku 1998; Kim 1999; Takahashi 2008), or a clause-sized ellipsis that strands main verbs (Gribanova 2017). This article approaches this debate through an analysis of head movement and head-stranding ellipsis in the Indic verb-second (V2) language Kashmiri, arguing that Landau’s phase-based approach encounters empirical challenges in accounting for variation in the presentation of ellipsis in V2 languages and requires an unconventional approach to V2, at odds with recent accounts of Kashmiri V2 (Bhatt 1999; Munshi and Bhatt 2009; Manetta 2011) and mainstream views of V2 generally (e.g. Holmberg 1986; Travis 1991; Vikner 1995; Zwart 1997). While the present article argues in favor of the standard account of ellipsis (Merchant 2001, 2008), we affirm the important contribution of Landau’s work in identifying challenges facing any account of head-stranding ellipsis licensing. At issue is the larger question of whether and how verb-stranding ellipses can be used to better understand head movement.

Expanding the typology of Verb Second VPE

2020 ◽  
pp. 723-744
Author(s):  
Emily Manetta
Keyword(s):  
Verb Second ◽  
Verb Movement ◽  
Verb Phrase Ellipsis ◽  
Verb Phrase ◽  
The Right

Mysteriously, Verb Second (V2) languages are known to exhibit auxiliary-stranding verb phrase ellipsis (VPE) but to lack verb-stranding VPE, even though the inflected verb must leave the VP (Mikkelsen 2006; LaCara 2014). Sailor (2018) claims that VPE bleeds V2; the feature that drives ellipsis (on T) is introduced derivationally prior to the feature driving V2 (on C). Only languages with verb movement triggered by T, as in Hebrew (Goldberg 2005), exhibit V-stranding VPE. This chapter offers evidence that Sailor’s approach is on the right track; the Indic language Kashmiri is a V2 language in which auxiliary-stranding and V-stranding VPE co-occur, because T is independently a trigger for V movement (Munshi and Bhatt 2009). The findings support a particular approach to the timing and interaction of the major operations in the grammar and suggest that any approach to V2 must account for the variation in the presentation of VPE in V2 languages.

scholarly journals Verb phrase movement as a window into head movement

2016 ◽  
Vol 1 ◽  
pp. 17 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nicholas Joseph LaCara
Keyword(s):  
Head Movement ◽  
Verb Movement ◽  
Proper Place ◽  
Verb Phrase ◽  
Potential Problems ◽  
Shed Light

Since Chomsky 2001 suggested that head movement might be a PF operation, there has been debate about the proper place of head movement in the grammar. The interaction of verb movement with verb phrase fronting can shed light on how and when head movement occurs. This paper looks at cases where verb phrase fronting generates two copies of the verb (as in Portuguese or Hebrew), one in the fronted vP and one in an inflectional position, showing how a PF approach to head movement can explain this pattern while addressing some potential problems in other languages.

Persian

2018 ◽  
pp. 933-961
Author(s):  
Maziar Toosarvandani
Keyword(s):  
Noun Phrase ◽  
Head Movement ◽  
Information Structure ◽  
Verb Phrase Ellipsis ◽  
Verb Phrase ◽  
Functional Projection ◽  
Complex Predicate ◽  
Right Node Raising ◽  
Fragment Answers ◽  
Island Constraints

There are elliptical constructions in Persian whose properties diverge from their better-studied counterparts in other languages. A type of verb phrase ellipsis removes the non-verbal element and internal arguments of a complex predicate; it can also strand a simple verb that has undergone head movement to a low verbal functional projection. The language does not have obligatory wh-movement, so sluicing is derived instead through a movement operation that is driven from information structure. Gapping, stripping, and fragment answers may arise from the same movement operation, as gapping and stripping allow for their antecedent to be embedded, and stripping and fragment answers are insensitive to island constraints. Persian also has right-node raising and noun phrase ellipsis, though their properties are relatively less understood.

Verb Second in Medieval Romance

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sam Wolfe
Keyword(s):  
Old French ◽  
Romance Languages ◽  
Verb Second ◽  
Medieval Period ◽  
Verb Movement ◽  
Medieval Romance ◽  
Second Languages ◽  
Clausal Structure ◽  
Qualitative And Quantitative ◽  
Null Argument

This book provides the first book-length study of the controversial subject of Verb Second and related properties in a range of Medieval Romance languages. Both qualitative and quantitative data are examined and analysed from Old French, Occitan, Sicilian, Venetian, Spanish, and Sardinian to assess whether the languages were indeed Verb Second languages. The book argues that unlike most modern Romance varieties, V-to-C movement is a point of continuity across all the medieval varieties, but that there are rich patterns of synchronic and diachronic variation in the medieval period which have not been noted before. These include differences in the syntax–pragmatics mapping, the locus of verb movement, the behaviour of clitic pronouns, the syntax of subject positions, matrix/embedded asymmetries, and the null argument properties of the languages in question. The book outlines a detailed formal cartographic analysis both of both the synchronic patterns attested and of the diachronic evolution of Romance clausal structure.

scholarly journals Complex complementizers and the structural relation with weak T. New (morpho)syntactic data from a Pomeranian language island in Brazil

2014 ◽  
Vol 67 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Gertjan Postma
Keyword(s):  
19Th Century ◽  
Head Movement ◽  
Verb Second ◽  
Verbal System ◽  
Espírito Santo ◽  
Structural Relation ◽  
Espirito Santo ◽  
The 19Th Century ◽  
Proper Analysis

AbstractIn this paper I discuss three properties of Brazilian Pomeranian, a Germanic language spoken in Espirito Santo, Brazil by descendents who emigrated in the 19th century. These three aspects of the verbal system are: 1. The relation between complex complementizers, a two-infinitive system, and split infinitives, previously discussed in van Gelderen (1993, 1998) and Schallert (2012, 2013), 2. Verb Projection Raising (VPR), as discussed by Riemsdijk 2002, Haegeman 2007, Salzmann 2011, and Brandner & Salzmann 2012, and 3. Verb-Second positioning of verbal clusters, previously discussed in Vos (2005). I discuss novel Pomeranian data from the perspective of the literature on these three topics, which have been thus far studied largely separately from one another. An integrated discussion sheds light on the nature and the proper analysis of these three phenomena. I argue that these phenomena are caused by the “weaknesses” of T. The weakness of T can be resolved “downward” by copying features onto T under selection by a higher head (agree), or can be resolved “upward” under head movement of T.

scholarly journals On the Acquisition of Word Order in WH-Questions in theTromsø Dialect

Nordlyd ◽  
10.7557/12.48 ◽  
2004 ◽  
Vol 31 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Marit Richardsen Westergaard
Keyword(s):  
Word Order ◽  
Information Structure ◽  
Verb Second ◽  
Verb Movement ◽  
Syntactic Form ◽  
Wh Questions

This article reports on a study of three children acquiring a dialect of Norwegian which allows two different word orders in certain types of WH-questions, verb second (V2) and and verb third (V3). The latter is only allowed after monosyllabic WH-words, while the former, which is the result of verb movement, is the word order found in all other main clauses in the language. It is shown that both V2 and V3 are acquired extremely early by the children in the study (before the age of two), and that subtle distinctions between the two orders with respect to information structure are attested from the beginning. However, it is argued that V3 word order, which should be ìsimplerî than the V2 structure as it does not involve verb movement, is nevertheless acquired slightly later in its full syntactic form. This is taken as an indication that the V3 structure is syntactically more complex, and possibly also more marked.

Verb-movement

2019 ◽  
pp. 342-418
Author(s):  
Ian Roberts
Keyword(s):  
Linguistic Variation ◽  
Event Semantics ◽  
Verb Second ◽  
Verb Movement ◽  
History Of

The chapter begins with a very brief excursus into Davidsonian event semantics, explaining the basic motivation for positing event variables, as well as ‘separation’ of θ‎-roles from predicates. It then develops the TP-Denotation Hypothesis, i.e. the idea that events are denoted through the Tense feature. This naturally leads to a tripartite typology of Tense vs No-Tense languages, and Weak-Tense vs Strong-Tense languages. Strong-Tense (Romance), Weak-Tense (mainly English), and No-Tense (Chinese) languages are illustrated. The chapter then turns to other examples of cross-linguistic variation in verb-movement: V-initial languages and Germanic verb-second, where a novel labelling-based proposal for certain core properties is developed. The proposals regarding the changes affecting the ‘inversion’ system through the history of English made by Biberauer & Roberts are then summarized. The chapter concludes with a parameter hierarchy for Tense.

The scope of embedded Verb Second in modern Yiddish

2020 ◽  
pp. 665-681
Author(s):  
Molly Diesing ◽  
Beatrice Santorini
Keyword(s):  
Native Speaker ◽  
Second Order ◽  
Verb Second ◽  
Verb Movement ◽  
Embedded Clauses ◽  
Finite Verb

Embedded Verb Second (V2) clauses have been analysed as embedded main clauses or in terms of selection. This chapter presents data from both corpora and native speaker judgements showing that Verb Second order in embedded clauses in Yiddish goes well beyond what can be explained by either of the above approaches, with V2 possible and attested in interrogatives as well as declaratives. Adjunction of adverbials to V2 clauses is possible as well, yielding orders with the finite verb in third position (V3). But V3 resulting from lack of verb movement, as is seen in Mainland Scandinavian and (optionally) in Icelandic, is not found.

A different perspective on embedded Verb Second

2020 ◽  
pp. 297-322
Author(s):  
Rebecca Woods
Keyword(s):  
Speech Act ◽  
Illocutionary Force ◽  
Verb Second ◽  
Verb Movement ◽  
The Matrix ◽  
Embedded Clause ◽  
Matrix Verb

This chapter compares embedded verb movement phenomena in English with embedded Verb Second clauses in German and Swedish. Close examination of the syntactic—but more particularly the semantic and pragmatic—properties of these phenomena reveals striking similarities, and the claim is made that these phenomena exhibit independent illocutionary force in the sense that the perspective holder for the embedded proposition or question is disambiguated—a departure from the claim that embedded verb movement structures are asserted (cf. Julien 2015 and Chapter 11 of this volume). It is proposed, following recent innovations in speech act syntax (Wiltschko and Heim 2016; Woods 2016) that these structures are dependent, as the ‘embedded’ clause contains less structure than full a root clause, yet is still structurally larger than a typical embedded clause. However, they are not selected and are instead in an apposition relation with a (usually covert) nominal complement to the matrix verb.

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